James and I hold our breath every time Ethan seems to be in a “good stretch” — in behavior, in not getting into trouble, in getting his homework done, etc. It seems that everytime we feel like we can let out a sigh and relax a little bit, that is when things take a turn for the worse. We’ll get an email from his teacher, or there’ll be some altercation in the neighborhood, and it seems to spark off a hellish 4-6 weeks of sullen behavior, and/or reports of not doing work at school, and aggressiveness.

So it’s hard to actually breath that sigh of relief — knowing that in the past, right afterward usually comes the kick to the gut. But we tentatively are, and we’re making sure that Ethan knows how proud we are of all his hard work.

He is doing awesome in school. This year he has a male teacher, and Mr. A has been great. His special ed teacher is also male, and Ethan is really stepping up to take charge and be responsible for his work.
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Yesterday I hightailed it in to work early because Ethan’s school had a half day. I picked him up at 12:15 and then went home. I wasn’t planning on finishing up my work day until evening, after the kids are in bed, because often it’s too distracting to try to work with them around. I emptied the dishwasher while shouts of running and playing eminated from outside, but they had faded away by the time I was done. I had asked Ethan to stay in our courtyard, but he had wandered off, so after I got the dishwasher started, I put on my coat to check.

He was in the courtyard right behind ours doing just fine. In fact, he’s been doing just fine for a while now. Before christmas, I would definitely have been outside “hovering” just to make sure everything was going OK, to be present in case anything needed moderating. When friends are over at our house playing, I used to hover, for the same reasons. But it seems more and more that there is less and less of a need to “hover”.

If you’ve read any of the Ilg and Ames books on child development (I recommend them ALL, they are AWESOME), you know that they talk about the cyclical nature of developmental milestones, and how a child will go through cycles of equilibrium, and unequilibrium. The unequilibrium can be anything from your dextrous kid suddenly being a butterfingers or clumsy, which may happen before a new developmental milestone is achieved. It can be social as well. At the beginning of the year when we started having all these issues with Ethan I rushed out and bought the 6-year-old book, which helped me realize that 6 can be a tricky year, even if your kid is NOT having issues. The actual title of the book: “Your 6-year-old, Loving and Defiant.” Ha. Loving AND DEFIANT. It’s not just my kid! It can be a year where they test their boundaries and see what they can really get away with. It is a year where they really start to see themselves as separate from Mom and Dad, and the need to please Mom and Dad is nowhere near as strong as it was at Five.

When we met with the psychologist who gaves us the dreaded ADHD diagnosis, I couldn’t help thinking that even though we got the results of the test in early January, the test itself was administered in the THICK of the problems we were having, all the way back in early November. Thoughts I thunk and expressed at that meeting, “But he’s doing so much better now. Could he have just been having a bad day? Or a bad month?”

I think that it was naive of me to think of it as a bad day – we KNOW it wasn’t just a bad day, it was a bad 6 months! But now, we’re heading in to February and looking back at January, he really has made a marked improvement. He seems to have gained the ability to listen and change his attitude when asked (OK, when threatened! usually with loss of allowance!) We have had one bad incident where he would not listen and had to be put in his room, where he threw things, so I don’t want to discount that ugliness, but more and more, and especially after yesterday when he played with neighbor kids so well, I have to wonder, Was he just having a bad six months? A REALLY bad six months? Could we be reaching the end of the unequilibrium and heading into equilibrium? I also don’t want to discount the help that his Social Achiever’s class have given him. I have no idea if it’s helped, but hopefully it has.

I’m not saying that I’m just tossing the ADHD diagnosis out. But I do think the test itself is very subjective, and as things stand now, I am definitely in the “let’s wait and see” camp.

