Tough Decisions

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My DS11, 6th grade has been doing really well this year, after all we went through last year. He is in a self-contained classroom, because of his anxiety and meltdowns. Right now there are only two children, one teacher and one aide. He has earned his way back into almost all regular classrooms during the day (math, science, history, social studies, PE, and language arts). So he is only in the special classroom first period for reading, lunch, and at the end of the day during what would be most of the other children's elective class and during which they do social skills.

So, all week, my DS and DH have been getting ready for this big camping trip with his boy scout troop over the weekend. They go and do a family friendly haunted house somewhere South of us with a whole bunch of other boy scout troops. Both my son and husband were very excited. My husband and I planned so we thought DS could handle it and have lots of safety nets if anything was to go wrong.

Meanwhile, the excitement of the weekend and the fear of "messing up" has got my DS on edge, anxiety wise. He brings home a daily note for his behavior, but sometimes if the teacher is dealing with an issue from one of the children at the end of the day, she can't send it until the next day. Anyway, my son came home Thursday and said "I fell asleep in class" so he didn't get his successful day (for his paper), but then explained how he turned it around and had a good rest of the day. So, I am thinking, he fell asleep at his desk, and made some argumentative comment/grumbled/or didn't work for part of a class period. No big deal. I asked him what the consequences were for falling asleep in class, and he said going to bed early, and followed through with little complaint.

Then Friday, I get an email from the teacher. My DS has had a total meltdown day - all day, including banging his head on the desk, leaving a mark that lasted until Sunday morning and has work to make up over the weekend. Then cried/was inconsolable/agitated until about 7 PM that night. Additionally, the email explained there was a note about Thursday in his folder (he had not given it to me on Thursday and lied about it) where I find out he had been falling asleep in class during the first period (reading), was given several choices to help wake him up, but refused them all, knocked over his desk and kicked it, so lost his priveledge to sit in the desk, lost his priveledge to go to all his regular classes because he was still upset, laying on the floor crying through most of 2nd period (once he has a start like this, it is better to get his work and stay away from the other children for the day - this is agreed upon by both him and the teacher). Finally, slept for about half an hour, then like he said, did his work for the rest of the day, only in the special ed classroom, which he purposely failed to mention. Come to find out, he stayed up most of Wednesday night (first he said leg pains - growing, then he said excited about campout, then he said worried about campout - I think it is some of all or he just doesn't know), so he really was tired on Thursday. He lied/abstained from telling me the whole story/hid the note because he thought we might ground him from the campout. Then after Friday, we HAD to keep him home from the campout. 1) because of his behavior 2) because after a day like that, there was no way to make it through a campout like they were planning. 3) He had a bunch of makeup work to do. It took until Sunday afternoon for him to start seeming like himself again.

So, I just needed to talk to people who "get it." I feel like my friends will just think my son is "crazy." (I know he's not.) My family just doesn't get it. What do you do to recover from days like this? How do you keep from feeling like "It's just not working" ? I worry about him making it through middle school, then high school, and I can't even imagine college - although he is bright enough to be an engineer some day (thats his dream job). I felt so guilty for keeping him home over the weekend, but I know if I had let him go, it would have escalated more, and he would not have had any recovery time to handle the next week. To top it off, on Friday night he began talking about how the rest of us (the family) would be better off without him, how he hated his life, how he felt like an alien at school, how he could never figure out what other people wanted of him, or how to get them to like him. It was breaking my heart.

Anyway, it was a really tough weekend and I just needed some comforting words.

*hugs* sounds like you both had a really stressful time. Does he say things like "you would be better off without me" often? Best of luck on getting back on track with homework, anxiety, etc.

Oh, honey, I am so sorry. Those days really, really suck. Neither you nor your son are crazy, and you are doing a good job as a Mom.

Try to keep in mind - this is just one setback; it's not an indicator of how his life is generally or how it will be in the future. He's developing at his own pace, but he's still developing. On bad days, it is really hard to see the forest for the trees, but you have to kind of step back and look at the big picture of how he's been doing for the past year - and also how you have better tools to deal with it.

