So, I have this six year old little boy. Who, when one-on-one with me, or really anyone else, is perfectly sweet and snuggly and cooperative, as long as you don't need him to do anything or go anywhere. He will lay on the couch with me and snuggle and watch HGTV, willingly. He will sit with you and play a board game for hours. He will read stories with you and to himself until he falls asleep in the open pages. But when around his brother, or say, classmates at school, becomes the biggest little poop head you've ever EVER seen. And if you need to leave the house for some reason? Forget it. He has no sense of urgency, no sense of time, no sense that he should be doing something that he's been asked to do a hundred times to avoid being punished. And I am getting tired of it.
I have really reached the end of my bag of tricks here. We've begged. We've offered stickers and other incentives. We've grounded. We've spanked. We've stood over him and yelled until he completes the task we are waiting for him to finish so that we can move on (like brushing teeth, putting on shoes, or for that matter, FINDING his shoes...) We've tried to spend more time alone with him, away from his brother, to give him special attention (We do it with the brother, too, don't worry). We've made charts. We've tried allowance. We've tried everything we could possibly think of on both the positive and negative reinforcement side. Nothing works. He does. not. care.
I repeat myself a lot. Put on your shoes, put on your shoes, putonyourshoesputonyourshoes OHMYGODPUTONYOURSHOESRIGHTNOW. Get in the car, get in the car, get in the car, GETINTHECARGETINTHECARRIGHTNOW. Buckle your seatbelt, Buckle up, come one buddy, please, buckle up, BUCKLEUPRIGHTNOW. I know I could do these things for him, as I did when he was a toddler. Then there came a time when he insisted he do these things himself, and oh, how I relished that time. Yes! Independence! We are moving forward. Not anymore. He would rather lay on the kitchen floor next to his shoes counting ceiling tiles than actually put them on and go outside for the bus. And he does, until my head explodes all over that ceiling and disrupts his reverie.
Your time table is not his time table. In fact, your time table is irrelevant, unless your time table includes feeding him candy. I cannot get this kid on track by feeding him candy, I just won't do it. Other people mention it in passing, as if I don't know it's an issue. The day camp director - "Boy, he just moves really slowly, doesn't he?" The kindergarten teacher - "He really prefers to do his own thing, rather than focus on pretty much anything that actually needs to be done. He doesn't follow directions, and cares not for consequences." Do you see that? CARES NOT FOR CONSEQUENCES. This child cannot be bribed, except maybe with candy, as I already mentioned, and even then, expect it to take 10 minutes for him to put his shoes on and go to the car in order to actually receive a tootsie roll. Expect to see my head start popping off after about 4 minutes of this.
We're having him evaluated by a behavioral psychologist in a few weeks, an appointment I made back in December after a really rough couple of months adjusting to being in public school. Maybe he's ADD. Maybe he just doesn't transition well. I know that's true, and that could be managed, but this kid doesn't transition AT ALL. Maybe he's just lazy. Maybe he's bored. Maybe the genetic implications of my own inability to focus or be challenged in school have finally bubbled to the top in my offspring. (And try explaining that to someone who doesn't understand ADD - that it's possible for a child who can't finish a test to be bright and bored and unchallenged. Just TRY.)
Maybe he feeds off of my anxiety. Maybe it's all my fault. Maybe I just need to relax and not worry about it. Maybe he needs more structure. (He hates structure like some people hate olives. Passionately.)
I've always considered myself pretty on top of how to deal with special needs kids, from any end of the spectrum. I studied special education in school, I lived it as a child myself. I read every article and every study that comes out regarding dealing with ADD kids. I read all the books. I've even offered advice to friends on how to deal with certain behaviors. And yet, I can't change the course for my own kid.
My husband thinks I'm trying to get my kids labeled just so that I can make up for the horrors of the public school system that I endured and make myself feel better**, when all I'm really trying to do is make sure that they don't have to live through what I did. So I'm not getting a lot of support in my efforts here. Instead, I get a lot of "you know, if you could just CALM DOWN it would probably help," which, SURPRISE, totally does not help. But I am at the end of my rope with this.
So, help. Anyone?
** Just to give you an idea of how they dealt with behavioral disorders and ADD when I was in elementary school, the lunch lady used to make me sit with the seriously mentally handicapped kids at lunch as punishment. That's right - they used sitting with the "retarded kids," as they were called then by their OWN TEACHERS, as punishment. That's some quality education standards right there, people.