I must say it’s a pleasant place to be. Tomorrow we meet with the new psychiatrist, and I’ll be happy to tell her we’ve really been doing pretty well lately. And that hopefully we won’t need to see her much 🙂

-amy

Ethan had a pretty good spell at school right after his 2 week break for the holidays. He was very excited to get back to school, colored in 8 pieces of his space shuttle that first day and was “green” for the first two weeks (they get greens for good behaviour). But I think now, he’s pretty much back to “normal”. One good thing – normal seems to not include nearly as much hurting other people. There was always something going on, each week, kicking someone, punching someone, some sort of scuffle, and thankfully, it seems to have lessened quite a bit – he did do some pinching last week, but that has been it so far this year.

Just a general sort of round up on his behaviour: He has a few friends in our neighborhood that he will play with, but James and I feel the need to “hover” if they’re outside or even inside, to mediate any issues that come up or step in if things get rough. When he is over at their house(s), we worry the whole time. At school, he will roll around on the floor at times, if too close to his neighbors, he will get in their space and/or poke them – his desk is generally pulled away a bit for this reason. He will sometimes circle his desk around and around. Some sensory things we’ve noticed, he will also often chew on things, and will make a sort of whistling noise through his teeth. He loves to wear super soft clothing – he won’t wear jeans, and loves the pants that are made from sweatshirt-type material. He loves footsie jammies partly because he prefers to be on the warm side when he’s sleeping, but partly because every inch of his body is covered in softness.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think he’s stopped the chewing (or if not stopped, it’s lessened a great deal) as well as the whistling through his teeth.

He is very inventive and curious about all sorts of things. They were doing surveys and votes in class, and he decided to do one at home – he counted up all the smoke detectors and all the sprinklers and tallied them up with tally marks. He loves to tinker on James’ workbench – taking apart an old printer, or attaching components to an old mother board. He knows how to make a computer fan work by attaching the wire ends to a 9volt battery. We used to have him read us a book every night, but during the winter holidays he complained he was too tired at the end of the day, so we switched it to mornings, and we call it our snuggle reading time. He is growing more confident with reading, but still will sometimes just look at the beginning of a word and guess at the rest instead of seeing the whole word. He’s grown so tall that it’s hard to snuggle with him (and yet we still manage somehow!)

He is very sweet and compassionate, loves anything that is “cute” (puppies, kittens, wee little robots, the color pink) and lately the WALL*E obsession in our house has reached epic proportions. A number pad has been installed in front of the stairs where numbers are entered before walking up them. “Trash cubes” are made from anything handy (blankies and laundry mostly). Anything picked up is picked up with robotic WALL*E-ish movements, and whole conversations from the movie can be repeated verbatim. “Give me the plant! -Tell me Auto! That’s an ORDER! -Very well sir.” “HALT!” is also a common order given around our house, like the steward bots on the Axiom.

Well, I think that’s enough for now. We’ll see how it goes from here.

-amy

I haven’t updated on Ethan in quite some time (except for my cryptic twitters), and so it’s about time I did so.

He has been going to a weekly “Social Achievers” class at the counseling center for about 2 months now (big gaps for the holidays) and each time, they’ve said he has really struggled with it – giving attitude and fighting the redirecting they’ve done. The last few times have been better though, with less attitude and more cooperation.

In the meantime, he was tested by a psychologist in the same center for ADD/ADHD in mid-November, and before we received the results of that testing, the school asked us to come in for a child study. This was in early/mid December.

The child study went well. “Well” being defined as my ability to hold it together and not be too devastated by what was discussed! Also defined by the sensitivity and obvious compassion those involved displayed for my son. His teacher, the vice principal, the reading specialist and the school’s psychologist were present at the meeting, as well as James and I. We went over areas that he shows strength (science, math) and areas that he is weak on (reading) and his behaviour throughout everything. Even though he is struggling in reading, he loves nothing more than to sit with a book or be read aloud to.

