Have you ever heard the phrase “The Honeymoon Period”?

A honeymoon is a trip or holiday that is taken by a couple that has just gotten married. The honeymoon period is the early harmonious time in their relationship.

The phrase can also be applied to other situations such as the first few months of a newly elected president. People generally give their new officials a lot of freedom in that period; then assess their performances at the end of that time. Then, as is often the case, discord results as it becomes apparent that their leaders cannot live up to expectations.

But it can also refer to changes in family life. Recently I have written several posts about the new House Rules we have been implementing in our home. My son Max was not thrilled initially with them; especially when they were posted on our living room wall.

But then he conformed to them. They went up on Monday. He was great Monday and all of Tuesday. Some of the rules required the loss of some of his allowance for infractions. He was okay with that. In fact if he thought we were too lenient he would take more money out himself.

But then Wednesday morning the “you know what” hit the fan. He woke up angry and attacked anyone and anything in his path. Before the school van arrived at 7:15 a.m. he had lost his whole allowance for this week from all of the hitting, swearing, screaming, and throwing things. The only thing that finally settled him down was the required time out. Because of all the problems it lasted twenty minutes. He also lost his current most favorite toy for the day.

Not only was that unexpected for him but the bigger shock was when next week’s allowance chart was posted and he started losing money from that as well. He has informed us that he will not follow the rules anymore. He blames them for the increased number of tantrums he has been having. And you know, he is probably right. He doesn’t like the idea of losing his freedom no matter how unhappy it makes him.

The “honeymoon period” is over. Monday and Tuesday he was testing the waters. On Wednesday was the beginning of the resistance. According to our counselors if we stick to it these problems should all be over in a week. I hesitate to mention it but it takes three to four weeks to break habits, no matter how bad they are.

At the same time we have to remember that Max has been diagnosed with:

• Bipolar Disorder – with the accompanying rages and explosive temper tantrums, and oppositional and aggressive behaviors.

• ADHD – including interruptions and intrusions on others; and not appearing to listen.

These issues may make it harder in the near term to enforce the rules.

So Wednesday was day one of the resistance. He battled us constantly. My wife and I were strong and consistently enforced the consequences.

By Friday morning Max had started to conform again; he has only lost twenty cents since Wednesday night. But he was unhappy. He has finally realized he is really losing money from his allowance. He has been telling us that it is too hard to follow the rules. We asked him why:

• Swearing is too much of a habit; he doesn’t know how to stop. We responded that he never swears in school. Not only that he has already been doing it less at home since we instituted the rules.

• He doesn’t understand the yelling and whining rule. I assume it is based on the fact that his parents still do it a little bit and he sees that.

• There are other rules he doesn’t get. These are obvious ones like disobeying and threatening. We think these are really delaying tactics. They are pretty straight forward.

Even though he has the disorders which may make the rules harder to enforce; just the fact that he is a child who hasn’t had a consistent set of rules will cause him to fight back.

At the same time, this is only the start. The rules were only defined on Monday; this is only Friday. He will learn them and he will eventually conform to them.

As long as we stay consistent.

In my first post on house rules I mentioned five problems my son Max has that we have to resolve:

• He isn’t clear on the rules.

• He isn’t clear on the consequences.

• In school he has a defined set of rules and consequences but at home there is nothing.

• His parents are not always together on what his consequences should be.

• His parents haven’t been modeling the required behaviors.

In the following post on house rules I addressed the first four issues. But what about issue number five?

What does it mean to “model behavior”?

First of all, children imitate the adults around them. This is an excellent way of learning. A child wants to know how to open a door. She cannot figure out how to do it herself so she watches those that can do it. She takes note of how they grasp the knob; turn it; then pull it open. With a little practice she will be able to do it herself.

It is the same thing with bad habits. If a child notices that his parents are constantly swearing they will do it as well. It doesn’t matter that he has been told that swearing is wrong he has seen it in action so he will continue to do it. Not only that he might become very confused. He will wonder why his parents are telling him that it is bad to swear; it must really be okay because they are doing it.

