Thanks G.
Chased up the GP today and he did make the referral a month ago. I guess I just have to wait for however long it takes to get an appointment.
Of course since I started this thread he has settled down again!
I dont have time to read all the responses to this so i apologise if this has already been said.
Most of what will be driving this behaviour is tiredness. You are doing the right thing giving him positive attention but it is very important that you dont give him any attention at all when his behaviour is undesirable. This is very simple what i am going to tell you, but it does work. When he shows inappropriate behaviour, tell him in very few words what you want him to do ie. jumping on the couch "sit down please", if he doesnt comply hold up a finger and says "thats 1", wait 5 to 10 seconds with no other interaction or words, if he doesnt comply hold up 2 fingers and say "thats 2", wait 5 to 10 seconds, if he doesnt comply say "thats 3, take 4" and take him quietly to his room for time out. While he is in time out it is not a punishment, so if he plays with his toys in there its ok, after 4 mins tell him he can come out now and speak nothing more of what happened, clean slate. It will take several attempts at this before he gets the new routine but he will get it and generally they get it quickly. If the situation is something like hes hitting his sibling then you dont count to 3, its an immediate "thats 3, take 4".
Might seem too simple but i urge all of you having issues to try it. it does work, sometimes it takes perseverance. There is also a book you can get called 1,2,3 Magic which helps more in depth than ive gone today.
Thanks for that Kristi. We have been doing the 1,2,3 thing for a couple of years now. It doesn't deter him at all.
There is more going on than a behavior problem. It is like that one last thing just overwhelms him and he crumbles. He seems to have a lack of coping skills. I spoke to a health nurse today for over an hour and she has chased up the GP referral and made another with a child health unit.
It is so hard to explain, because he is really a nice kid - he is chatty and witty and has a fantastic imagination and then bam!, tantrum.
that is great that you are persevering with this arte. hopefully the child health unit can point you in the right direction.
i agree with you that this is more than a behaviour problem.
oh Boy! This is happening all the time with my newly turned 4 yr old DS!
He chucks a hissy all the time, eg if his lego's break off etc.
He goes to daycare/kindy 3 times a week - but has been sick this week so stayed at home.
I think he gets bored too. I;m secretly waiting for him to start school just to have some peace. !!
MP, at first the nurse thought attention seeking because of the new baby etc. Then the more we talked about the anxiety, the separation issue, how he is worried about school already, how long it has been happening, night tantrums, she thought there was more to it. Then when I told her how smart he is, like how he had done an online reading program for 6 weeks and completed what was basically a school year of reading, she didn't know what to say lol.
Reading up on gifted kids it seems that anxiety and over emotional responses (like tantrums over small things) are very common. I don't want to be *that* mother, but I really do think that is the direction that we should be looking in for help for him. I was considered gifted as a child, I don't think it is unrealistic to think that my son would be too.
