One more thing - sleeping after tantrums?

[Shari]

In-home behavior therapist met with the school staff yesterday.
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One of the teachers said something that kinda...irked...me, simply cause no one had said anything before.
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Apparently, after difficult child has his major tantrums at school, he frequently will go to sleep for a while, and when he wakes back up, he's fine.
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The teacher says he "sleeps and puts himsef back together and wakes up in the right place".
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He's a kid on medications for a seizure disorder. I think this would have been important info to share before now.
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Does it ring any other bells for anyone?

 

[flutterbee]

My daughter doesn't have a seizure disorder, but this was frequently how it went with her, too. She had a meltdown or a rage, then she'd fall asleep.

I think in some instances the meltdown/rage was brought on because she was tired. And other times, I think that the meltdown/rage just exhausted her. It uses a lot of energy.

 

[smallworld]

Sara PA would say that sleeping after a rage might indicate seizure activity. I think you should bring this information to the attention of your difficult child's neuro.

 

[TerryJ2]

It's really hard to say, especially since he's already got a seizure disorder. You know, once you've had cancer, every little sneeze warrants a blood test.
on the other hand, tantrums and crying wear out a person so it can be normal to sleep afterward.
I am glad they finally told you, so you can keep an eye on it.

 

[jal]

My difficult child will sleep after a particularly bad rage. Never happened during school, but at daycare, at home and last night at psychiatric hospital. He is not epileptic either.

 

[susiestar]

Wiz didn't do this. Some years I don't think he slept at all.

I would be totally p9$$ed off if this was teh case all last year. Not so much if it is new. I do think that many people want to believe we are making excuses when we say that things like this are "making excuses" for our kids.

I am NOT saying you are making excuses for wee difficult child. I think it very well could be seizure activity. I was trying to point out why some teachers might not tell you - it isn't a valid reason, but it may be the teacher's bad reasoning. It also may be that wee difficult child was so much easier to handle while asleep that they didn't want to take a chance on him not falling asleep after a rage.

I hope htat the neuro can figure out if it is seizure activity or not fairly easily.

in my opinion, ANYTIME a kid sleeps in school the parent(s) need to be told.

 

[BestICan]

Well, obviously it's different for every kid, but my difficult child often fell asleep after seizures. For my difficult child, falling asleep did not set things right, but rather he would spend the next several hours EXTREMELY wound up.

I guess I'd be inclined to ask for an EEG - maybe they'll agree to take you in right after one of these tantrum + sleep episodes.

 

[gcvmom]

What I understand about the body when we we are raging is that there is a huge amount of cortisol being released as part of the "flight or fight" response. This causes our liver to dump glucose/glycogen into the bloodstream so that our muscles have quick acess to energy. Once the glucose has been used up, we crash. Think of it as the intense sugar high of a candy bar that eventually leaves us feeling depeleted and worse than before we ate it. Maybe that's why he's sleeping? But then, I'm not a doctor

 

[Andy]

Your neurologist will ask frequency questions. Ask the school for a report showing dates and times this happened. Guess I wouldn't be surprised if they did not document, but I think they should.

Compare it to your calendar to see if there are any correlations to days of the week (always on a Monday or Friday?) or large events in his life (birthday parties, family get togethers). May not make any difference but if there is a pattern, it may help in addressing the issue.

If the school does not have this info, than ask that they document anything like it this year for your neurologist visits.

How often do you have contact with the teacher? Do you e-mail? I would ask that an e-mailed report of the day's behavior is sent to you daily including details of events leading up to, meltdowns, sleeping after, behavior after.

You may have to get an order from the neurologist for this information to be given to you daily if they will not grant your request. I would think schools have to follow doctor's orders.

 

[Sara PA]

Yep, that would be a red flag for partial seizure activity for me. In fact, it was the way my son fell asleep after an "episode" (as I called them) when he was a toddler that reminded me of how I fell asleep after a seizure that first got me think he was having "some sort of weird seizure activity".

By the time he was in his late teens he no longer actually fell asleep but I could tell by his focus and demeaner that his brain was coming out of it (for want of a better term).

In all fairness to the teacher, I doubt many people who haven't dealt with it know about that sleepy phase that many people experience after seizure activity. Just the fact that she verbalized it as "puts himself back together" is an indication she sees his behavior as something within his control and not abnormal brain activity.

 

[Wishing4Sanity]

You know, after reading this, I think I might need to talk to my son's doctor about this too. My son does the same type of thing after his meltdowns, althought he does not sleep, but he gets really calm and could fall asleep.

I am sorry this is going on with your son. I hope that you can figure out what is going on.