We set up several rules for Max including:

• No swearing

• No hitting or kicking

• No yelling, whining, or screaming

• No disobeying parents

• Ask politely for things

It is our job to model the behaviors we want our son to use. This means when we are angry we have to talk calmly and assertively. If we want Max to do something we must respect him by asking him politely. If he disobeys we don’t hit or kick him.

How are we doing? Swearing is kept to a minimum; every once in a while you will hear an expletive in the house. We yell if things aren’t working properly and sometimes we are rude in asking for things.

Max listens and hears all of this. And because he is learning from us he is repeating them, and he practices these actions. But as you can see from our house rules these aren’t the behaviors we want. For him it’s “you are doing it, why can’t I?”

It is our job to show him the best behaviors; we can’t just tell him. That means we have to stop the yelling, swearing, and rudeness. We have to be good role models.

We want Max to grow to become a good, responsible adult. It is our responsibility, just like with all parents, to “up our game”. That is, be the best role models we can be. No matter where we are at today we can always find something to improve upon.

If we don’t suit our actions to our words then our children will not become the kind of adults we want them to be.

Recently I wrote about raising my 9 year old son Max and the fact that there were no consistent rules in our house. My wife and I had been at our wits end trying to figure out how we were going to raise this kid right.

We read a lot of books and listened to parents, educators, and counselors. We tried implementing all of the suggestions but nothing seemed to work.

Recently we started working with both a family and a parent counselor. The first comes a couple of times a month, generally on Saturdays, so that Max will be involved in the session. The second comes every week in the morning to work with just my wife and me.

Several weeks ago they both asked us the same questions independently:

What are our house rules?

So we rattled off several things: no hitting, no swearing, and no yelling, among other things.

What are the consequences if the rules are broken?

We gave some answers like “he gets a time out if he does A” but then sometimes “we take a toy away” and “we have been known to take away a privilege or a special outing.”

Where are the rules and consequences posted?

Umm, nowhere.

Does Max know the rules and consequences?

He knows the rules; we tell him all the time. And, well, he has experienced the consequences so he knows something will happen if he does anything wrong.

Both counselors shook their heads. They suggested it might be best if we had a joint session with both counselors to come up with some rules. We agreed.

Hooray, finally we are going to find out what we can do about House Rules!

We all joined together last week and hammered out a list of rules. These are some of them:

• No swearing

• No hitting or kicking

• No yelling, whining, or screaming

• No disobeying parents

• Ask politely for things

You get the idea. We have several more but these will do for examples.

We didn’t come up with consequences on that day but one thing was suggested. We had recently started giving Max an allowance. With it he could follow his passion with buying as many things as he could or put it in the bank. But that’s another story. In this case the idea was brought up that for some of the consequences he could lose some of his money. That was something to think about because our consequences weren’t working.

We scheduled a second group meeting for this passed Monday. This time it was going to be after school so Max could contribute to the discussion.

When the day came both counselors arrived and sat down in the living room. Max was dropped off from school, came in the house, and asked the usual question: “Who’s coming today.”

When we told him he was disappointed. We were surprised because he likes both people and generally has fun with them. On this day, we think that with both parents and both counselors present he may have felt intimidated. He adamantly refused to join in the meeting.

“But Max, this is about setting house rules. Last week you were excited when we told you this was happening.”

“Yeah, well, not today.”

We told him that we were going to do it anyway with or without his contributions. He shrugged and told us that we had better make tougher rules for the parents otherwise he won’t follow any of his.

So we got down to business. We pulled out a large cardboard sheet and in one column wrote out our list of rules. While we were doing this we could hear Max muttering and swearing in the other room; he wanted one of us to play. He even went so far as to disrupt the discussions several times.

The counselors just shrugged and smiled. Their response was that he didn’t like what we were doing and didn’t want it to happen. We persevered. Once we were done listing the rules we started on the consequences for each:

• Loses five cents for each swear.

• Five minute time out and a loss of privileges for hitting and kicking.

• For yelling, whining, or screaming Max will first get a warning. Then he will lose five cents each time he does it.

• The first time he disobeys he will get a warning. After that he will lose twenty-five cent for each incident.

• If he doesn’t ask politely he won’t get what he asked for.

When we were done we called Max in to see our results. He started to read the board and then complained it was all about him and there was nothing about the parents. We reassured him that we would have to follow the same rules.

