Posts for category ‘Family’

Max has been having a lot of problems and issues lately.  He has been unmanageable, explosive, and angry.  It seems like he has taken major steps backward after improving quite substantially.

It is not that he has been intentionally getting into trouble.  In fact, even though he is 10 years old he has been crying when he finds out that he has been misbehaving.

The crying in itself is unusual because he has never really cried since he was a baby.  I mean he can fall and bang or scrape his knees.  He can bang his thumbs with hammers so badly they swell and throb in pain.  But he will jump up and walk it off while saying:

“I’m okay, I’m okay!”

When he says this we know he really got hurt but he has always tried to hide it.

But in the past few months he has been misbehaving and crying more and more often.  And as I said he is not doing it intentionally.

A lot of things have been happening that have been affecting him badly.  These are some of them:

• His dad (me) came down with pneumonia and it took several months to get well.  As a result I hadn’t been available to play or go different places with him

• A month ago we had a pre-season snowstorm.  We lost power for 24 hours which wasn’t too bad but his grandparents were without it for 3 days.  His granddad is paralyzed from the waist down and his grand mom has slowed down quite a bit; they are both in their 80s.  Since they couldn’t take care of themselves through this it fell to us to make sure they survived.  We ended up taking them to different hotels each night since we could only book one day at a time.

• Two days after the power came on they had to move to a handicap accessible apartment.  And of course, we had to take care of it.

• But with all of the moves and disruptions Max’s grandmother has been terribly disoriented. So as result we have two more children to take care of.  I make breakfast every morning for them and take it to their apartment.  On days when their pcas don’t show up it falls to me to get them up and ready for the day.  My wife makes dinner for them, takes it over to them, and washes their dishes.  Later on she goes back to put them to bed.

• And then there was the big one. I got a call from a close friend of mine a few weeks ago informing me that his oldest boy had committed suicide.  He was 16 years old.  Max and I have been spending as much time as we can with the family.  My friend is a single parent with 3 boys (2 now) and the youngest is a close friend of my son.  And Max looked up to the older boy.

This is not everything that has happened but these are the biggest.

Max has been a trooper.  He has helped my friend and his grandparents whenever asked.

But with all of the stress over these situations and our exhaustion we hadn’t noticed that he was becoming very unhappy….until the bad behavior.  He can’t listen, he does what he wants, and he is very explosive when he doesn’t get his way.

We’ve had to call in child services and it has been recommended that if he breaks anything or hits us to be ready to call the police.

He’s a far cry from where he had been over the summer.  He is basically back to where he was when he was 7 and 8 years old.

We can see now that the stress has been unbearable for him too even though we didn’t notice it for awhile.

He has also told us that he hasn’t been getting enough time with us.  Well he has, a lot, but there haven’t been any close and happy times.  None of us has been in the best shape.  My wife has been exhausted as a result of taking care of the two of us while I was sick which doesn’t help her disability at all.  And now to be her parents’ caregiver is taking a toll as well.

But our priority has to be Max right now.  Yes, her parents need help but he needs more from us.

As I write this I can hear him in his toy room which is right next to my office.  He is working with his advocate cleaning up the thousand different messes.  He is acting calm and collected with her but this is following an explosion he had after his mother requested he turn down his music.

And it’s raining again.

For 3 years we have been seeing family therapists. The goal has always been to help my wife, Max, and me to be a family as we work through his ADHD, Asperger’s, and Bipolar issues.

It hasn’t been easy. This is not because Max has been resisting us; even though he has. And it isn’t because we haven’t been learning anything; because we have.

It is because there hasn’t been any consistency. We have gone through 5 or 6 different therapists. As each one comes in we have to start from the beginning. And they all start with what I call “the happy face” pages. That is, Mom, Dad, and Max are handed our own piece of paper. They have a number of faces drawn on them; each with a different emotion. One is happy; one is sad; one is angry; and so on.

As we go from individual to individual we must choose a face and describe what it means to us. Quite often we pick the one that we are feeling at that moment and talk about it.