Sounds like right now the poor guy is just completely overwhelmed - do you think it was just the camping trip, or do you think there's something going on at school? I'd check to see if there is any pattern to the school behavior that would indicate a specific situation or issue is bothering him.

It is really hard to see your child in pain, especially when they start using language like that. DS has a pragmatic speech deficit, which means he defaults to the most extreme language possible when he doesn't know how to express himself. We do have a rule that actual suicidal language (meaning, specific threats of self-harm) = trip to the ER, but for that kind of general stuff, I usually try to re-frame things for him, and make them specific rather than general: "You're really, really sad and angry that you couldn't go on the camping trip." "I can tell that you had a really bad day at school yesterday, and you're really frustrated about it."

Otherwise- HUGS and hang in there!

Thanks, observergirl

No he doesn't say those kind of things often, this is the first time. Usually, he just wishes he didn't have AS. He only talks like this when he is really upset and anxious, but I worry he has thoughts and feelings he keeps to himself and often does not share. He understands just enough to know that sharing the things he worries about, feels bad about upsets me, but not enough to understand that its okay for me to feel upset by them and it actually makes it better for me to know so I can help him or get help for him. We tried a therapist, and he has therapy at school. He said he doesn't want to talk to the therapist at school because she might talk to his teachers and he would not be able to go to class if they knew. He said he never told the other/private therapist, because she is not family and because they keep a file and she might share with her boss. Also, he just didn't like other people knowing. He has some powerful social anxiety. Which to me is really odd, because he was never a shy kid. I think it is just a result of getting it wrong so many times and not knowing how to fix it.

Thanks momsparky,

I need to hear that.

As for school, well, there are always things going on, but he has been handling them, so I think it was the camping trip was just too much. He did tell me he doesn't like how the teacher changed some of the ways she did things from last year, and he has slowly been adding classes this year. He started off with 2 and is up to five, so that is a lot to cope with for him. Also, he had high hopes for making friends and is realizing that it is going to be like before, only most of these kids haven't known him since kindergarten like his elementary school (2 years ago) and don't just accept him as that's the way he is. He knows just enough about sarcasm to recognize sometimes when someone is being sarcastic. But sees sarcasm where it isn't and takes playful sarcasm as purposefully intentionally being mean. He also is adjusting to the differences in expectations of behavior, the ways teachers and students talk to one another, and the expectations of middle school (intermediate really - but run like a middle school). For example, Friday's debacle began when he was late to a class and the teacher made the comment "I know, It wasn't your fault." He felt, she was being sarcastic (which she probably was), that she didn't believe him and thought he was lying (which I am fairly sure she didn't), and that the whole class was listening and laughing at him (which was likely not happening). The likely scenario was she had heard his reasoning before, he takes a long time to make explanations and was probably a little aggravated about the interruption and after a few minutes she cut him off to get him to go to his seat and start class.

Was he upset about not going on the campout or did he seem relieved? I think you made the right decision to keep him home and NO, he's not crazy he was probably just overwhelmed with anxiety about the campout.

To recover from particularly stressful days, I usually let DS play by himself pretty much as long as he wants to. The only caveat is that it can't be playing video games for an extended period of time as he just totally checks out and cannot get out of gamer-mode if he plays too long. However, if he wants to sit and play legos in his room for hours, I let him. This seems to be therapeutic for him. I am probably too easy on him but I really reduce demands when he has been through a particularly difficult time.

Try not to worry too much about years down the road. momsparky just made a comment in another thread that may serve as a good reminder, our kids have a developmental delay not necessarily permanent impairments. Chances are they will catch up in most if not all areas where they are now struggling.