But he wasn’t happy and he tried to tear the sheet down the middle. We stopped him and taped it up on the living room wall so that we would all be able to see it.

At the same time we attached a weekly sheet of pictures of one hundred nickels. For each transgression nickels would be crossed off. Whatever was left at the end of the week would be what he gets for allowance.

Max asked a very smart question: “What if I do so many bad things that I go over the amount of money I get?”

We told him that it would then carry over into the following week.

The counselors think that it will only take a week before Max starts following the rules. That would be nice and we will be waiting with bated breath.

Twenty four hours later we have only heard two swears coming out of his mouth. Amazing! There has been very little screaming or whining. Awesome!

So far we have only crossed out a half a dozen nickels but we have noticed that he has been punishing himself too. He personally has scratched out another forty. He says it is because he deserved it. Seems like he doesn’t think our consequences were powerful enough.

Another interesting reaction was that when he realized each swear was worth five cents but disobeying would cost him twenty-five cents. His eyes widened; his mouth opened in a circle; and he clapped his hand over it.

Do I think this is it? Is he now going to follow all the rules?

I find it hard to believe that it would happen this quickly. I think that he will probably start testing us to see what he can get away with. It may get worse before it gets better. As long as my wife and I keep a united front it should eventually work.

As the counselors were leaving after the meeting my wife said “If we had realized it was so easy to set up these rules we would have done this a long time ago.”

But they told us that most parents know how to do it but they don’t realize it; they, and we, need to be shown the first time.

This takes care of four of Max’s five problems mentioned in the last post. I’ll talk about the fifth one, modeling behaviors for him, in my next one.

For a long time my wife and I have been working with our son Max to teach him right from wrong, respect, and discipline. The problem was that we were letting some things slide. That is, we would let him get away with doing things he shouldn’t.

Why were we doing that?

Max has been diagnosed with ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, and Asperger’s Syndrome among other things. We noticed, for example, that some bipolar children swear constantly. It is part of their “condition”. Parents of this kind of child tend to ignore the bad language because there are other things more important to resolve like bad tempers. We were doing the same thing.

We also looked at Max’s brother who is quite a bit older. He is a great kid; the things we did to raise him were the things he needed. We tried to raise our younger son the same way but it wasn’t working. We have felt clueless at what to do.

We finally learned that Max is no different than “normal” children. Yes, he may have a lot of disorders but there are things he should not be getting away with. If a disorder is preventing him from “naturally” learning what he needs to do he needs to be provided the tools to help him. Let’s face it, it won’t matter that he has a disorder when he is an adult; if he does something wrong he will have to suffer the consequences just like anyone else.

He has several problems that are his parents’ responsibility to resolve:

• He isn’t clear on the rules. Why? Because they keep changing for him. Today he might swear and he will get a timeout. The same swearing tomorrow may cause him to lose a favorite toy for awhile. And yesterday it may have been just ignored.

• At the same time he isn’t clear on the consequences. I mentioned above how they can keep changing.

• In school he has a defined set of rules and consequences. He knows what to expect and he is comfortable with that. At home there is nothing. In some ways he feels unsafe because there is nothing in place to help him. Sure, one day a parent will tell him that swearing is not allowed but guess what? A lot of times he gets away with it. In school he would get a consequence automatically.

• His parents haven’t been modeling the required behaviors. As a result he is unsure what is right or wrong. Dad might hit his thumb with a hammer and swear a little bit but then will turn around and tell Max that swearing is wrong. Which is it? And why is it okay for Daddy to do it and not him?

• His parents are not always together on what his consequences should be. Mom may require a time out for swearing and Dad may just ignore it. At school everyone, adults and children, follow the exact same rules.

My wife and I knew that something had to be done. We had tried out some structure at home on weekends and that works a lot better for Max than just a lot of free time.

A doctor one time told us that we would be great parents for some children but not for Max. He needs strict parents with a lot of structure. We were too laid back to handle him. The doctor suggested we watch The Dog Whisperer and Supernanny to get some ideas on how we should be acting.

Okay we tried that, Supernanny suggested setting up house rules and consequences but never gave concrete examples on what they could be and how to implement them.