The next week there will be another session similar to this. Then the following week we get another variation.

But we never see any changes!!

And Max doesn’t like to sit in these sessions. He is a doer. He doesn’t like just sitting around and talking about his feelings. It is okay if he is working on his bicycle while doing it. But he isn’t going to stare at a piece of paper and chatter on and on.

As usual our current therapist started just like all of the others: with “the happy face”. He soon discovered this wasn’t working for any of us. He changed things up to make sure Max is involved. And now he comes in with a schedule:

• We do 5 minutes of check in. That is, how is each one of us feeling today? Pick out a day since the last meeting that meant a lot to us and talk about it.

• Following that is a formal meeting which lasts about 20 minutes where we now talk about different issues. This is the time that Max hates the most and we generally cannot get him involved.

• Then we continue our conversation for 20 minutes through play. But we don’t do it by sitting on the couch. Recently we all moved out to the driveway and stood in a circle far enough away so that we could toss a ball to each of us. Before throwing it we would specify who was going to get it. That person would then say something nice about us. For example, Max has the ball and he wants to throw it to me. I would say something like “you are a great engineer.” He would then toss the ball to me and it is my turn.

• At the end it is Max time. For the last 15 minutes Max takes the therapist off to see his new project. Mom and Dad retreat back to the house.

This week something different happened. We went through the 5 minute check in and as expected Max would not get involved in the formal session. We continued on without him. The therapist brought out several sheets of paper which contained the following diagram:

As you can see it is a triangle. At the bottom right is the word “Actions”. On the bottom left is “Feelings”. At the top is the word “Beliefs”.

Our first goal was to list some of the actions that Max does that bothers us:

• Swearing

• Yelling and screaming

• Smashing

• Poking

• Inappropriate attention-getting

The words on the diagram are related. What are the feelings that Max has that are causing these actions? We came up with the following:

• Anger

• Anxiety

• Fear

• Sadness

• Insecurity

• Loneliness

Since Max isn’t here we are just guessing that these are what he is feeling. They aren’t numbered because they don’t necessarily correspond one on one with his actions. For example “sadness” does not necessarily incur “poking”.

Just like actions are caused by feelings; feelings are a result of the beliefs we have about ourselves. In this case we came up with:

• “Nobody loves me”

• “Nobody understands me”

• “I’m a horrible person”

• “I can’t do anything right”

• “I’m stupid”

These were our best guesses as to how Max feels about himself.

What I have described here is the furthest along we have ever gotten during the last 3 years of therapy. Forget about everything else I’m now seeing something we can work with in helping our family.

But this wasn’t the only surprise for this session. Max joined us once we had gotten this far. He came and sat between his Mother and me and looked at what we came up with. We showed him his actions and we told him how they were connected to his feelings. He looked through the list and pretty much agreed to what we had.

We then explained how beliefs fit into the picture and how they cause the feelings which spark the actions. We told him we didn’t really know what he believed but we had made some guesses. He read the list and nodded but then he said something else:

“I feel worthless.”

He said it very quietly.

We were stunned. We had always thought that we had done our best to build him up: “You did a great job on that project”, “Thank you for cleaning the sink. It looks very nice.”

But now we are seeing that something is being lost in translation. And the worst part is this path feeds on itself. What I mean is:

• Max feels worthless

• It makes him angry, sad, insecure, and lonely.

• So he screams, swears, and smashes things.

• People get angry with him so he feels more worthless and this continues the circle.

We’ve had a break through! Finally after 3 years! This is wonderful!

So now what do we do with this information?

But as the psychologist says to his patient, “Our time is up. We will continue this at our next session.”

So this week we should be discovering the next step.

Could this help in your family situations?

“On your way out will you buy my Dad some chewing tobacco?”

Whenever my wife asks me that it send chills down my spine.

I don’t like doing it.

I don’t want to do it.

She doesn’t understand. She thinks it is because I have to go out of my way to do it.

