Breaking My Heart

They say that motherhood will break your heart (along with bringing you great joy). The last few weeks (maybe it's been longer) are proving that to be true.

Peanut is giving us a run for our money. Hubby and I are at our wits end and don't know what to do. His poor sitter is feeling the same way. If fact, she even suggested that maybe he would benefit from going some place else for two days a week or more. How's that for kindly telling you that if your child doesn't straighten up, he'll not be welcome back.

Apparently, the little darling is becoming very aggressive. It takes a lot of probing to get specifics out of her (the sitter/daycare lady), but it seems that he is hitting, kicking, banging on things, etc. He is also not listening to her. He has been going into her refrigerator and helping himself to food, not taking naps or settling down for quiet time (he's loud and bothers the other children while they are trying to sleep), and he's throwing things.

One of the problems could be blamed on hubby and I, but not all. The fact that he goes into the refrigerator...he is encouraged to wait on himself at home. We have, however, tried explaining to him that he can't do that at daycare. The other behaviors that she sees are also behaviors that we see at home.

I don't see the behaviors as much during the week as on the weekends, but then again, I don't see him as long on a weekday as I do on the weekend...the same is true for my husband...although hubby has more difficulties with Peanut than I do...usually.

Things have gotten so bad, that I went to the social worker at work yesterday and asked for her opinion. She gave me the number of a lady that works with daycare centers helping them deal with difficult children (I'm having a hard time thinking of Peanut this way but I guess he is). I will call her Monday. Unfortunately, the sw thinks that it is only for low income families so we won't qualify. This whole situation is just breaking my heart. I love this little guy so much that I don't want others to dislike being around him because of his behavior.

In the mean time, Hubby and I have come up with a plan that we hope will work. We tried it today and have already seen a decrease in hitting and kicking (although the other behaviors were still pushing us to our limits of endurance). The plan is simple. He started the morning with a paper with five boxes on it (the number was decided on after estimating how many times a day he hit or kicked and then picking a number that we felt was a reasonable goal...one he could obtain but still greatly reduced the estimated number). Each time he hit or kicked (us or anything) he would get an X in a box. If all of the boxes got X'ed out, then he would loose television privledges. He doesn't watch a lot of t.v. (more than he should...he shouldn't watch any, but not as much as other children), but there are 3-4 movies he likes to watch. Please know when I say "watch" I mean he'll sit for a bit, then he'll play while the t.v. plays in the background (he'll stop periodically to sing the songs in the movies). He LOVES his t.v. time (all shows/movies are non-violent/aggressive).

Today, he managed to only get three boxes X'ed out and was able to have all of his t.v. time. We'll try it again tomorrow and plan on continuing it for the entire week. After one week, if it seems to be working, we'll drop the number of boxes to 4, etc. If it's not working, then back to the drawing board we'll go. In the mean time, we are struggling to deal with the other behaviors. Today, he didn't want to take a nap (or have quiet time) so he ended up pulling the football off of his lamp. While I was not happy (a huge understatement) about it, it can be fixed relatively easily. I can also guess that he wanted to play with the football and because this is an actual toy football adhered to the lamp base (along with a minature basketball, soccer ball, and baseball) he thought he could use that one. The consequences were that his lamp was taken away (he loved the lamp).

Later, he kept throwing a ball in the house (that's against the rules). The consequence of that was that ALL of his balls (baseball pillow, football pillow, football, kick ball, etc.) were taken away for a week. The other "infractions" he commited were dealt with by spending time in time out. Our hope is that there will be a decrease in the aggressive behavior and then we can move on and focus on other behaviors.

While we are dealing with the behaviors we are trying to figure out WHY they are occuring. Are they related to his age? A stage? Is he seeking attention ("yes" with some, "no" with others)? Is it impulsivity? Is the impulsivity related to diet? To the fact that his birth father was addicted to crack when Peanut was conceived? Does he have ADHD? ( I have suspected this from the time he was an infant and had to be swaddled in order to sleep, then later he would...and still does to some extent..."spin" in his bed. The ADHD, even though it is a very real probability, will be the last thing we will look at. Not because we don't believe it to be true (it's probably the one thing we do think is true), but because I don't believe in putting a child on medication at this young of age (2 years 10 months) for ADHD unless things are really bad. At any age, I think all of the other strategies need to be tried first. I believe in medicating children if needed (I wouldn't deny him meds for his asthma, but I still try to control his exposure to the things/situations that cause it to flair up), but after other less drastic measures have been tried.

Well, it's getting late and I need to be up in the a.m. If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them (that's if anyone were to actually stop by and read this blog).

Until later...