Tiapet
Old Hand
I try not to post too much "down" stuff or things that are going on around here. I'd rather stick to the things I can post in watercooler or being supportive but there is just a tad too much going on lately with this household. For this post's purpose it's the 2 younger difficult child's.
First it's ms. queen. Where the heck to begin with her? It's like the Tasmanian devil's tornado's wake where everything gets all caught up in the billowy mess of the wind. So much is always going on from day to day with her. I'll start with school. She's failing SPED math! How the heck do you fail a small, specialized math class where your work load is very small and if you even mess up on the problems you're given the opportunity to keep fixing them until you get it right? Well, easy. You just DON'T DO THE WORK at all! Yup, that's exactly what's she's doing. I know that math is and has always been her worst subject but in this case the work is far below the normal type they are expected to do in a regular classroom. I mean the level of the subject material. We're not sure exactly what her deficits are and she has been tested over and over again. She does struggle with short term memory and concept for problem solving (which crosses borders all through out everyday life). Other then that we just can't figure out what it is she can't grasp to actually DO the math. In previous years we had identified she couldn't make change out of money (not sure if that still holds true with all types of denominations), she still can't quite tell time unless it's a digital clock. If it's the old style with numbers and round and you say to her "twenty of twelve" she doesn't get it, she "might" get it if you say "quarter to an hour." Things like this. Her best subject was and has always been reading/vocabulary but she's not doing well in that either suddenly. No, she's at times not doing the work but at other times her grades are really low.
She wants to go to school everyday for the social outlet as she IS a social butterfly and always has been but at the same time she doesn't get social ques at all and has had problems with kids making fun of her and bullying both in school and on the bus. We have dealt with it with the principal and guidance but of course they are not "really" helpful over all. Problem also lies in that she instigates or reciprocates it because....."she doesn't get it" as in she doesn't always understand what she is doing. Other times she has just had enough and won't sit there and take it anymore (I can't say as I blame her as it's gone on for so many years). She has NO interest in graduating and doesn't care if she does. Unfortunately THIS is not new and really has nothing to do with the above situation either. It's long standing. Again, she doesn't grasp the concept of how graduating effects the rest of your life! Oh and add in her defiance in having boyfriends at school (she is in no way ready in any shape to handle a relationship). She keeps serial dating one right after another (often right in same day of getting dumped). They say bad stuff about her, talk about how she "acts". The latest one dummped her on Valentines Day by presenting her with a dead rose in school, telling her that's what he thinks or her! I hurt FOR her and of course it effected her badly but she didn't even understand what it meant!
Every day she has some kind of ailment going on with her. Real or imagined. Sometimes it's had to do with medications. Whether it's been a reaction to a new medication (most often) or as in the last several days, she developed reactions to just refusing to take her Trazadone because she felt she didn't need to take it because she was "too tired" anyway and didn't need it to help her sleep. Well you can't just STOP taking that medication, especially at her level. You have to titrate down or you start having all kinds of strange things happening to her (and thereby kids notice and have much to say). I can't FORCE the pill down her throat and I'm not suppose to. Oh, and a couple nights ago she woke us up at 130a screaming in pain, literally. Normally I would dismiss it because she is high drama with her hypochondria but this time I instinctively felt it to be real. I get up get dressed (a really big feat in itself for me) and off to the ER we go. Of course once there she pulls her usually stand against the wall and REFUSE to let anyone touch her or get treatment. It took 30 minutes of cajoling, begging and explaining, etc to her of what "could" happen if she doesn't allow someone to check her out to be treated (we suspected at that time appendicitis). Thankfully it turned out just to be a case of really bad gas and a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI).