This isn’t the case. I do a lot for her parents. For example, I’m scheduled to take them both to the doctor next Tuesday. This is certainly out of my way but I do it because they are part of my family. It is also something they need and cannot do for themselves.

It goes deeper than that with the chewing tobacco.

My father-in-law has been chewing for over 70 years. It is a normal part of his life. It can be expensive. He goes through a bag every two days; at seven dollars apiece this can be a very expensive habit especially for someone who receives very little in social security and has no savings.

Whenever I mention the expense to my mother-in-law her response is always the same. It is his only pleasure in life so she doesn’t want to deprive him of it. As a result she lives without things that she needs just so he can be happy.

But this isn’t all of it.

You see, my Dad was a smoker. He would go through two packs a day. After 38 years of smoking he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He had to go through radiation to try to cure it. The first thing they did was embed gold nuggets into his throat as a reference point for the radiation.

The program he went through caused him to lose all of his hair and I watched him go from a strong, robust man to a frail oldster. He was 54. He took to wearing wigs and his teeth started falling out. I remember one day when he said “Watch this” and just pulled a tooth out. It came root and all. He then pushed it back in.

During this time his doctor told him for the treatment to be effective he had to stop smoking. And he tried to. He would go for days without a cigarette but the addiction kept bringing him back. In fact he would ask me to buy him some. I didn’t want to do it but I went for him. And he would always say “I have lived a long life, I don’t want to forego my pleasures.”

Sound familiar?

Fast forward 5 years. He is still smoking but it appeared that his cancer had been cured. That is, until the doctor announced that it had come back and had spread through the rest of his body. They started him on chemotherapy and I watched him deteriorate rapidly.

During that time I got sick. I’m convinced it was walking pneumonia. I coughed constantly. But like a true guy I didn’t bother to see a doctor. I had been looking for a house and I didn’t want to take the time. I remember that I finally found one and I was in the process of signing papers. My Dad went with me to the realtor’s office because he was cosigning for me. I was still coughing constantly.

Inside of a month he wasn’t functioning anymore. He was on oxygen and had to be helped with everything he did. On the last day at home he couldn’t talk and wasn’t even aware of his surrounding. My brother and I took him to the hospital where he died several days later.

He died surrounded by his family except me; I was at work. I left at noon to be with him. I rode the elevator up to his floor only to find them at the door waiting to leave. It was done.

His death certificate says he died of pneumonia.

I have never gotten over the fact that I supplied him with his cigarettes at the end and that I may have given him the pneumonia that killed him. He was my Dad and I idolized him and this is how I repaid him.

Now my wife asks me to buy her Dad chewing tobacco. True, he is in his 80s but I don’t want to be the one to contribute to his death.

But we aren’t supposed to deprive him of his “one pleasure in life”.

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.

Max breezed through his homework this morning. This is pretty typical. I’ve mentioned before how early morning is the best time for him to get it done.

How does your child do his homework?

Experts say some of the best ways for children to do their homework is to:

• Find a quiet place where they won’t be distracted. As we all know, children can get sidetracked very easily.

• Turn off the television. Similar to the previous statement, they will end up watching instead of doing.

• Make sure they have everything they need including paper, pencils, and books. Maybe even a cold drink if they tend to wander into the kitchen over and over again because they are thirsty.

• Be available for help if your child needs it.

Here are some other suggestions to motivate your child to do her homework.

How does Max do his homework?

My son has a set plan. He gets up in the morning, eats, showers, and gets dressed. After that he sits on the couch in the living room and does his work. The television is off and there is no music so it is very quiet.

In the meantime I am in the kitchen washing leftover dishes from the night before and setting up for breakfast and the rest of the morning.

At the same time my wife is in the basement doing laundry. She also feeds and cleans up after the cats. Then she makes sure Max’s backpack is ready for school.

We have been lucky so far. Max loves school and can’t wait to get there every morning. He also loves to learn so we don’t have to bribe or threaten him to get his homework done.

