Over the last few months, we had been getting signals from our kid's kindergarten teacher that he was having trouble at school. First it was just questions about how to get him to pay attention and focus on lessons (a common problem for kindergarteners, boys in particular). Then it was provoking other kids because he was annoying them. Finally, it was inappropriate touching--he touched someone's butt when they were at the drinking fountain.
We all noticed that he was "self stimulating" in various ways: fingers in his mouth, working spit around his his cheeks, scratching his arms, whistling, humming, and sometimes hands down his pants fiddling with his junk.
When we raised issues like this to our Battlestar Galactica-style pediatrician (sans smoking), he said, "I could send him to a child psychologist who will prescribe whatever you want... or, you could wait and see if he'll grow out of it. He's a five-year-old boy, after all." That seemed reasonable, so we just said, yeah, let's wait and see. We'll work on ways for him to cope with whatever is making him anxious.
"Take a deep breath."
"Fingers!"
"HAND CHECK!"
These things worked, for a time. But they were symptom-specific, and as soon as he'd master one urge, another would crop up. If he was particularly tuned-up, he'd do all the things ALL AT ONCE. One Friday evening, during dinner, he couldn't sit still to eat his food, and as I talked him through eating he was compulsively scratching my elbow, chewing his other hand while whistling, spitting, and humming at the same time all while tapping his feet and rolling his eyes ("googly eyes").
It was clear what was happening: the Wolf wasn't growing out of his nervous behaviors. He was growing INTO them.
We scheduled him for an ADHD assessment in the fall. There are apparently enough nervous parents out there that getting a kid vetted for ADHD takes some waiting.
We also had a 504 conversation with the school--that is, we invoked the kid's rights under the law for equal education. If he was assessed as having a condition that affected his academic performance, then the school was obligated to provide him whatever accommodations he needed to be successful. After that meeting, it was clear that he had some issues, but not so bad that he needs specialized help from the school.
The hard part of getting here was the stigma. Nearly everyone in this process has said "Yeah, but he's a boy." As if boys are supposed to be fidgety. I think they are, but maybe I just believe in the stigma? Anyhow, accepting that the kid might be ADHD has changed how we deal with his more frustrating behaviors.
The Wolf sometimes won't go to bed when he's supposed to. Sometimes being almost all the time. He comes out of his room for about an hour almost every night to TELL YOU SOMETHING or to GET A DRINK or because his ROOM IS SPOOKY. It's just because he doesn't know how to turn off his brain and get some sleep. I can relate. I have been an insomniac most of my life and it's usually because I have some SHIT TO DO or I might need to WORRY ABOUT THIS THING or maybe REPLAY AN ENTIRE MOVIE IN MY HEAD.
So, knowing this, instead of GET TO BED RIGHT NOW it's "tell me about it on the way back." We indulge his weirdness, let it play out, let him unwind the coiled up thing in his skull so he can sleep, maybe.
With food, it's all about bargaining. EAT THIS AND YOU CAN PLAY OVERWATCH.
With mornings it's all routine. Have breakfast and then get dressed.
Some of these tendencies may have been a part of why the Montessori experiment went so poorly, but that doesn't relieve them from my rage. Rather, I feel that they should have recognized this and tried different tactics beyond the exclusion and disappointment they worked on him.
We'll see how the assessment goes this fall. Hopefully he's in a range where therapy or medication will be unnecessary or very limited, and we can just get into a new routine.
The best part of these conversations so far has been when the kindergarten teacher (kind of an anxiety bundle in her own right) explained, she thinks he's doing okay as is, but she thinks he could be above and beyond. Let's just take away this obstacle and imagine what he can do.
So that's good.
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