The Calm Before the Storm

W

Wiggles77

Guest
Just had to comment about those periods of calm... you know, the ones... where everything is going along smoothly, but somewhere, in the back of your mind, you are bracing yourself for the next bout of thunder to hit.

Miss the days when I did not worry/fear so much... hmm...
 

TiredSoul

Warrior Mom since 2007
Ugggg, I hate that. You can feel it in the pit of your stomach. Hope your storm passes fairly uneventfully.
 

LittleDudesMom

Well-Known Member
Totally understand. When difficult child was younger, I used to describe myself as an "edger" - you know, always sitting on the edge of my seat in case I had to jump up and handle difficult child.

Now I've learned to take the calm for what it is - time to recharge....

Sharon
 
W

Wiggles77

Guest
all I can say is, I KNEW it! I knew something was brewing. My son has had 1 full month of excellent behavior with his new 1st grade teacher. School personnel all commented on how well he was doing, how much he grew over the summer, blah blah blah.

So when the phone rang at 5 pm today, I knew with a sinking feeling who it was. 1st grade teacher. Son had an awful day at school. Pushing, sptting, defiance, mean, mean words. Blah!!! She wants to meet tomorrow morning. Mentioned Aspergers... has he been tested? OF course he has! 2 times in his life, actually! "Results show no Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)."

Sad thing is, he was in a gosh darn friggin awful mood tonight. He used to calm down when I got him. But tonight, he was so angry at everything I did. Repeatedly told me how boring/stupid-headed his day was. I would hug him and he would calm down, but a few minutes later he would be at it again. Trying to pick a fight with me? I don't know. Took 30 minutes just to get to the table to do homework. Maybe just trying to show me how upset he was? But when I pleaded with him to tell me what was wrong, he would say "I am NOT telling". And would look away or hide.

The day had started off (according to teacher) with my son poking and then pushing down another child. Another child's father witnessed it and told teacher. SO all evening my son has been telling me this dad is a "stupid head mean old dad" and telling me that this man could not have seen him push... that what had really happened was that he bumped into the girl and she accidentally fell. Now normally I would think he was lying to me BUT he was SO angry at this man for "lieing" about him. Said he was going to put him into the garbage can because that is where he belongs because he is a liar. How could this man see one thing and my child have a completely different story about it? (I have already posted about this... recurring problem with my child.) I don't know who to believe.

So then there was yesterday where my son was apparently in tears all day because he missed me. Was just really sad. He is like a jekyll and hyde.

I just worry that now that his dr jekyll has appeared to this teacher that we are going to go downhill from here... we had done so well for 1 month!

This is so hard... don't know what to do. I work full time, am a single mom, and realistically do not have the strength, time, or money to take care of these problems.

Sorry to vent... again...
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
In our house, it's called "waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Does your son see a psychiatrist yet?

It's possible the events that led up to the "push" were not seen by the other parent and what happened was interpreted as a push -- and obviously as you said, the teacher got this second hand and did not witness it. I'd be skeptical of accepting another parent's interpretation because they often get it wrong with our difficult children. That happened a lot with my two difficult child's. There was usually some trigger that the adults around them were not attentive enough to catch, but invariably all they saw was my difficult child reacting to that trigger, and so therefore HE was the instigator. That's a very hard thing to cope with when you have a child that's got impulse control issues to start with. The fact that your son was so outraged by the accusation tells me that he really did not "push" the other student intentionally. Kids that young are rarely able to pull off a complex emotion like that if it's not real. It's important that he knows YOU believe him and that you will serve as his advocate in getting the story straight with the other adults involved. You're the only one in the situation with his best interest at heart.
 

Farmwife

Member
Nothing kills quiet time like the smell of reality in the air.

FWIW my son was a very convincing liar/actor at a very young age. He would emphatically deny things to the point of hysterics and us feeling guilty only to find out he was full of it afterall. In his case it is 50% percieving things from his side, one side of the story and 50% being somewhat pathalogical and having convinced himself it was turth.

It sounds like you are doing a lot of ducking, dodging and sweet talking your difficult child out of his moods. Different things work for different kids/diagnosis and he is a tender young age. In my case being too nice sometimes set me up for getting played and manipulated by my difficult child. There is such a fine line between advocating for and defending a difficult child or letting them get away with stuff because we are confused and tired or even worse feel guilty.

There isn't much you can accomplish without some sort of baseline diagnosis. I was very accurate at guessing my difficult child's issues to a degree. There was also a lot more lurking beneath the surface that I needed the neuropsychologist to unravel. It isn't just about getting a "label" because that in and of itself accomplishes very little. It's about having a clear path to follow, distinct steps and strategies to take and a place to start from. In our case, aside from actual diagnosis we discovered some learning disabilities. My son is a very bright boy and can get good grades but something just wans't clicking. I struggled for 3 years over the possibility that he was either 1. Smart but lazy and needed a real rear kicking -or- 2. Had legitimate learning troubles. I didn't want to get angry over things he really struggled with but on the other hand didn't want to let him get away with a lack of effort either because he was already a "problem" and a manipulator. Since learning has very little to do with his actual mood disorder it was easily overlooked...just that morsel of info. set the stage for a lot of progress and piece of mind on my part.

I knew there was "something" going on since he was very very young, younger than your difficult child in fact. I spent several years back and forth with his school asking for help, testing and misc. We made tons of appointments here and there over the years looking for answers. They ruled out adhd and sent us packing as if he were fine. Took almost a decade for a professional to determine what I had seen all along. It took him getting worse and then getting that neuropsychologist. Knowing what I know now I would have taken on extra jobs and eaten ramen for as long as it took to pay for one. I never knew there was such thing as a neuropsychologist, no one ever thought to steer me in that direction.

Makes me wonder how much better off he would be if we had answers at 6 instead of almost 16.

by the way a diagnosis will help set the stage to get help from the school so you don't have to do this alone.
 
Last edited:
Top