Arte, these days giftedness is Aspergers Asperger's Syndrome. Ask any teacher and they will tell you the same. Maybe in NZ they still percieve giftedness to be something in it's own right, but if you were still in Aus, it would be called aspergers. I am not going to say anything more about this to you because I honestly think you have blinkers on to the situation and aren't ready to hear it because 'giftedness' sounds so much better than 'aspergers'. Either way, he needs help which he is not currently getting that will help him deal with his emotional outbursts and behaviour issues. Just because he *might* be gifted, does not mean that is the end of it. You owe it to him to seek out whatever help you can to help him build the tools and strategies he needs to cope. What are you going to do with him when he's 15 and still doing this? Are you just going to walk away from him then because he's not listening to you or doing things your way? I've listened and supported you for years over this and TBH it's getting tiring, especially when I can see that you're not really doing anything to help him. It's hard to keep putting on the brave face and tell you platitudes like 'it will pass soon' or 'its just a stage' because it is well beyond that. You know us all Arte, our group have been belly and baby buddies for nearly 5 years now and we love you to death and we hate seeing how hard all of this is for you because we all feel so helpless that we can't offer more practical help or advice, but it's frustrating to keep trying to support you when you don't really do anythying to help the situation. Going to the nurse was a positive move and I hope talking to her really makes a difference and you get that referral so you can move forward to this, but once you get it you have to make sure you follow it through and not think that because things have settled down that everything is OK and it must have just been a stage. Because you know it will happen again
ETA - I thought I would add that we went through this with our best friends and their eldest son. We *knew* that something wasn't right with him, but no one could quite put their finger on it. Our friends thought that he was incredibily 'busy' and full on, because in among all the stuff that he was doing, he would have moments of brilliance that would make you think that he was just a normal toddler. When he started preschool it didn't take long before he got a dx of autism and when we heard, I told my friend that I had a feeling all along that this is what was going on for him and she said 'why didn't you say anything' and I told her - would you have listened to me if I did? and she admitted that she probably wouldn't have. Her DH found it really hard to deal with 'his son' not being perfect or normal like other kids, but you know what? Once they got that dx they found it so much easier to relate to him and have patience for the things he would do. They were able to put in place strategies to help him and themselves deal with him when he had outbursts, but now he's getting older (he is nearly 11) it is getting worse again as he is now getting physically violent with them on occasion. I know he is at the lower end of the scale to W, but the point is that until they knew what made him tick, they couldn't help him and once they knew it made things easier.
Last edited by Trillian; March 11th, 2012 at 08:42 AM.
Arte I don't know you as well as the other ladies, but I'll give you my opinion...
I'm a Special Ed teacher...
'Giftedness' is no excuse for the type of behaviour you describe. TBH I think it's being used in this situation to allow your DS to behave in a way that is neither beneficial for your family or himself.
I'm not a medical professional and I'm not going to tell you what I think might be the problem, but what you need to know is that you need to be proactive about this. The longer you leave this, the bigger a problem it is going to become. IF your DS gets a diagnosis, you can get up to $12k in funding for therapies etc BUT ONLY if the diagnosis is made before he turns 6.
Allow your son to be himself and to be happy. The only way you are going to achieve this is to stop making excuses and do something! I'm sure you won't leave your son if he's physically ill, not take him to the Dr etc. this is not much different.
Aspergers is not a life sentence. It will give you the opportunity to help your son adjust to his world. The sooner you do something, the better the outcomes.
How have things been the last few days Arte???I am really glad you spoke at such length w the nurse. I hope this all leads to a place where you And DH have some strategies to deal w him... Better for all of you and best for him.I have no idea on giftedness, aspergwrs etc - but when you say you were the same and I think of how you have described your school years - i hope that yuh are able to help him deal with whatever is going on so he can grow up with more deep confidence etc. He is a guest kid and you are a great mum - there will be light atbthe end of tbbid tunnel - all you have to do is find the right people, tools, strategies to get thereI am going to be really hints, I am sure you know I was a bit surprised you gave phenergen for sleep (no judgement I can assure you) - my thoughts are that if his sleep was that bad, and if you felt you would resort to that to to force more sleep and so you can cope... Then finding a cause anc staregy must be worth it.I am here ti support you, as I know all our buddies are - just don't want this to continue on unmanaged for any of you.All said with care xxx
Trill, the reason I have never followed through on Aspergers is because he doesn't have it. I can find nothing on the net suggesting that gifted and aspergers are the same thing, only that they often overlap. Even the link you provided makes him seem far more likely to be gifted. He does not just repeat facts by rote, he actually learns and understands. This is one of the things the kindy teachers commented on when they approached me to tell me they think he is gifted. He is an introvert, but he does have a couple of friends and he plays with the other kids if wants to. He doesn't miss social cues, any hesitation is more from anxiety of not doing things right or the other kids making fun of him. He doesn't care about routine, doesn't have rituals or gestures, he doesn't have the 'little professor' speech.