The school is repeatedly trying to toss her into an emotionally disturbed school which I and her case worker have discussed at great length long before they even started throwing the idea out. For her this would be a big mistake and disastrous as she really doesn't fit the profile/criteria of it. She is very much a copy cat of behaviors. For example her cutting. She started that and only did that because some others did (her sister and 2 other girls at school). She did it superficially and ONLY to GAIN attention from it. Cutters do NOT go around SHOWING their cuts. They keep it hidden. She blatantly was going around showing hers off and trying to gain sympathy from people for doing it. Once she didn't get it, she immediately stopped! Think of any negative behavior and pretty much this is what she's done and if not will do (smoking pot, etc...). We do not need to place her in a situation were there are all kinds of NEW things for her to learn with her behaviors to try out and use. Secondly, she does not talk (as in like therapy) so nothing will be gained from it either. It would be a complete waste of time. We also talked about putting her in a partial program. Much the same in that she has to be a participant and talk, she won't! So now the school is switching tactics and "setting" her up per say in many ways to push her there. One of the things they recently did (and on 1 level they have done this before) is write her up for going to her bus early. She had been granted this permission from the freshman Vice principal earlier in the school year due to all the bullying on the bus. Now all of a sudden they asked me who gave her permission. At the time they asked me I didn't know. They had to check into it. I told them ask the principal. I'm assuming they did that and he said he didn't so she got written up? Not quite sure how it all played out other then she came home mad/upset and I asked her who gave the permission and if she spoke up about it and she said she did! Guess he is now going back on giving his word?!
We finally got her MRI done of her brain but it show nothing. Of course it was just a basic non contrast MRI and not the specialize neuro metric mapping one someone on here suggested either. I was told they don't have that available around here. She's had a sleep deprived EEG too. Nothing. Now the Neurologist is talking of doing a long term EEG over the summer since she's been dizzy, her balance is off, she stares off into space and is "out of it" often and....get this (this is a new one on me) her hallucinations of seeing cats can actually be a manifestation of seizures! I had never heard that one before. She is also very frequently smelling smells that no one else is smelling. I mean like several times a day and often within minutes of the last smell. It drives us crazy sometimes the way she carries on about some smell because there is no smell like what she is complaining about.
I feel badly for her because she's almost 16 and on some level has the mind/feelings of one that age but her behaviors and everything else is nearly that of someone who is between 3-maybe 10 if we are lucky, depending on what area and specifically what we are talking about. That's her functioning and cognitively she just doesn't get much of anything. It's really, really strange. Oh and let's not forget about her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)! OMGosh! Between her control issues added into the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which manifests in her thoughts as well.....ey yi yi ya! This difficult child is a complex mess....
So if that's not enough, I have mr. busy. He's failing all his core classes. There is just NO reason for him doing so. This kid is more then capable of A's, B's. If not all a's and probably could even do advanced work in some sujects, notably social studies based on his state testing scores. He has no interest in school, at least THIS particular school. He wants to go to STEm next year but you have to be chosen (no criteria). He does have bullying issues too but nothing like other difficult child and he just tends to internalize and bring home rather quietly for the most part and we can actually work with the VP of his school and get things worked out...WHEN he actually tells us there is a problem! Some of the other consistent issues we keep having with him is the stealing of the girls bras. He just won't quit and will blatant deny he's doing it (no reason still for doing it ever given) even when we prove to him their in his room! He constantly is yelling instead of talking at all times. Often flies into a rage on a drop of a hat. No reasons. The newest issue is that he keeps circumventing the parental controls on his cell phone.
Now he's not doing anything particularly bad when he turns off the controls. He does it to download and install GTA game (grand theft auto) which he's not allowed due to content (maybe I'm wrong for not allwowing it but he's just 14). He keeps finding ways around it. It's at the point now that we actually just give him the phone back as he TELLS us HOW he's doing it, to which we feed back to the program inventors so they can fix the program to make it more secure. We as adults don't think like children and sure, we could take the phone and try all kinds of things but...we don't think like them so it's kind of like win win situation....we're helping them learn how to secure it for everyone else and our difficult child and he doesn't even realize it as his only goal is to get the phone back! lol So....while it's not ideal that he's "getting away" with doing wrong in what he's doing repeatedly by trying to keep getting this game, we're also learning how to prevent him in the long run of ever doing it again! (and other families for other things).
That's about it in a nutshell. It's more then enough. Though it's not the ONLY things going on in our little world here, it's what I'm dealing with with the difficult children on TOP of older difficult child's issues and the cancer situation with step father and my mom and what they are going through.