His teacher and the reading specialist have worked out a system of rewards for good behaviour, when he is on task and staying focused he will get to color in part of a space shuttle. When he has colored a certain number of pieces he gets a bigger prize, such as lunch with his teacher, extra time in an activity he loves, lunch in the classroom with a fellow classmate, etc. His teacher also has been charting how often he is on task, with the goal that he stays on task 70% of the time. This means that she marks down how he is doing every ten minutes throughout the day. She also keeps James and I appraised of how his day went with an email home at the end of each day. I can’t tell you how blown away I am by the school, his teacher, and the administrative staff. I am so grateful that they have been so open and helpful and truly concerned about helping him be the best student he can be.

After discussing Ethan in great detail, they basically said that we can just continue as we have been, and have another meeting in the spring to see how he is doing, or we could start testing to see if there is more going on that we don’t know. We opted to start testing. They will test for a wide spectrum of items and hopefully it will give us a bigger picture and more insight into how we can help him.

In the meantime, right before the holidays I received a few voice mails from the psychologist who did his testing at the counseling center, and after playing phone tag, got a meeting set up to go over the results. We met with her last week, and she has diagnosed him with ADHD with a recommendation for a psychiatric consultation for medication.

I don’t know if it’s because of some of the possibilities that were tossed around in the school meeting (Asberger’s was one) that totally freaked me out and made ADHD a walk in the park by comparison, but I took this news very well, although it was exactly what I had been dreading. I am totally freaked out at the possibility of giving my SIX YEAR OLD a DAILY medication. (Totally. Completely. Did I mention I’m totally freaked out? LIke, WAY FREAKED OUT. A medication EVERY DAY. That will screw up WHO KNOWS WHAT as a side effect. Just want to be clear here! Me = FREAKED.)

From what I’ve read, ADHD can be a pretty subjective diagnosis. But I can’t avoid the fact that Ethan definitely has some problems that points pretty clearly to ADHD. I am not fighting this diagnosis, I just want to make sure that the help we give him will be the best for him, his health, and his physiological well being. I’ve talked to a few friends whose kids do use medication, and heard their stories. I’ve talked to my sister who has kids with ADHD and does not medicate. I am definitely more open to medication THAN I WAS before the holidays, but I honestly don’t feel the rush to make a decision RIGHT NOW.

However, what we are going to do RIGHT NOW, is get him in to see a psychiatrist. I’ve always felt like what we’re doing for him now is not right, or rather, not enough. I think he would benefit with one on one sessions, and I think James and I would benefit as well – part of the reason I don’t like what’s going on now is it gives James and I no feedback with how we should be doing things. When he acts impulsively or throws a tantrum, or comes home from school with a report of a bad day – are we handling it adequately? Is there something we could be doing better? I feel like we could use someone to help us with ideas on the homefront that we can employ in specific situations. I mentioned this once to the counselor who runs his class, and I think she thought I was playing a “But I’m such a BAD PARENT!” sympathy bit or something and told me I’m not a bad parent, I’m doing fine.

But I didn’t say I was a bad parent – and I don’t think we are bad parents. I don’t have to be a bad parent to want better parenting skills and skills to help Ethan cope better, not to mention, skills to help ME COPE BETTER. I think some one on one sessions well help Ethan, but also help us, and after a psychiatrist knows him and has worked with him a bit, I’ll be interested to see what their opinion on medication is.

So, once again, I’ve looked around for a new psychiatrist/clinic we can switch him too and once again I keep looking at this clinic that was recommended to us and moaning that they aren’t in our insurance. I called to get their self-pay rates, and even though we would be reinbursed 50% for out of network providers, AND we pushed our medical flexible spending account sky high for this year, it would be tough to say goodbye to that much money. The office staff person actually had one of the doctors call me back and after talking with her for a minute, she recommended some other psychiatrists in the area – one of which I had actually looked up after finding him on the insurance website’s network of providers. Relieved, I called this clinic and set up an appointment.

So right now, we’re kind of in a wait and see mode. Wait and see how it goes with the psychiatrist. Continue taking him to his social achiever’s class until we see the doctor. Wait and see what the school testing results looks like.

Since this is getting pretty long, I’m going to write more about Ethan himself tomorrow, lest I kill anyone with all these words!

-amy