Anxious, Curious and Happy

AllStressedOut

New Member
I know the boys just went last week, but I am so anxious to hear what this new doctor says. Especially after the jumping jacks episode. I spent some time with a friend this weekend who used to be an Asst. PE Coach at difficult children school. She said youngest difficult child has had a meltdown like this in PE class before. Why didn't anyone tell me this? She said another Asst. called me, but he never told me how bad it was or described his behavior to me. He just said he refused to do the warmups so he made difficult child sit out from the game.

Tonight we were playing a new card game. Basically you need to know what a book and a run is. A book is 3 of a kind and a run is 4 in a row of the same suit. Before playing I went over this with youngest difficult child. He understood it, he told me what each meant. You play with several decks of cards at a time, so there are all different colored decks in your hand. We were playing for a bit and I noticed he kept wanting cards that didn't help his hand. (he shows you his hand regularly) Then when I really started watching, I noticed he wasn't sorting cards by what the card was (4,5,6 or 3,3,3) but by the type of deck it was. So he had a pile from the dark red deck, a pile from the light blue deck, a pile from the plastic deck, a pile of pink cards and so on. When I asked him how to play, he knew exactly how to play, he just preferred to sort cards then play.

Maybe I'm noticing too much, but he does this with his cars too. Lines them up according to size and color and so on. He gets very upset if you rearrange them too or take one out. Same with cards tonight.

Oldest difficult child and I started something new on the schedule today too. I want him to work on his personal skills, so today we started with listening. I started talking to him and then I asked him a question, then he started talking and so on. Then in the last 5 minutes of his parent time I asked him how the conversation started, then how it progressed and also what did we both learn today. He did great. He didn't interupt, although I purposely interupted him a few times (I pointed it out later) and he was able to tell me about the entire conversation and what we both learned. It was nice too because we got to tell eachother about things we enjoy doing and what he wants to do as he gets older and how it works and so on. It was one of the best conversations we've had in months. I was so thrilled!

I wish this new neuropysch would call with something soon. I'd really like to talk about what he noticed with my difficult children. School is quickly approaching and I so want them to be on the right path this year.
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
This is my second time trying to respond-my computer froze right after I hit the submit button before!

I can understand you being anxious to get the report. Did he give you any indication when he would have it ready? As for difficult child and the card playing, I remember when my difficult child was younger he did stuff like that-made patterns all the time-not so much during playing a game and doesn't do it anymore. Very cool about older difficult child and the listening exercise!!
 

AllStressedOut

New Member
He said it takes about a week.

Youngest difficult child would play correctly if it was books in the hand we needed, but when it was runs, he preferred to put decks together by type than play correctly. Even when it was books he still put cards together by deck type and not by card type, he just played his cards correctly when the time came.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
About card games.... All I can say is you never want to play Uno with Travis. He always held the Draw Four wild cards so he could slam them on you once he had a handfull. Didn't seem to matter that he never got the chance to pull it off. Someone always managed to go out before he had the chance, so he was stuck with a handful of high point cards. :rolleyes: (sometimes I think he just liked the way the cards looked)

Hope you don't have to wait long for the results. It would be nice for the difficult children to start the school year on the right path. Once you get the results, ask for an IEP meeting for any new dxes. Our sd always tried to put me off til the next school year. Never worked, but they tried. lol

Hugs
 

AllStressedOut

New Member
I was thinking about this alot the other day and thought maybe I should try to do things with the boys that drive everyone nuts. My thinking is if its something they aren't doing right, the only way to learn is to practice doing it. husband hates this train of thought, but how else are my difficult children going to learn?
 

Steely

Active Member
I will be keeping my fingers crossed that you get the results soon! Let us know as soon as you do. And I am SO glad you had such a good conversation with your older difficult child.....that is wonderful!!!!!!!!

Your younger one sounds as if he certainly wants to beat to his own drummer. He doesn't care how YOU guys are playing, he wants to play it HIS was.......really kinda cute & funny if you think about it. At least at this age.

What do you mean do activities that drive everyone nuts? Things that drive you nuts, or them?
 

AllStressedOut

New Member
I mean like activities that we all do as a family, but my difficult children don't do the way the rest of us do. So its drives us nuts to do, but it teaches them how to do it correctly. Does that make sense?
 