Bombaloo, He was really upset about not going and at the same time relieved. He craves excitement and lots of people. At the same time, the increase sensory experience of it all just feeds his hyperactivity and impulsivity. He is just getting to the point in life where he realizes that when he is around a bunch of people and there is a lot of exciting things going on, that is when he is most likely to make a social judgement error, do something others see as "weird" or get in trouble for being too hyper/not listening. He was also very upset that dad wasn't going to get to go. He kept saying "It's okay if he goes. I won't be mad. I know he really wanted to go. I feel really bad that its my fault he isn't going." He couldn't understand that it would be odd for a parent to go to a boy scout event like that without their child or that dad wanted to go mostly to spend the dad/son time with him.

6th grade was a really difficult year for my son, and I think the reason was a big developmental gap between what he was asked to do organizally / work load wise, and what he was ready for. I ended up working with him for 1 to 2 hours every night helping him get through.

Our answer was to cut the work load in 6th grade. We dropped my son's elective (with his agreement) and placed him in academic support to use as a study hall. There were multiple reasons (not the least of which was his need to practice typing and editing, since he has writing issues), but a big one was simply seeing a need to have less work. Since in middle school you can't cut the homework per class without losing grade points, the answer (for us) was to cut the volume of classes.

In 7th grade his development started to catch up, although social issues escalated, and by high school he was set. I can't say that your son will be on the same time schedule, but I want you to remember that what you have today is not necessarily going to be what you have tomorrow. In our case, with age and maturity it got much, much better.

My son loves boy scouts, btw. Going on camping trips centers and calms him. At this point; it wasn't always that way. I remember the days of not being sure how it would go nor how many meltdowns he would have (I did have the troop leaders trained on what to do).

When it comes to tough decisions like whether or not to allow your child to take a trip after a tough week, it really comes down to knowing your child. If the trip has been a stress factor, as it appears it was in your case, it is good to cut it, and explain to the child that it was becoming apparent he wasn't ready for it emotionally. If the trip is the only thing holding your child together, then you don't, the concepts of consequences be damned: it's about allowing him to do whatever it is he needs to do to be his best self the most often. 6th grade may have been when I pretty much stopped punishing my son for, well, almost anything. He already saw and felt all the natural consequences; he already wanted to do better and figure it out; so it became more important for me to help him figure out how to wade through than to make a point.

Organizationally, his special ed teacher is really helpful. She double checks all work passing through her hands, follows up on assignments and helps him remember, gives him time to do hw in class when possible, goes through his returned papers, reexplains and has him redo poor grades. Basically, she acts as the go-between for him and the other teachers. That has worked well for us. In fact, when he had all classes with her, there was no homework, and as they have increased the mainstreamed classes, the homework has increased, but he has easily kept up. He was used to tons of homework in elementary as they sent home all unfinished work which happened almost daily for him. (as we didn't know how much the Anxiety/ADHD was hindering him in class at that time.)

I have spoke with the teacher several times about holding onto one class period with her to provide a support time where he can be away from other children, still have social skills without missing regular class times, and forget the elective. As for typing, I really tried this summer to help him with his typing skills, used a couple of programs. My daughter's skills improved dramatically, but he made little progress. Going to have to find a different typing program.

That gives me something to look forward to. As for the social issues (sigh) I can't imagine it much worse than it is now. He has finally "outgrown" his younger friends and does not want to hang out with them, while at the same time, the kids his age don't want to be around him.

My son LOVES camping. We have done lots of camping with friends and family. He even went camping without us with his aunt, uncle and cousins this summer and had a blast. As for scouts, my husband is very involved and is hanging around in the background to be there if needed. He was a scout when he was young too. This was going to be his first BS campout. It was going to be different because of the haunted house and many other troops around though.

I think we made the right decision here too. He needed to recover and that would not have happened on this particular campout. As for the punishment, after almost an entire year of being grounded/punished etc in 3rd grade and half of 4th, we finally (slow parents sometimes) got some of the pieces (a tentative diagnosis/real information about his functioning at school) and realized we were just beating our heads agains the wall and nothing was changing. Now we save punishment for specific things and make sure that he has the tools to change the behavior.

Thanks, DW (whenever I see your name, I think of the TV show Arthur and it makes me smile)