Category Archives: ocd obsessive compulsive

Day 8 ~ snot today I tell you, don’t suck it in, blow!

I would call it a night cap, but I don’t drink, so we will call it a recap. 🙂

Last night, I had to go through some of our youngest son’s stuff. I found 5 9-volt batteries, the lids of two cat food cans, 8 pens, 2 nail clippers, 1 bag of cough drops, 1 box of granola bars and a screw driver from my computer tech kit.  So we are back to hoarding things again.  Not sure why he feels it is necessary to do this.  But, he does have OCD so maybe that is the only explanation available.

This morning, we heard only one thing from the school principal after our response yesterday to the PWN.  And that was a response that indicated that she was out of the office until Friday morning.  It wasn’t an out of office responder from Outlook or anything like that.  I know what those look like, and this was definitely not that.  But it also makes no attempt to schedule anything for the coming week.  Maybe she is just going to wait until Friday and try again. I don’t know.

On another note, the school counselor is a family friend who is deeply religious.  A trait we find endearing.  He is being lambasted by the administrators for not participating in meetings and activities at the elementary school that he has effectively been thrown out of.  He is never told about these events in advance, and since he doesn’t maintain time at the elementary school except for Fridays, he is not attuned to what is going on in that building.  Yet, he is constantly being lambasted for not attending events in the elementary school.

Now, I understand the concept of two sides to every story.  But, given the way we know the school treats parents, isn’t it reasonable to assume the possibility that they treat their employees almost as bad or just as bad?

Ok. Enough about the school. 🙂 For right now anyway, I promise.

David, our youngest is still fighting his cold. He was up frequently during the night coughing.  Hard to convince him that if he wants to get better, he needs to spit out whatever he coughs up rather than just swallowing it.  Same with the nose, if you sneeze, don’t suck it back in… get a kleenex and blow it the rest of the way out.  I know, it’s gross, but how do I convince a 10 year old oppositional defiant child with OCD, ADHD and autism that it is better for him to get it out than keep it in?  He is absolutely miserable when he is sick.

Today has been a fairly good day so far, yet it is only noon.  Here is a cheer for continued positive behavior  on his part, and continued positive support on my side.

Now it is time to put a turkey in the oven. Hope your day rocks!

Day 6 ~ Repast, a question, and a comment on the day

Evening of Day 6.

We had our evening meal, which was, pork with a creamy tomato stroganoff over egg noodles. I liked it, as did most of the family.

Our youngest, David, took one look at it and said “I don’t like chicken.”

“Never made this dish before, and it isn’t chicken.  Taste it, ” was my response.

In the end, he didn’t eat anything except noodles.  How can we get him to not force himself to gag every time we try a new dish?  He isn’t lactose intolerant, and doesn’t have any food allergies that we know of.  But, put something in front of him that he doesn’t even want to try; you can feed it to him, and he still won’t eat it.

Keep in mind, he has facets of Autism, OCD, ODD, severe ADHD, pediatric bi-polar and conduct disorder.

The rest of the day has been a conglomeration of negotiations and refusals.  I am working on following the 1-2-3 Magic doctrine of discipline. One thing to be clear of is, we do not do “Power Struggles”  we don’t practice a battle of wills.  It is counter-productive with David.  He can be obstinate enough to never give in, and will make himself physically ill in the process.

Don’t get me wrong, he is a joy to have back at home.  All be it, a frustrating joy at times, but a joy none the less.  On a positive note, we gave him a chore to complete, and he did it without complaint.  His job was to sweep the stairs using a hand broom, which he seemed to enjoy doing.  So tomorrow will find another “little chore” for him to do, and we will try that everyday to see how he responds.  We aren’t looking for a permanent slave.  But if chores are a way to reward him for positive behaviour or with positive attention, then that is what we need to do.

>Staffing session for our Child

>Well, today we had staffing for our son.  As I have posted before he is in a residential facility right now learning behavior management among other things.  The staffing includes such people as myself, the mentor coordinator, the program coordinator, the therapist, psychologist, nurse, partnerships care coordinator, family inclusion therapist, our son, and today we included the principal from he school. We also invited our advocate from Protection and Advocacy.

Surprisingly our son and the principal didn’t have any issues.  Which is good.  During the course of the staffing, which lasts about an hour, everyone present gets input into our sons care.  Including our son.  He didn’t say a whole lot. He talked about responsibility, not pushing or provoking others, and being respectful.

Our son recognizes and indicates that he is frustrated with himself when he misbehaves.  He apparently doesn’t like the person he becomes when he is having a bad day, but is at odds about how to control it.  The psychologist reported that he evaluated our son and determined that he doesn’t have OCD, but has very severe ADHD.  His recommendation is to continue the medication, implement a new one, which I can’t spell.. and work on some other things. 

Our son spends at least 15 minutes before school running and jumping on a trampoline.  The purpose of this exercise is to burn off a bunch of his excess energy.  If our son needs to be redirected, he goes willingly.  There are times when he has to be removed from the class and go on time out, he goes willingly.

I heard a lot of positive things about our son today. 

I mentioned that I thought we should have the classroom teacher come to the next staffing for our son.  I also said that we should have the special education strategist come to that staffing.  The principal promptly said that would entail an IEP meeting that would need to be scheduled.  I agreed with that, and said that I also thought that it would be beneficial for the teacher and strategist to hear some positive things about our son before he gets back to school so that they aren’t just hearing negative things all the time.

The principal did what I called the Bobblehead during the whole meeting.  She had a grin on her face and her head bobbed up and down during the whole meeting.

The rep from the regional special services asked if the facility was just going to discharge our son or if he had to meet certain standards before he was discharged… The case manager said that our son had to meet specific criteria prior to discharge. 

Discharge has been pushed back to mid-December as the staff doesn’t think our son is ready to come home.

On the way out of the meeting the rep from Protection and Advocacy asked me what I thought about certain things from the meeting.  I said that I didn’t think that the principal was willing to accept our son back in the school.  I explained my reasons. One – past behavior from the staff at school.  Two – body language.  I didn’t get any indication from the principal that told me that she was willing to work with us and our son to have positive outcomes.  Ever get that feeling about someone?  Yes, I did.  I thought that she was telling the people things she thought that they wanted to hear.

The strategist from regional special services asked about services in the school. Our son will get help transitioning back to the public setting.  He will have a mentor who will work with him in our community, there will be a staff member from the facility that comes to the school to help our son transition.  In the IEP session they will make more specific recommendations regarding classroom time.

Our son is on a sensory diet so we will be learning about that too.  He uses a weighted vest during the day, as welll as stress balls.  The stress balls give him something to focus on to keep his attention so he pays attention in school.

That is all for now.  Our next staffing is roughly a month from now.  We have family therapy  and inclusion seminar prior to that.  We are also planning some home visits for our son.  It was very good to see him today.