For awhile we have been allowing Max’s counselor, child advocate, and mentor teach him a lot of the proper ways to be. I’m not saying we stopped being parents; we kept trying different methods but nothing seemed to work for us. But I think it has more to do with the fact that we, as parents, are not always together on the things we should be doing.

Finally a ray of sunshine opened up. In my next post I will talk more about what has happened recently.

My son Max and I don’t have a lot of good Father and Son moments. Usually one of us gets angry and then we end up not speaking to each other for awhile. This generally happens when someone imagines that the other is doing something inappropriate.

Because of that I like to celebrate the few times that things go fantastically well when we are out together. Recently we had such a moment.

On Monday Max came to me and he said “Dad, can we go to the aquarium this week?” He was speaking about the New England Aquarium in Boston. I asked him when he would like to do it and he told me Wednesday. This would work because he has a half day at school every Wednesday. I told him I would think about it.

I talked it over later with his Mom and she brought up a good point. Max rarely asks us to take him to places like this. Usually we will suggest something and he will respond enthusiastically. That’s not to say he won’t ask to go places but it is generally to a store, fast food restaurant, or friend’s house. He almost never asks to go somewhere exciting.

We decided it would be a perfect thing to do so I jumped online to buy tickets. We have found from experience that we can buy them once we get there but on a good day it can take an hour or more just to get up to the ticket booth.

On the big day I drove to his school and met him at noon coming out of the door. From there we drove to the subway station; he loves riding the trains. Once we were seated in the car I mentioned that we had two options:

• Change trains and take the second right to the door of the aquarium

• or get off the train at Government Center and walk fifteen minutes through Faneuil Hall to get there.

He opted for the second route but when we got off the train at our stop we found ourselves on a narrow street surrounded by quite a few tall buildings. I turned to a street vendor and asked him how to get to the hall. He smiled and said “Very easy.”

He led me to a spot in the sidewalk, “Do you see these two lines? Follow them; they will take you right there.” I was surprised but as I directed Max to lead us it dawned on me what we were on. It is known as the Freedom Trail. It is actually a line of bricks bordered by stones and set flush into sidewalks and pavements. If you follow the trail it will bring you to 16 historical Revolutionary sites in Boston.

My son was very enthusiastic about taking us to the hall and we followed it through twisting streets and around corners until we came into the Quincy Marketplace which is part of the Faneuil Hall complex. From there it was a just a short walk over to the bay and up the aquarium concourse.

Since it was now 1 o’clock we decided to have lunch before starting the tour so we headed up to the restaurant on the second floor. This was marvelous my son was not balking at having something to eat. After a hot dog for him and a burger for me we went in to see the fish tanks.

One thing about Max: he is a speed viewer. That is, no matter whether we are visiting a museum, zoo, or aquarium he cannot stop in one place to see the exhibits. Because of his ADHD he will end up walking fairly quickly past each one with barely a glance. Interestingly enough he can tell you all about it in every detail later on. He doesn’t miss a thing.

Today was different. When we walked in the door the first thing we saw was the large penguin area. It is divided up into 4 quadrants; each holding a different type. Instead of moving passed them he went up to the nearest group and leaned over the balcony to stare down at the birds.

For a half an hour he stayed in this one spot watching them preen themselves, swim, and talk to each other. He was utterly fascinated. He even laughed when someone shone a flashlight with a fish-shaped beam into the water. The penguins dove at the light trying to capture a “meal”.

Once he was done he took the ramp to the top of the main fish tank. If you haven’t been there, the aquarium has a four story cylindrical tank in the center of the building full of different types of fish. It stands in the middle of the penguin pen and the ramp spirals around it to the top. It is also made of thick clear glass so as visitors climb they can see different levels of fish from those that live at the bottom of the ocean all the way to the ones that swim near the surface.

Today we noticed that the large shark seemed to be pacing us as we headed upwards. He stayed at our level the higher we went and Max loved it. But when we neared the top he disappeared.

At the peak the tank is open and surrounded by a balcony where visitors hang over and see the fish and giant sting rays. No viewing would be complete however without…Max excitedly pointed down to the aquarium’s mascot: Myrtle the Turtle. She is a large green sea turtle over 70 years old.