AllStressedOut

New Member
Okay, now that I'm off the schedule for just a few minutes why husband takes over, let me elaborate. Like I mentioned in the first post, youngest difficult child tends to beat to his own drum in cards. So even though playing cards with him is extremely frustrating to the rest of us, I think the only way he'll learn is if I continue to play with him and teach him the correct way. So today we played a modified form of gin. Instead of being able to accrue runs and books, he was only allowed to collect runs. Since in our game lastnight books weren't a problem, I wanted to see if he could collect runs correctly. So we played gin during his parent time today. He didn't ever win, but he was collecting cards in the same suit. We are still working on getting them to be cards in a row though, but I think hes figuring it out. With my oldest difficult child holding a conversation can be extremely frustrating, especially for kids his age. He doesn't have any friends. So what I'm trying to do with him during his parent time is hold a conversation and then in our last 5 minutes, have him recall the conversation from beginning to middle to end. He had a harder time doing it today than yesterday, but our conversation was more complex today. He did finally get it after about 15 minutes or so though. My goal is to work with the boys on things they have difficulties in. I may eventually tackle warmup type exercises with my youngest difficult child, but for now I'm steering clear of those. He had such a meltdown the other day I want to think on this for a bit and try to figure out the least threatening way to attempt them again.
 

Steely

Active Member
Got it now.......I understand what you are saying! :laugh:

It totally makes sense! I love the conversations and basic skill building you are doing with your oldest with conversations, and I think this type of thing every day is invaluable. To me, it sounds like you are training his brain to function on a higher level.

With the smaller one, I guess it just depends on what type of reaction playing cards by the rule invokes in him. This is where I do rely on Ross Greene's basket theory - if he is going to meltdown over not being able to play cards his own way, then I would say, whatever at this point. There will be lots of teaching time in his life - and if he wants to be creative and play his own games in his own little world, I think for now that is OK. My son, when he was that age was exactly the same way as your little difficult child - and what resulted was us taking turns in the rules to the games. Sometimes we would play his way, other times, my way. My difficult child is VERY creative...which it sounds like yours is too....and I never wanted to stifle his creativity for the sake of rules. in my opinion there had to be a compromise. Sometimes he made up rules that were brilliant, and better than the game - other times I was rolling my eyes - but regardless it was a happy medium between the 2 universes of out of control creativity and rigid reality.

I believe, that most of our difficult children are so brilliant in their own way - and I think it is so important to not only foster their creativity in this world that does not always appreciate it - but also to help them learn and implement limits and rules within their lives. It sounds like you are doing a great job of both.
 

AllStressedOut

New Member
The two things we're working on now with oldest & youngest difficult child don't invoke any meltdowns. Thats why I'm stearing clear of the jumping jacks or warmups, because it did cause a meltdown and I don't want that. I figured with the card playing, if its something he just isn't clear on, that it would help to keep playing. Then maybe eventually he'll get clear on it. I want him to be included on family time each time, but the older kids get bored of UNO, so I was trying a new game. He did fine with books (3 of a kind), but not great on runs (4 in a row of the same suit). I wanted to try and work with him on those parts during his parent time. This way he still takes part in family time without frustrating everyone else who is playing. He enjoys playing even if he isn't playing correctly, so I figured if I played gin with him during his parent time, he would be ready and able to play the correct way later as a family and hopefully avoid frustration among the other kids and husband.

When we play connect 4, both with youngest difficult child and youngest easy child, we play their rules. My youngest difficult child knows the rules, but would prefer to make patterns with the red and black pieces. It gets boring to me after a bit, but I go along for the ride. Patterns is an important part of math at youngest difficult children age so I figure it is doing him good to practice.

I agree about nurturing their imagination. I tend to do that a little too much at times to where both my youngest 2 kids can tell a great story. If you didn't know my family you'd swear they were telling the truth. My daughter will tell you all about her sister Kayla and grandparents KayRay and KayLee. Her pre-school teacher asked a friend of mine if she had a sister and my friend cleared it all up. But these 3 people are people she speaks of regularly who do all sorts of naughty fun things. Sounds like people I would enjoy spending some time with!
 
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