Posts tagged ‘Anxiety’

She had arrived on the soccer field just a few minutes earlier with her young son in tow.  He was about 7 years old and appeared to have some degree of autism.  He stood on the field holding his soccer ball against his chest and his head face down on top of the ball while his Mom looked for a coach.

When a coach came to work with him he seemed to get an attack of shyness and refused to move.  “You go with this nice boy,” Mom said to him.

“No!” he answered as he seemed to shrink back into himself.

“If you aren’t going to play we have to go home.”

“I don’t want to go home I want to play!”

“Then go out with the coach!”

He put the ball on the ground and sat down on it, “I don’t want to”.

“Then we are going home” she said as she grabbed his hand and dragged him off the field.  He started to cry, “I don’t want to go, I want to stay!”

She took him into a corner and had a very one-sided discussion with him.  She then dragged him back onto the field and up to the head coach.  “He wants to try it again.”  The head coach found another boy to work with him; the first one had been reassigned.

Then the coach tried to get the boy interested in the game by kicking the ball over to him and by feinting this way and that way around him.  The boy wasn’t having any of that so the head coach promised him a surprise at the end if he stayed and played.  But this was like a trigger, “I don’t want a surprise” he wailed.

Ok no surprise but it was in his head now: “No surprise!  No surprise!  No surprise!”

Mom said “come over here!”

“No”  “Come over here now!!”

Her son started to back off, “No, I don’t want a surprise!”

When she crooked her finger at him he backed off more “Don’t hurt me”.  She grabbed his hand and dragged him off to the car; all the while he wailed “I don’t want to go home!” over and over again crying bitterly.

My first thought as I watched this was “why is she doing this, the boy really hadn’t done anything wrong”.  But then I stopped myself.  Here was a situation I could learn from.  How many times have I been there with my son and felt embarrassed by what was happening?  How many times have I overreacted in situations just like this?

Just this morning on the way to the soccer field Max realized that he had forgotten his ball.  He escalated immediately “I need my ball!”  And I escalated too.  I had been calm all morning through each of his traumas but enough was enough and I raised my voice.  He cried.  I was reacting to an issue that was his, not mine.  Whether I was calm or angry I was still going home for the ball.

I stood watching him playing on the field with his coach.  He was having a lot of fun now, the upset from earlier apparently forgotten.  Rather than judging that woman I have to look at myself.  I have to learn how to help him through these situations rather than berating him for not having control.  Max is a great kid and he wants to succeed just like any other kid.  He doesn’t understand why he rages over the simplest things.  It is my job to teach him how to respond better even if I have to learn how to do it myself.

My son is the best boy!  Isn’t that what all parents say about their kids?  Max has letters after his name that start at A and go all the way through Z.   He doesn’t have a lot of degrees; he is only in the second grade.   But he has a lot of diagnoses.  These are: ADHD, BPD, OCD, ODD, PDD/NOS, SID, Anxiety, and at this time of year, seasonal allergies that plug him up good.  I bet a lot of you parents can relate.

Why all the diagnoses?  One friend calls them labels that help us work with these children.  In my son’s case it is:

1. ADHD – to explain his hyperactivity (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
2. BPD – this is why he is so manic sometimes and calm other times (Bipolar Disorder)
3. OCD – this covers his recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
4. ODD – man, can this kid be defiant (Oppositional Defiant Disorder)
5. PDD/NOS – covers his social skills (Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified)
6. SID – he needs pressure or spinning to calm him down.  He used to be overly sensitive to sounds but that seems to have gone away.  He is very impulsive and is a picky eater. Cannot stand tags in his clothes; we have to cut them out. (Sensory Integration Disorder)
7. Anxiety – this is fairly new (in the last year).  He has gone from being very outgoing to having a difficult time being away from his mother.
8. Allergies – I’ve included this on the list because they tend to exacerbate all of the other issues especially when he cannot breathe.

In later posts I’ll address each one of these “labels” and explain how my wife and I address each one of them.

As a lot of parents can attest to we are caught in a whirlwind of differing opinions as to what the real problems are and what we should and should not be doing to raise our kid.

We have been told that the diagnoses are worthless that it is just bad parenting.  Why haven’t we been spanking him, or better still, using a wooden spoon or a belt, to straighten him out?  Or another suggested sending him away to military school.

Get rid of the medications he is fine (yes, he seems fine because he is taking meds right now).  I had one parent tell me to give my son up to him for a week and my boy would come back a different child.

Others believe that that we should institutionalize him, or give him even more meds, to take care of the problems.

Max is in a special school and even though he is in second grade he spend alot of time with the fourth grade class learning more advanced subjects.  He takes pride in the fact that he is the only student in his class that has never been sent to the “quiet room”.  He saves all of that for when he comes home.

He currently sees a play therapist and has a mentor to help him work though his issues and he has occupational therapy several times a week at school.

As I talk about what my wife and I are doing for our son, I hope our readers will share some of what they have found works and what doesn’t as well.