When we tired of touring the exhibits Max decided he wanted to walk back the way we came to the subway and stop to check out Faneuil Hall. As we walked down the concourse it started to rain so Max changed his mind; he wanted to just get on the train at the aquarium stop instead. Good thing, literally as we stepped through the station doors there was a huge boom of thunder and a lightening bolt overhead. We were glad he made that decision.

Once we got back to the car and headed home we stopped for dinner at our favorite restaurant. He was off to bed once we got back to the house.

As you can see it was a very nice outing. There were no hyper moments. There were no tantrums from either one of us. There were no disagreements about what was going on. We both seemed to be totally in tune with each other.

It is at times like these that I really love a good dad and son day!

Recently my wife, son, and I went to see the new “Karate Kid” movie:

Even though I liked the old version for me there were two pluses to this one:

1. It stars Jackie Chan; I will go to see anything that he is in.
2. It also includes a rising young star named Jaden Smith. I don’t know much about him but I am a big fan of his parents Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith.

It took a long time to get there though Max kept saying, “Not today.” We were finally able to convince him to go. When we did he was mesmerized. He loved it and so did we.

Not only that, there were things I could take away from it. I don’t want to give away much of the story but part of it is about a karate master that trains a young boy. His methods are a good way to teach children respect. If you’ve seen the old version with Pat Morita and Ralph Macchio you may remember the “wax on, wax off” scene where the boy is required to wax a car with one hand and remove it with the other:

This continues until he learns a lesson from it.

It reminds me of the television show “Strict Parents“.  If a child needs a consequence she is generally required to complete a chore over and over again until she understands what she did wrong.

With all of the discipline he receives the boy in the movie goes from being unhappy and sullen to enjoying life.

It seems like there are things we can use with Max. He tends to get belligerent if he is told to do things even as minor as “pick up your clothes.” Generally he gets time outs and the loss of a favorite toy for awhile. Maybe if he has to do something over and over again he will finally understand.

But there is a problem; Max has become more aggressive since seeing it. If he is in a pool with other boys he has been convincing them to karate chop each other with him.

He has also been coming up behind his mother or me when we are sitting down. He will then wrap his arms around our necks to hug us. He then starts squeezing tighter and tighter, oblivious to us telling him to stop. He only ends it when we yell and then he feels like the victim. He runs into his room and slams the door.

A karate kid he’s not…yet. A lot of parents will send their kids off to martial arts school to teach them discipline. These children learn that it is not good to use it as a weapon. I have no doubt that Max can pick up this skill without a problem. But I’m not sure he would understand that he is not to use it on other people. I mentioned the playing around in the pool he does.

I am also speaking from experience. He is a very good wrestler and the coaches love having him on their teams. The problem is that we have not been able to make him aware that he cannot just perform a wrestling move on his elderly grandmother just because she happens to be in the room.

So perhaps a “wax on, wax off” style will work better. This is one way of teaching kids respect; maybe he can learn it too.

I was sitting in my office working when I heard a noise in the back yard. It was the elderly woman from the next street over wandering through. I assume that she was looking for a way out; the yard is completely fenced in. I put my shoes on and went out the front door intending to go back to see if I could help her.

In the street I met a woman just standing and watching my yard. I asked her if she was accompanying my neighbor. She said yes but her charge gets very upset because she doesn’t like to be followed.

She informed me that the woman has Alzheimer’s disease. I had already surmised that over three months ago. It was a sad thing to see.

My neighbor is a retired school teacher. My son Max and I have known her for years from our many walks in the neighborhood. She would always come out and speak to us. She loved seeing my son and when we were with her she would talk nonstop about her boys.

And then about three months ago we were passing by and she waved to us. But the way she was talking I knew that she was gone. Even though she was very friendly I could tell she had no idea who we were. She said, “Your son is a nice little boy.”

Alzheimer’s is a tough thing to deal with if you are a caregiver for someone who has it. I can’t even imagine what it is like for someone who is afflicted with it.

The disease is actually a brain disorder which is progressive and fatal; and there currently is no cure. It destroys a person’s brain cells little by little causing memory loss. It has become the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.

