January and the girl
Obviously it's been a long time since I updated, so I'm going to post a brief catchup.
The holidays went well. VERY well, in fact. We didn't travel this year and I don't know if that's what made the difference, but the boy child was much less discombobulated this past holiday season than in seasons previous. At one point we had seven overnight houseguests (plus a dog and a baby!) for a couple of nights in a row, which I thought would freak him right out, but it didn't! We let him keep his room all to himself, and when he needed to escape for a while, he went up there and played with Legos or whatever until he was ready to rejoin everyone. It worked out great!
January has been business as usual, more or less. The boy is still seeing the school counselor once a week and he seems to really enjoy talking to her. She's helping him with some social skills and also some self-modulation stuff, and she's become one of his "safe" people at school. We (meaning DH, myself and the counselor) have been encouraging him to go to her office rather than the nurses' office or bathroom when he needs to escape from the classroom for a while, and that's working out great so far. In fact, I think he was only in the nurses' office once or twice this whole month -- a record!
He's also still seeing Dr. H once a month and I have no idea if that's making a difference or not because the weekly visits with the counselor seem to be nipping any problems in the bud. However, it was spring of last year that the boy went kind of loopy with the bug/outdoor perseverations, so I think it's wise to keep him on a maintenance schedule with Dr. H just in case that happens again this year.
We've decided to go ahead and start the occupational therapy back up again, too. He has some lingering sensory processing issues that really need addressing, particularly when it comes to visual processing (he panics when he sees fast-moving objects of any size) and some auditory processing stuff (following multi-step directions, etc.). We're still looking ahead to middle school and trying to prepare him for that. The OT hasn't started up again yet; we're waiting for approval from the supplemental care people to see if they're going to pick up the tab (or at least part of it) again, since insurance doesn't cover it (yeah, don't get me started). But as soon as we get approval, we'll get the ball rolling on that.
So, with all of that going on, the boy seems to be in a good place right now. The girl child is another story, however....
She has always been what you would call a high-needs child. VERY colicky as a baby, screamed unless she was being held (and I'm talking about from birth until she learned to walk -- we had every baby carrier known to man), wouldn't sleep unless she was physically latched on to me (she nursed until she was almost 3 years old, slept in our bed for over a year), and up until she was 5 or 6 years old she would cry daily until she puked. Now, at age 8, she still has tantrums like a toddler, complete with throwing herself on the floor kicking and screaming.
The thing is, though, that she ONLY does this stuff at home, around us. I don't think even her grandparents, who spend loads of time with her, have seen her at her worst. Around everyone else, she is an absolute angel -- sweet, helpful, shy and very empathetic toward everyone. It's like she has two personalities or something!
She cries nearly every day, and often for weird reasons. Like just last night, DH said to me, very casually, that it might be nice to add some color to the interior of our house via paint. And I said, "Sure, let's do that sometime." The girl child absolutely burst into tears and started sobbing that she has ALWAYS wanted to paint her room! Um, okay, that's what we just said we were going to do, right? So why are you crying?! This is the type of thing she does all the time. I might say, "Oh, strawberries are on sale. I think I'll buy some today." And she'll absolutely start sobbing that yes, she loves strawberries and will I please buy some! She also gets pissed off really easily and turns into this total Linda Blair creature who rages and yells and turns beet red in the face, often for what seem to be very trivial reasons.
So ... all that can't be right, surely? I mean, that's not normal behavior, is it? I might say it was if she was 13 or thereabouts, but she's ALWAYS been like this and shows no signs of impending puberty. So now we're wondering if there's something going on beyond just personality, and whether there's anything we can do about it. I suppose there are diagnostics and whatnot, but I really worry about what that would involve and what the results would be. She does NOT act like this around anyone but DH, her brother and me. NEVER. I fear the diagnostician would have to really provoke her to get a true picture of what she does, and the idea of that kind of makes me nauseous. But if they don't see her act this way, the diagnostics will turn up NOTHING. And there's definitely SOMETHING going on, I think.
Argh. What to do?
At any rate, the scope of this blog will likely expand to include whatever's happening with the girl child, regardless of what sort of diagnosis we get on her (if any). Kids are never boring, are they?!
