2nd Social Worker Vist

[amy1129]

Hi all....
Had my second appointment with my sons social worker, husband couldnt make this appointment so it was just me. We are going forward with neuropsychologist assesment, i called a few names she gave me, either had to leave a message or waiting list is 4 months out.
She asked is he had any allergies and I said technically I think he does. When he was a little under 2 years old, he was very asthmatic and getting pneomonia and rsv alot so they sent him for a back scratch allergy test. it took 2 days cause a 1 1/2 year olds back isnt that big. End of testing, they told me he was allergic to pretty much anything and everything. Gave me this form of stuff he needed, big $$, air purifiers, epi pens, 2 for each place he goes, sheets, laundry det, soap, tooth paste. By the end of it all my total was around 2k. Thats not including the 2 times a week they wanted me to bring him in for allergy shots. So we set everything up, used everything etc and no change after about 9 months I was furious so I sold everything on ebay that was sellable to help pay the credit card off and he was fine symptom wise, I started thinking this allergy test place was a scam.
Back to social worker. She kinda went...."hhmmm" asked if I wanted to get him tested again and to call pedi to get report. Called pedi and they were like....whoa he allerigic to all this food? I said technically I guess but I never changed his diet. Explained to them what I was looking for and she said, yeah definately get him tested again just to see if the last tests were right. So we have an appointment next tuesday to be retested.
The social worker wanted me to stop reacting to his behavior and address his emotion. Meaning that he is angry at everything, he might really be scared, overwhelmed, nervous etc. Makes sense, so I tried last night and it backfired. She also said to try not to get into detail with him of why he cant do that and such....that backfired also. We spent about an hour on his floor in the dark of just talking and crying. I got nowhere with him, but I did get him to calm down and talk for bit, he ended it with I hate you and I wish you werent my mom followed by throwing his pillow at me. So maybe it wasnt such a breakthrough. I am so exhausted of trying these different techniques she suggests. I just hope we can get a quick apt for neuro and get moving on treating him and us.

Fingers crossed for allergy test, I would absolutely love if it he is allergic to a ton of stuff he eats daily. Well, maybe not love it, but I would love to have a name to this beast I call my son.

Amy

 

[SRL]

The social worker wanted me to stop reacting to his behavior and address his emotion. Meaning that he is angry at everything, he might really be scared, overwhelmed, nervous etc. Makes sense, so I tried last night and it backfired. She also said to try not to get into detail with him of why he cant do that and such....that backfired also. We spent about an hour on his floor in the dark of just talking and crying. I got nowhere with him, but I did get him to calm down and talk for bit, he ended it with I hate you and I wish you werent my mom followed by throwing his pillow at me. So maybe it wasnt such a breakthrough. I am so exhausted of trying these different techniques she suggests. I just hope we can get a quick apt for neuro and get moving on treating him and us.

Fingers crossed for allergy test, I would absolutely love if it he is allergic to a ton of stuff he eats daily. Well, maybe not love it, but I would love to have a name to this beast I call my son.

Amy

This is where getting additional testing should be helpful, because it can help you to know which direction to look for help.

Don't give up when something backfires on the first try. Sometimes very minor wording differences on your side can make huge differences.

 

[seriously]

An hour is a long time for a 7 year old. I think 10 or 15 minutes max is how much you should be trying to "talk" about his feelings. And I would not expect him to be able to tell you how he's feeling in adult words. He's not an adult and he can't process things that way no matter how hard he tries. You could get one of those charts that has icons for different feelings - happy face for happy etc - and see if he can use that to help identify what he's feeling. But you need to keep it shorter than that and not make a laborious painful experience or he will begin completely refusing to engage that way and you don't want him to learn to do that already. He needs to see you as his ally - not his inquisitor.

You might try (I know, one more thing to try) having him draw a picture for you of how he feels. I found this worked much better with my kids than talking - turns out they both had language processing problems that I didn't know about. If he feels like telling you a story or something about the picture, great. If not, just say thanks can I keep this? and go on about your business.

Not sure what you mean by backfired when you say you tried various things. But a lot of the time you have to try something consistently in every setting (at home, at park, at church, at store) for at least 3 weeks before you can say that it's not working. And both parents have to be doing it in pretty much the same way for the same reasons/behaviors. Tell us more about what "backfired" and maybe we can help you figure it out. But giving up after one attempt is not enough to say that that idea isn't going to work at all.

Peace.