But he likes to do it quickly. From the time he sits down until he is finished it might take him 20 minutes.

If he has any questions he calls my wife in. She walks him through the problem he is having and allows him to come up with the correct answer. I think she would make a great teacher but her disabilities have kept her from pursuing this as a career.

When he is done he brings all of his homework to his Mother for review. If she finds any mistakes she will again help him figure out how to correct them.

But sometimes, like this morning, in his haste his work will be unreadable. In instances like this he will have to copy over his homework so that his teachers will be able to read it.

And don’t get me wrong, it is not always easy. Sometimes if Max finds that he has made a mistake on something he thought was perfect the meltdown starts. Usually we can circumvent it but when we can’t a timeout will result.

Generally it is completed without a fuss. It gets stored in his backpack. He is now ready and waiting to be picked up.

So, how do your kids do their homework? Do they have a structure set up? Do you use any other methods to make sure it gets done?

“Beep, beep, beep, beep…”

The sound of a truck backing up startled the couple out of sleep.  It was early morning and the sun was just coming up.  What was that?  Out of the bed they flew; almost falling down the stairs as they shouted for the kids.

Why all the commotion?  It dawned on them it was the trash truck coming down their street.  They had forgotten to put out the rubbish.  The reason for the upset was that the truck comes once every two weeks.  For a house with 2 adults and 3 children that can lead to a major backup if they miss it.

Now they are rushing around the house filling garbage bags as they go.  Their daughter stands strategically holding a bag open and Mom tosses bottles and cans from across the room into it.  She picks up an empty beer bottle and flips it into the air just as the youngest boy is crossing between them.  He gets hit on the arm, “Ow!”

Everyone stops to make sure he is okay before finishing up the job and rushing out the door.  They stare in horror as the truck passes their house without slowing down.  They never made it to the curb.

But it doesn’t stop there.  The young boy goes to school after bandaging up an arm that wasn’t even scratched.  Later on in the day his parents get a frantic call from the principal to get there as soon as possible.  They each leave work and arrive only to find two policeman hovering around their son preventing them from even getting near him.

Most families don’t come across an issue where a teacher has to report an incident like this but it happens all the time.  In a lot of states teachers, social workers, doctors, dentists, or anyone else who comes in regular contact with children and who has reason to believe one has been abused must call child protective services.  In Massachusetts they are called “mandatory reporters“.

It is a good thing but in cases such as the one depicted in the television show it can have a harrowing effect on innocent parents.  My wife and I went through that when our son Max was 4; he is 9 years old now.  He had been playing all day in the back yard.  When he got into the bath that night he started to scream.  He had a massive blister on the top of his right foot.  We had never seen anything like it and didn’t know how to treat it.  We made a “quick” trip to the emergency room.

After 6 hours we were told how to take care of it but in the mean time the doctor had called child services.  He believed we had actually burned Max’s foot and the blister was the result of second degree burns.  He allowed us to take our son home but he treated us like evil people.  He also warned us that we would be visited by a case worker.

Now we are worried.  Are we going to lose our son?  We called everyone we knew for help.  On the day the caseworker arrived we were a bundle of nerves.  What will they do?  Are they going to find out something that even we don’t know about?

The woman came in and sat at our table and talked to us.  She wanted to know what shoes Max was wearing that day.  She inspected them and we determined that they weren’t quite big enough for him.  How was it we didn’t notice?  Our anxiety levels rose even more.  She suggested the blister came from the stitching in the shoe after comparing it to his foot.

She then talked to Max.  Had he ever been burned?  He said yes.  Uh oh, when was this?  We didn’t know about that.  She asked him to show her how it happened.  Instead of taking her to the kitchen stove he brought her down into the basement.  Here he had a plastic toy stove that didn’t even have knobs to twist.  This is where he got burned.  She laughed and came back upstairs.

She informed us that she was closing the case because she was able to determine that there was no abuse.  But…it would stay active for a year and if there were any other reports it would be reopened.  Needless to say that was a long year for us.