My friend’s caregiver asked me how I knew about the illness. I had two grandmothers that died of it. One grandmother stayed locked in her apartment afraid to step outside. She used to look out her window and was convinced that there were people on the roof of the building across her street trying to get her. At the end she had no idea who I was which I found devastating.

While tucked away in that apartment she suffered two mild strokes about two years apart. It was always believed that they contributed to her condition. I remember that she was always asking when her oldest son was going to take her away from there. She never knew that he had already died.

Then he finally took her away with him when she was 77 years old.

My other grandmother was a very active woman. She was always traveling and meeting people. Not long after a fall she took when she was 91 we noticed that there was a problem. She was forgetting small things and imagining others. But as the disease progressed it took a different turn from the first.

She began to distrust everyone. She believed that strangers were trying to separate her from her family and her money. I remember one occasion when she was sitting on my mother’s couch. She thought her daughter was a strange woman who had kidnapped her. She was screaming; shouting for Mom to let her go home.

When she noticed me across the room she yelled to me, “Please sir, I don’t know who this woman is. Will you take me out of here? At least call the police!”

And when she realized I wasn’t going to do any of these things she became even more upset because this man was part of the gang that had taken her.

She was 98 years old when she died, 20 years after my other grandmother.

My Dad also appeared to have the symptoms of Alzheimer’s; but it was more a result of the medicines he was taking. When he was dying of cancer doctors started giving him morphine to ease the pain. Almost immediately the signs appeared. His short term memory was gone. He had no idea who I was. And the wife he had met when he was 5 years old and had known for 55 years was now a complete stranger.

He finally died of cancer at 60. He didn’t have Alzheimer’s but I had lived through both of my grandmothers’ illnesses so it certainly felt like he did.

And as I talked to my neighbor’s caregiver the memories flooded back. I was able to express some of them to her as we waited for the woman to come out from the back yard. She told me that she could not go back to help her because the woman didn’t want it, “just see what happens when she comes out.”

My friend finally emerged by sneaking down the side of the house. When she realized we could see her she stepped out defiantly, “I do not like you following me. I’m going to call and get you fired for this!”

“Ok Marie,” the aide responded. As she wandered up the street straightening barrels left over from trash day the aide said goodbye and began to follow her to keep her from harm.

I know the pain of watching your loved ones waste away from this crippling disease. I have cried countless times as I helped them do even the smallest things.

But I cannot imagine what it was like for them to find themselves living with strangers. Being forced to allow them to care for them. Wondering where their spouses and children have disappeared to. Why aren’t their loved ones coming to save them?

It was heartbreaking watching my neighbor walk down that street, not knowing where she was going, or what she was going to do.

It is Sunday; no school today. We had a very active and sometimes unhappy boy today though. As a result his Mom and Dad were totally exhausted by noon; and we still had a half a day to get through.

I’ve written a lot about how Max needs structure for things to run smoothly. Weekdays are great because he is in school which has a set program. He gets home around 3:30 but then he has counselors and mentors in to play with him. On the off days he may find a friend available to play with.

Weekends are always a problem since it is difficult to structure Saturday and Sunday for Max. This last Sunday nothing was set up so we were worried how it would go for him.

But the way things went you would think we had actually structured the day. This was Max’s schedule:

• 6 a.m.

My wife and I were startled awake by a scream and a jarring bounce on our bed. My son was awake and raring to go. We, of course, were groggy and not ready to roll out of bed. With a lot of prompting my wife struggled up to start the day. Fifteen minutes later he was after me to come into his room which I finally was able to do.

• 6 to 7 a.m.

We were subjected to a lot of screaming and cursing. Nothing was going right for him. Needless to say, there were a lot of time outs and more grumbling.

• 7 to 8 a.m.

Dad and son went down to the football field to toss and kick the ball around. I was not quite ready for this but Mom needed a little bit more sleep so off we went. We had a great time; he did all the running; he and I did all the throwing, kicking, and catching.

Several times Max asked me to dive for the ball but there was no way his old man was going to do something like that, especially that early in the morning.

• 8 to 9 a.m.

My wife and I realized that this would be a great time to take Max to get his blood tests. We called the hospital and they told us that since it was so early no one would be in the blood lab. Right now it is only available to patients but they would be able to fit him in.

But even though it was a great time it didn’t go without a lot of problems.

