The answer should be yes. Not "how can I get my loved one help?"

Category Archives: inclusion

Pete and repeat – say again?

So for what seems like the hundredth time, I had the talk with David, our 10 year old about how his behaviour will follow him for the rest of his life.  Do I think I got through to him this time?  Sadly, no, I don’t.

This is the child who just got out of a residential facility, where he was placed in part because of his behaviour.  I explained that there are worse places for him to be, and gave him specific examples.  I talked about how when I was a kid, I was in trouble with the law and was taken from my home in handcuffs.  Yes, even at the age that he is, they might not use handcuffs, but they could decide that this isn’t the proper environment for him.

So the question is, how do we protect him from himself?  When it is just him, and myself, there are no major issues, but bring the other kids home from school… and he has to act up and do all kinds of things to get attention.  I have taken away computer privileges, I have taken away toys, I have taken away special treats like oatmeal creme pies, which are his favourite.  To no avail.  He continues to do what he wants when he wants it.

Friday is amnesty day.  He gets amnesty if he gives back everything that he stole throughout the week.  Today I gave him amnesty and he didn’t give me anything.  So when I was making one of many intervention trips into his room to keep his brother from killing him, I went through his things and found…

  1. One hole punch.
  2. One cat food can, partially empty.
  3. Two cat food can lids.
  4. A half dozen AA batteries.
  5. 4 pens.  (not allowed because he writes on everything, whether it is his or not.)
  6. Candy wrappers. (we control his candy intake because of the severity of his ADHD, he isn’t allowed any except under very controlled circumstances.)

Earlier this week,  he had managed to break into our bedroom and steal a netbook from his mother….

So how do we protect him from himself?  How do we protect him from his brother’s and sister’s?  How do we protect his brother’s and sister’s from him?

Today, I went so far as to explain what his behaviour does to my health.  I have a number of illnesses that respond negatively to stress.  I am not going to delude myself into thinking that it will change his behaviour.  I told him, as much for his information as it was for me to admit it to myself.

Tomorrow, mentor time.  Which means for 5 hours he won’t be in the house.  5 hours of relative quiet.  Am I wrong to look forward to that break?

Calgon take me away… alas it is an exercise in futility

It has been a day already.

David was up at 7.  he went to bed at 11 last night, but was up and down all night long.

Since then he has been as busy as Roger Rabbit.  Zip from here to there.  When he is like he was last night, it is hard to sleep.

David thinks that everyone is deaf when they are sleeping so he makes a lot of noise in the hopes of waking them.  Then you hear snippets of “David, stop that, David, David, David, David…”  alas it is an exercise in futility.

So we went on an outing. He had to do a blood draw, and then we stopped at the grocery store.

It seems like our whole day has been:

Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Mom. Mom. Mom. Hey Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad…

>a Staff meeting for our son.

>
had a meeting about our youngest child’s return to public school.  As soon as we started talking about it, the principal piped up and said “public school may not be the best place for him”.  the principal was pissed off that my wife and I refused to let a consultant for the school district sit in on the conference call.

Plus, we asked for the special education teacher that our son will be working with to be a participant in the next meeting.  We were told that the principal couldn’t guarantee that.  The principal said that she would see.  We set up our meetings a month in advance, how hard would it be to schedule a conference call for a specific teacher?  Turns out that the principal might not be able to make that meeting because she has been elected the President of the Chamber of Commerce in our town and has another obligation.

Then the principal complained because the teacher at the residential facility has given reports that were read by another individual, because she had to be absent for medical reasons during the last meeting.  So we set up a time for a conference call with the teacher from the facility and the school.    Oh, and the special education teacher might not be able to participate in that meeting either.

Our son has the following diagnosis:  Severe ADHD, facets of Autism, facets of fetal alcohol Syndrome, Reactive attachment disorder, oppositional defiant, obsessive compulsive and pediatric bipolar.

It seems to my wife and I that they want to set him up for failure.