It is my fault you have the impression you do - he has passed through many phases that did ring alarm bells and I probably haven't updated as he grew out of them. I am not stupid, I can google as well as anyone. I am quite aware of sensory issues and ASD, but the fact is that he just doesn't fit the criteria for those disorders.
My mother has worked with intellectually disabled people for the last 15 years, including two years as a teachers aide in a special needs school unit working with ASD kids. She is not the type to keep quiet if the thought even crossed her mind that he might have Aspergers.
I am sorry that it is tiring for you and I am painfully aware of how often I post about whatever his current issue is. I am not looking for platitudes, generally I am venting to try and get out some frustration before I go off to deal with the next meltdown. I even started this thread to avoid dumping in the buddies group as I know you must all be sick of listening to me whinge. I will take more care not to offload in our threads anymore.
MP, thanks xx
I know there is something different about him and I am trying to get him some help.
Last edited by Artechim; March 12th, 2012 at 06:29 PM.
Oh hon.... Don't feel like you can't write in our thread... Of course you can and should... ( and I am fairly sure trill wouldn't mean you to take it that way)
I am glad you will get him help.... And we are all here for you whatever the outcome is. You are our friend and we care for you both.
Xxxxx
Ps sorry for the atrocious typos etc in my last post ( I obv don't edit!)
Last edited by MamaPan; March 13th, 2012 at 08:59 AM.
It sounds like there is a lot of background and history going on between everyone that I am not privy to, so I'm sure I don't know the full story.
I must disagree with the "gifted IS aspergers" comment though?? I have worked for the Association for Autistic Children, I have been a teacher in the past, and dh has an extended relative with aspergers, and I have done lots of research/reading on it, so I am in no way an expert, but I know a bit about it.
You can have:
1. A gifted child, 2. An aspergers child (or on the spectrum) or 3. A gifted child who also has aspergers (twice exeptional they often call it.)
All gifted children don't have aspergers and to have aspergers you don't have to be gifted as well. Gifted kids can get misdiagnosed as aspergers because they can share some excitabilities/sensitivities etc. Kids can have both and being gifted can ameliorate things in terms of helping them find ways to cope. As with all of these kinds of things there is a long broad continuum and kids can fall anywhere along it.
Artechim it sounds from the reading and other things you have mentioned like he may well be "gifted", I guess you are now looking at whether he is gifted-plus-some-other-issue, which it is hard to tell just from your post and not hearing the whole history. I have a "gifted" (whatever the label) 3.5 year old, and he can be an odd fish at times. He has just started kindy as well. He doesn't have the behaviour issues you describe, but is a very sensitive little fellow, and in the beginning of kindy was a bit overwhelmed by it I think, and not used to being in large groups of children without me as support. Did your behaviour issues start with kindy or does this pre-date all of that (which I am guessing from what some of the other posters have said that it does)? Does he like Kindy?
Arte, maybe he is fine and he's just gifted with a few other things going on, I would LOVE to be proven wrong. but what is the most frustrating is that you just aren't doing much to find out and then complain when it gets bad again. YOu went to a Dr and got a referal, but you only chased it up after people kept on at you about it. You didn't even know who the referral was too or what they were specifically referring you for. I think had you not posted this thread and had people tell you to follow up on it that you would have just kept waiting in limbo for it. I just don't know what is holding you back about doing something? Are you worried that they might find something or are you certain everything is fine and this referal is just a formality?
I would never, ever, want you to feel that you can't offload onto us in our buddies group because I know you don't have a lot of support IRL and I don't want you to keep it bottled in because if you did you would explode! You are dealing with so much more than you should have to and I'm sure it gives all of our group a sense of helplessness to know that you find it hard sometimes. And when it's like that, what else can we give you that doesn't seem like empty words? I am sooooo sorry if I came across as being too harsh, but it came from good intentions Arte
arte- of course we want you to still keep talking about all this in our group. but, i also would love for you to get some help with it IRL and maybe some answers and strategies.
how is the referral thing going? xox
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