Just like us we watched the family in the TV show become very anxious as they waited for their case worker.  The questions put them on edge because she asked each of them separately and, as it turned out, they all gave different answers.  Later after she left it got worse as they waited for her report.  When it was completed they found that they had been exonerated and could finally breathe easier.

Having a system like this is great for our kids.  The problem, as my wife mentioned to the caseworker, is that the families that are being dragged in are the good ones.  The others know how to hide the abuse.  This is not entirely true.  There are over 28,237 known abused children in Massachusetts alone.

None of us wants to see our kids hurt and this is one way to combat the problem.  Even if it means causing ulcers in some of us that have always tried to do the right thing.

He showed up in my office in a black suit and a red tie, “I’m ready to go Daddy.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the wake.”

I know there are Irish wakes and funeral processions in Louisiana that both celebrate life. They can be joyous occasions.  I grew up on the former and witnessed the latter once.  But in this area they tend to be morose affairs; catching up with people you haven’t seen in years while commiserating with the bereaved family.

My boy is too hyper and joyous to participate in one of these; an Irish wake maybe.  We reminded him that basketball is on Tuesdays and he would miss it if we went to this one.  We also mentioned that he wouldn’t know anyone there.  Yes, they were family but I had only seen my uncle once in the last 25 years.  And of course it would be dull; he would have more fun playing ball.

He was very conflicted.  He did not want to miss basketball but he believed he was obligated to be with family today.  I shrugged and told him to meet me in the car but as he went out the door he stopped.

“I changed my mind.  I’m going to play, ” and he went upstairs to change.

I followed after to say good bye but I found him sitting cross legged on the bed crying; he was still very torn.  By this time the suit was off and he was wearing only his shorts.  I suggested that if he wanted to go just grab his clothes and get dressed in the car.  In the end he decided to stay home but later my wife told me he cried for some time afterwards.

He had a blast playing ball.

This morning he came to me and asked, “How are you doing Dad?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was the wake okay?”

I smiled and hugged him, “I am fine.  Thank you for asking.  Do you know I am proud of you for wanting to be there.  Your Grandmother is very proud of you too.  You weren’t obligated to be there but everyone knows how you wanted to support her.”

That satisfied him and he ran off to get ready for school.  After he was gone I got dressed and headed off to the funeral home again.  Today was limited to a short service around the casket.  When I arrived I sat in the back of the room and thought about Max, about family, and about the people in this room.

I mentioned earlier that I had only seen my late uncle once in 25 years…at another funeral.  It has probably been more than 30 since I had seen his wife and kids.  I grew up with them; we played a lot; and I had slept over their house on several occasions.

But then we lost touch.  We had grown; and grown apart.  Some of them were now grandparents, like me.  I would hear a story here and there about what was happening.  These were few and far between.

I stared out at all of the people here.  I could recognize my cousins though they were 30 years older.  But who are they?  And those younger people behind them.  Of course, those are their children but look at them; I didn’t even know they existed and they are adults!  Max would love to meet his “new” cousins but I can’t even tell him anything about them.

While I was moving through the bereavement line one cousin told me it was great to see me again, though I had to introduce myself.  And he said let’s do this again but not in 30 years.  I agreed but I added that I’d rather it wasn’t under these circumstances.

But now I’m home and Max just got back from school.  I watch him and realize that if something isn’t done I will pull back into isolation as parents of kids with disorders tend to do.  Am I doing it because I don’t want anyone to know about his issues?  I don’t think so it is more like the same cousin said, “we get so involved with raising our kids we forget about the outside world.”

And it is even more so when Bipolar Disorder, ADHD, Asperger’s, or any other disorder or disability affects our kids.  We get so involved in planning, doctors, ieps and schools, structure, explosions, medications, and the list goes on.  You know what?  This is just the way it is.  But in the process extended family and friends can get lost.  It takes so much extra effort to keep them together and a lot of times we just don’t have the energy.