Parents need respite from raising their kids. Most have a natural outlet. Their kids spend time at their grandparents or their friends houses. It gives them time to energize themselves and be refreshed when the kids come home.
But what do people of kids with disorders do? Quite often the grandparents aren’t equipped to take care of them and the kids don’t have friends to stay with. Certainly these parents worry about sending their kids away. What can they do? If they are unable to find some rest they won’t be any good to themselves or their children.
My wife and I have been working with the local Department of Mental Health (DMH) office. They had suggested a place for our son Max to go to on weekends to give us time alone. I wrote recently about our initial attempts to get him to it and the subsequent meeting with DMH. Though he went twice; the third time we couldn’t get him anywhere near the place.
We could not schedule the time originally agreed to, the Friday after our meeting. We were, however, able to set up an overnight for the following weekend. On that Friday Max’s mentor picked him up as usual and they took off for their afternoon fun-time. While they were gone the family therapist stopped in to get his backpack as we had planned. She then went to meet the other two to pick up Max.
From there things fell apart. He was not ready for the change. He expected to be dropped off at home after his afternoon; not to be picked up by someone else. And he did not want to go back to that place. It is more of an institution than a welcoming home for the kids. Max has to sleep in a dormitory with a dozen other boys; some of whom live there permanently. And, as mentioned previously, all of the wonderful things that the parents were promised were planned for the kids don’t happen. It’s more of sitting and staring at a television set all day.
In the end the family therapist dropped Max at home and we drove him there ourselves. He cried bitterly when we dropped him off and they had to restrain him as we left the building. We called when we got home to make sure he was okay. We were told he settled down 5 minutes after we left. This was of little comfort and we spent the rest of the night trying to calm down. This was respite???
Not long after we got up in the morning the calls started. Max wanted to come home; when were we going to pick him up? We promised that we would be there by 11 a.m and he cried. It then hit us with a sledge hammer; this was exactly the same experience as Max’s first and second hospital visits.
And as I suspected when we picked him up it was another day of just television. Max had not even been allowed to work on crafts…it was not on the schedule! We got him out of there as quickly as we could. Max was a perfect angel for the rest of the day perhaps fearing that we would send him back. But just as I do not ever want him to go back into a hospital I won’t ever bring him back to this place.
DMH was surprised when they heard the results. They hadn’t believed us when we told them what was going to happen. The only good thing that came out of this (if you can call it that) is that they now can see for themselves why this kind of respite won’t work for Max. But they were quick to point out that he settled down within minutes of us leaving. I am not convinced that was because he was okay; I believe he was just resigned to the situation.
Not to worry, they tell us, there is another option. There are families that will take these kids in for a weekend to give the parents some respite. These are regular homes where the “respite kids” mix and mingle with the families, play with them, eat with them, and generally have a lot of fun over a weekend. It is like sending them to their cousins’ homes for play-dates.
Well, we are willing to meet with the family they have in mind. We’ll talk to them and see if it a good fit. But with Max’s hyper anxiety I don’t know if he’ll last a whole weekend without his Mom. We’ll see…
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