Vent over......
First it's ms. queen. Where the heck to begin with her? It's like the Tasmanian devil's tornado's wake where everything gets all caught up in the billowy mess of the wind. So much is always going on from day to day with her. I'll start with school. She's failing SPED math! How the heck do you fail a small, specialized math class where your work load is very small and if you even mess up on the problems you're given the opportunity to keep fixing them until you get it right? Well, easy. You just DON'T DO THE WORK at all! Yup, that's exactly what's she's doing. I know that math is and has always been her worst subject but in this case the work is far below the normal type they are expected to do in a regular classroom. I mean the level of the subject material. We're not sure exactly what her deficits are and she has been tested over and over again. She does struggle with short term memory and concept for problem solving (which crosses borders all through out everyday life). Other then that we just can't figure out what it is she can't grasp to actually DO the math. In previous years we had identified she couldn't make change out of money (not sure if that still holds true with all types of denominations), she still can't quite tell time unless it's a digital clock. If it's the old style with numbers and round and you say to her "twenty of twelve" she doesn't get it, she "might" get it if you say "quarter to an hour." Things like this. Her best subject was and has always been reading/vocabulary but she's not doing well in that either suddenly. No, she's at times not doing the work but at other times her grades are really low.
She wants to go to school everyday for the social outlet as she IS a social butterfly and always has been but at the same time she doesn't get social ques at all and has had problems with kids making fun of her and bullying both in school and on the bus. We have dealt with it with the principal and guidance but of course they are not "really" helpful over all. Problem also lies in that she instigates or reciprocates it because....."she doesn't get it" as in she doesn't always understand what she is doing. Other times she has just had enough and won't sit there and take it anymore (I can't say as I blame her as it's gone on for so many years). She has NO interest in graduating and doesn't care if she does. Unfortunately THIS is not new and really has nothing to do with the above situation either. It's long standing. Again, she doesn't grasp the concept of how graduating effects the rest of your life! Oh and add in her defiance in having boyfriends at school (she is in no way ready in any shape to handle a relationship). She keeps serial dating one right after another (often right in same day of getting dumped). They say bad stuff about her, talk about how she "acts". The latest one dummped her on Valentines Day by presenting her with a dead rose in school, telling her that's what he thinks or her! I hurt FOR her and of course it effected her badly but she didn't even understand what it meant!
Every day she has some kind of ailment going on with her. Real or imagined. Sometimes it's had to do with medications. Whether it's been a reaction to a new medication (most often) or as in the last several days, she developed reactions to just refusing to take her Trazadone because she felt she didn't need to take it because she was "too tired" anyway and didn't need it to help her sleep. Well you can't just STOP taking that medication, especially at her level. You have to titrate down or you start having all kinds of strange things happening to her (and thereby kids notice and have much to say). I can't FORCE the pill down her throat and I'm not suppose to. Oh, and a couple nights ago she woke us up at 130a screaming in pain, literally. Normally I would dismiss it because she is high drama with her hypochondria but this time I instinctively felt it to be real. I get up get dressed (a really big feat in itself for me) and off to the ER we go. Of course once there she pulls her usually stand against the wall and REFUSE to let anyone touch her or get treatment. It took 30 minutes of cajoling, begging and explaining, etc to her of what "could" happen if she doesn't allow someone to check her out to be treated (we suspected at that time appendicitis). Thankfully it turned out just to be a case of really bad gas and a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI).