The holidays went well. VERY well, in fact. We didn't travel this year and I don't know if that's what made the difference, but the boy child was much less discombobulated this past holiday season than in seasons previous. At one point we had seven overnight houseguests (plus a dog and a baby!) for a couple of nights in a row, which I thought would freak him right out, but it didn't! We let him keep his room all to himself, and when he needed to escape for a while, he went up there and played with Legos or whatever until he was ready to rejoin everyone. It worked out great!
January has been business as usual, more or less. The boy is still seeing the school counselor once a week and he seems to really enjoy talking to her. She's helping him with some social skills and also some self-modulation stuff, and she's become one of his "safe" people at school. We (meaning DH, myself and the counselor) have been encouraging him to go to her office rather than the nurses' office or bathroom when he needs to escape from the classroom for a while, and that's working out great so far. In fact, I think he was only in the nurses' office once or twice this whole month -- a record!
He's also still seeing Dr. H once a month and I have no idea if that's making a difference or not because the weekly visits with the counselor seem to be nipping any problems in the bud. However, it was spring of last year that the boy went kind of loopy with the bug/outdoor perseverations, so I think it's wise to keep him on a maintenance schedule with Dr. H just in case that happens again this year.
We've decided to go ahead and start the occupational therapy back up again, too. He has some lingering sensory processing issues that really need addressing, particularly when it comes to visual processing (he panics when he sees fast-moving objects of any size) and some auditory processing stuff (following multi-step directions, etc.). We're still looking ahead to middle school and trying to prepare him for that. The OT hasn't started up again yet; we're waiting for approval from the supplemental care people to see if they're going to pick up the tab (or at least part of it) again, since insurance doesn't cover it (yeah, don't get me started). But as soon as we get approval, we'll get the ball rolling on that.
So, with all of that going on, the boy seems to be in a good place right now. The girl child is another story, however....
She has always been what you would call a high-needs child. VERY colicky as a baby, screamed unless she was being held (and I'm talking about from birth until she learned to walk -- we had every baby carrier known to man), wouldn't sleep unless she was physically latched on to me (she nursed until she was almost 3 years old, slept in our bed for over a year), and up until she was 5 or 6 years old she would cry daily until she puked. Now, at age 8, she still has tantrums like a toddler, complete with throwing herself on the floor kicking and screaming.
The thing is, though, that she ONLY does this stuff at home, around us. I don't think even her grandparents, who spend loads of time with her, have seen her at her worst. Around everyone else, she is an absolute angel -- sweet, helpful, shy and very empathetic toward everyone. It's like she has two personalities or something!
She cries nearly every day, and often for weird reasons. Like just last night, DH said to me, very casually, that it might be nice to add some color to the interior of our house via paint. And I said, "Sure, let's do that sometime." The girl child absolutely burst into tears and started sobbing that she has ALWAYS wanted to paint her room! Um, okay, that's what we just said we were going to do, right? So why are you crying?! This is the type of thing she does all the time. I might say, "Oh, strawberries are on sale. I think I'll buy some today." And she'll absolutely start sobbing that yes, she loves strawberries and will I please buy some! She also gets pissed off really easily and turns into this total Linda Blair creature who rages and yells and turns beet red in the face, often for what seem to be very trivial reasons.
So ... all that can't be right, surely? I mean, that's not normal behavior, is it? I might say it was if she was 13 or thereabouts, but she's ALWAYS been like this and shows no signs of impending puberty. So now we're wondering if there's something going on beyond just personality, and whether there's anything we can do about it. I suppose there are diagnostics and whatnot, but I really worry about what that would involve and what the results would be. She does NOT act like this around anyone but DH, her brother and me. NEVER. I fear the diagnostician would have to really provoke her to get a true picture of what she does, and the idea of that kind of makes me nauseous. But if they don't see her act this way, the diagnostics will turn up NOTHING. And there's definitely SOMETHING going on, I think.
Argh. What to do?
At any rate, the scope of this blog will likely expand to include whatever's happening with the girl child, regardless of what sort of diagnosis we get on her (if any). Kids are never boring, are they?!
posted by Miss Anthrope at 6:37 AM
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