• 9 to 10 a.m.

Once we got home we finally had breakfast. My wife and I have been drinking these great fruit shakes. It is my job to make then. We sat and drank them along with some turkey bacon.

Max had a toaster waffle and watched a little bit of television.

• 10 to 10:30 a.m.

Now my son started screaming and whining again. What are we going to do until 12 o’clock? He knew that he had a playdate at that time but he was too anxious to wait.

• 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.

We put up with Max’s issues for awhile but then realized we would need snacks to take with us at noon. Dad and Max went shopping; we picked up a bag of veggie chips and a bag of red hot corn chips. But of course if Max had had his way we would have bought a lot more than that.

• 11:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.

There was more whining. Dad did his best to distract his son as Mom finished getting ready for the playdate.

• 12 to 4 p.m.

We met up with Max’s friend at the local pond. The boy was there with his brother and grandmother. My son met this boy in Cub Scouts. I’ve noticed that separately he and Max are both hyperactive. But together it was wild. Just watching them was exhausting.

• 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

When the boys got tired of swimming we came home. Since it was still early we brought Max’s friend with us. Both boys showed up at the house still hyper. The first thing they did was ride bikes and later disappeared down to the football field to play.

The other boyfriend has ADHD like Max, and is very hyperactive too. Unlike my son he gets silly; we haven’t seen him angry. He is on meds though just like Max.

At one point he felt sick and wanted to go home but there was no one there to take care of him so we kept him longer. Very soon he was better and out skateboarding.

After he left my wife commented that it is wonderful to have playdates but we don’t think they should last 7 hours….

• 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

We can’t forget that Monday is a school day so we wanted Max to have a shower before going to bed. But we would have had to hold him up and wash him ourselves because he was pretty close to sleep walking by then. We put him to bed and made sure he showered in the morning when he got up.

So this was our “unstructured” day. Originally we had only planned a two hour playdate but as you can see everything just fell into place to keep Max occupied all day.

It would be nice if every weekend day could be like this.

On Sunday it dawned on us that Max need his drug levels tested. His psychiatrist had been asking for weeks for a report. She needed to know how much Depakote was in his system. Too much can cause liver problems. It had been difficult to schedule because we had to take him before he had gotten his morning meds.

Today appeared to be the best day to get him up to the hospital. When he first heard our plan Max dug his feet in. He was not going; he hates having the needle stuck into his arm. We were able to persuade him that the last few times things had gone really well and it would be quick. Ha, ha, famous last words.

Once we were there it looked promising. The parking lot was empty and there were no patients in Admitting. We sat down with the intake person and handed over the order from Max’s psychiatrist. In the process of filling things in the girl noticed that the doctor’s full name wasn’t available. We didn’t know the first name and the hospital wasn’t willing to accept incomplete information. They looked the name up in the hospital directory but couldn’t find it.

I left my wife and son to drive home to get it. Just as I pulled into the driveway I got a call that the hospital had found her correct name. By the time I got back the paperwork was done and everyone was ready to walk over to the blood labs. There we turned in my son’s records and then had to sit and wait.

This wasn’t going well. The longer Max waits the more he starts thinking. We knew that if the technician didn’t get us quickly he would decide he really didn’t want to do this. But he was good. When he was finally called he went into the lab without a problem.

All the way down he talked about how he had done this before and he wasn’t afraid. He hopped up into the chair and presented his arm.

But this is where the fun started. Sadly, I am being facetious here. As the girl took his left arm he asked if someone could hold his hand. The supervisor came over and grasped his right hand. At the same time she took his left hand and held it down. After this two mistakes were made.

If you have ever had blood drawn you know that when you stretch your hand out there are several steps they follow:

• They wrap an elastic tourniquet around your upper arm long enough to find a vein.

• Once found they clean the area around it.

• You now clench your fist.

• The needle is slid into the vein. You might feel a pinch.

• Once it is in place you are told to unclench your fist. This allows the blood to run freely.

• The technician attaches a tube to the needle and takes some blood. She will repeat this step until the required number of tubes are filled.

• When done, the needle is removed. A cotton swab and band-aid replaces it.

• You are finished.

The first mistake the technician made was with the needle. She slid it into the vein after having him clench his fist but rather than leave it there she began to move it.