The school is repeatedly trying to toss her into an emotionally disturbed school which I and her case worker have discussed at great length long before they even started throwing the idea out. For her this would be a big mistake and disastrous as she really doesn't fit the profile/criteria of it. She is very much a copy cat of behaviors. For example her cutting. She started that and only did that because some others did (her sister and 2 other girls at school). She did it superficially and ONLY to GAIN attention from it. Cutters do NOT go around SHOWING their cuts. They keep it hidden. She blatantly was going around showing hers off and trying to gain sympathy from people for doing it. Once she didn't get it, she immediately stopped! Think of any negative behavior and pretty much this is what she's done and if not will do (smoking pot, etc...). We do not need to place her in a situation were there are all kinds of NEW things for her to learn with her behaviors to try out and use. Secondly, she does not talk (as in like therapy) so nothing will be gained from it either. It would be a complete waste of time. We also talked about putting her in a partial program. Much the same in that she has to be a participant and talk, she won't! So now the school is switching tactics and "setting" her up per say in many ways to push her there. One of the things they recently did (and on 1 level they have done this before) is write her up for going to her bus early. She had been granted this permission from the freshman Vice principal earlier in the school year due to all the bullying on the bus. Now all of a sudden they asked me who gave her permission. At the time they asked me I didn't know. They had to check into it. I told them ask the principal. I'm assuming they did that and he said he didn't so she got written up? Not quite sure how it all played out other then she came home mad/upset and I asked her who gave the permission and if she spoke up about it and she said she did! Guess he is now going back on giving his word?!
We finally got her MRI done of her brain but it show nothing. Of course it was just a basic non contrast MRI and not the specialize neuro metric mapping one someone on here suggested either. I was told they don't have that available around here. She's had a sleep deprived EEG too. Nothing. Now the Neurologist is talking of doing a long term EEG over the summer since she's been dizzy, her balance is off, she stares off into space and is "out of it" often and....get this (this is a new one on me) her hallucinations of seeing cats can actually be a manifestation of seizures! I had never heard that one before. She is also very frequently smelling smells that no one else is smelling. I mean like several times a day and often within minutes of the last smell. It drives us crazy sometimes the way she carries on about some smell because there is no smell like what she is complaining about.
I feel badly for her because she's almost 16 and on some level has the mind/feelings of one that age but her behaviors and everything else is nearly that of someone who is between 3-maybe 10 if we are lucky, depending on what area and specifically what we are talking about. That's her functioning and cognitively she just doesn't get much of anything. It's really, really strange. Oh and let's not forget about her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)! OMGosh! Between her control issues added into the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which manifests in her thoughts as well.....ey yi yi ya! This difficult child is a complex mess....
So if that's not enough, I have mr. busy. He's failing all his core classes. There is just NO reason for him doing so. This kid is more then capable of A's, B's. If not all a's and probably could even do advanced work in some sujects, notably social studies based on his state testing scores. He has no interest in school, at least THIS particular school. He wants to go to STEm next year but you have to be chosen (no criteria). He does have bullying issues too but nothing like other difficult child and he just tends to internalize and bring home rather quietly for the most part and we can actually work with the VP of his school and get things worked out...WHEN he actually tells us there is a problem! Some of the other consistent issues we keep having with him is the stealing of the girls bras. He just won't quit and will blatant deny he's doing it (no reason still for doing it ever given) even when we prove to him their in his room! He constantly is yelling instead of talking at all times. Often flies into a rage on a drop of a hat. No reasons. The newest issue is that he keeps circumventing the parental controls on his cell phone.
Now he's not doing anything particularly bad when he turns off the controls. He does it to download and install GTA game (grand theft auto) which he's not allowed due to content (maybe I'm wrong for not allwowing it but he's just 14). He keeps finding ways around it. It's at the point now that we actually just give him the phone back as he TELLS us HOW he's doing it, to which we feed back to the program inventors so they can fix the program to make it more secure. We as adults don't think like children and sure, we could take the phone and try all kinds of things but...we don't think like them so it's kind of like win win situation....we're helping them learn how to secure it for everyone else and our difficult child and he doesn't even realize it as his only goal is to get the phone back! lol So....while it's not ideal that he's "getting away" with doing wrong in what he's doing repeatedly by trying to keep getting this game, we're also learning how to prevent him in the long run of ever doing it again! (and other families for other things).
That's about it in a nutshell. It's more then enough. Though it's not the ONLY things going on in our little world here, it's what I'm dealing with with the difficult children on TOP of older difficult child's issues and the cancer situation with step father and my mom and what they are going through.
Vent over......