Imagine your arm lying stretched out on a clock; your hand is pointing towards the 12. The needle is inserted from the 12 in the direction of the 6. Being dissatisfied with the positioning she turns the needle to the 9 o’clock position. Nope, it didn’t work. It is now switched to 3 o’clock before settling back in the 12 to 6 position. In the process she lifts and lowers it a couple of times. Imagine how that would feel.

As could be expected Max howled and we were stunned. We had never seen such a botched job.

Once the needle was in place and the first tube was inserted Max was never told to open his fist so the blood trickled out slowly and painfully. He cried the whole time.

When it was done they congratulated my son on how brave he had been and gave him some graham crackers. Just before we left my wife turned to them and told them that we had never had problems bringing him in for blood tests but he would probably not want to do it again. He had never been in so much pain and in fact until now he had only ever felt “the pinch”.

I am convinced they sent someone new down to practice on my son. Why else would a supervisor offer to hold his arm down while she was working? That had never been done previously. It is true the first time Max gave blood he sat on my lap and howled but that was before the needle ever came near him. He was very young at the time. It took over an hour but when it was finally completed I think he was surprised how little it hurt.

Even though he has never liked having it done the only struggles we had were when we tried to get him there. Once he was in the seat he would always sit through it without a whimper.

And he always gets a prize when it is over. Today he got a pen with four different inks inside. He can switch to whichever color he chooses at any one time. He has been asking for one of these for awhile and today he got it.

Even though he has his prize my wife and I know it is going to be a real struggle from now on to get him there. Why do they have to let novices practice on our children?

Frankly, I would like to get Max off any drug that requires blood tests anyway. And I would be much happier if he could get off of the drugs all together!

The beginning of last week end was a blast!

On Thursday Max and I went camping in the White Mountains. This started out as an experiment. Except for Cub Scout overnights my son and I have never gone away by ourselves. I wanted to see how we would handle any meltdown he might have in front of other people. He was great; nothing happened.

Friday we took the Cog Railway up Mount Washington. Our original plan was to just drive up, do the train, and then come home. We both decided that a 5 hour round trip drive would be just too much so we added the camping. Max and I had a lot of fun “riding the rails” and being on top of the mountain.

But then we came home. We walked in the door on Saturday morning…and all hell broke loose. The fun and good times were completely forgotten. Max snapped. Nothing we did was right. He was screaming and yelling. Several times he threatened to hit us.

He spent more time getting time outs and consequences for the rest of the weekend. We noticed that he was unhappy as well.

What prompted all of these?

• Maybe he doesn’t like end of the fun times.

• Or perhaps it is similar to the way a lot of kids with disorders go through school life. That is, they are able to keep things together during the day but once they get home they are in a safe environment where they can lose control.

• My wife believes that this is the same as when we go away whether for one day or several. Max is able to keep in control during the trip but then he needs that release time once he gets home.

But then Max and Dad are tired once we get home. For whatever reason we tend to be grumpy too. I know that my son reacts badly to my bad humor.

• Our doctor is convinced it is due to the food Max eats. He won’t touch any of the meals his Mom creates. It is not because they are terrible; they are in fact quite good. As a result he tends to eat both junk and fast foods on a regular basis which isn’t terribly healthy.

It could be any or all of these reasons. Or it could be something else.

But I think that whatever it is Max’s reactions are not the result of conscious thought. I believe that he is having such a good time he doesn’t realize that he is winding tighter and tighter like a spring. When he finds a safe place like home the catch on the spring lets lose and he loses control

Once that happens he doesn’t know how to stop his explosions. And the longer they go on the more escalated he gets.

One thing I do know is that he is very unhappy while this is going on. When the storm subsides he is very apologetic. He has also been known to cry, like this weekend…which is very rare for him. He thinks that he should never show tears.

By Sunday evening things were back to normal. Of course, it was bedtime and he was asleep almost immediately. Both my wife and I slept through several programs on the couch.

So it turned out to be an exciting weekend. The first part had a lot of ups. The second half was very down. We are hoping that the tools that his counselors are teaching him and changes in his diet will help level things off so that we can go away more often.

In the end we want him to be a happier kid.