Arrrgh! (Pirate-speak for "difficult child 1 is shutting down again!")

gcvmom

Here we go again!
I don't know if it's because his medical procedure is coming up on Friday, or if something else is going on, but difficult child 1 is behaving as if his medications are not working the past few days.

Yesterday, his patch fizzled out by 3pm or so and I could not get him to do much on his assignments after his teacher left around noon. He ate lunch and then fiddled around for a few hours despite my nagging for him to get back to work.

Finally at 5pm I gave him 2 Focalin (the usual "booster" we are told to try when he needs to squeeze a few more hours of attention out of the day). At 7pm, it still wasn't helping much so I gave him another 10mg, which puts him at the same equivalent that his Daytrana patch is. That seemed to finally help. But prior to that he was being a complete screwball -- if I didn't know better I'd have described him as hypomanic. He says he was just having "fun." And while that's fine if you don't have anything else better to do, it's not ok when you have an assignment that's already late and you're starting to annoy everyone around you.

This morning, he's had all his medications and I still can't get him to finish this essay. He's about a page short, so I sat down with his draft and started going through it to find areas where he could add detail, asking him questions to help him come up with the answer or solution on his own. Instead, he has shut down and is refusing to do any more, saying that he hates writing, it's boring and he doesn't want to do it.

My mom says it's probably his anxiety about Friday. Now I'm starting to worry about his cooperation that day, and I'm hoping it doesn't get ugly when it's time to go.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
Anxiety pushes adrenaline up, and that speeds up metabolism.

With the assignment, re-do the plan as a mind map with him. Grab a sheet of paper, write down either the topic, or a key word, and brainstorm from there. You write ideas or connected concepts down on te page somewhere, ten you join tem up according to how they connect. He ten uses this as well, as a 'map' to write his essay.

Often these kids can't hold consecutive thoughts in their heads, and you need to be able to, in order to write anything. So this way, the paper has the consecutive thoughts and not the head.

Marg
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
That's a good idea, Marg.

difficult child 2's lang arts teacher gave him a graphic organizer/outline to help him map out an essay this week. I've copied it to my computer and will keep one of these handy for difficult child 1 as well for the next time he locks up like this.

He eventually got the work done. The tutor cancelled on us yesterday so that gave him an unpressured day to work on a lot of things. He's got a bit more to do over the weekend, providing this procedure tomorrow is successfully done outpatient. And if not, I'll worry about it later. She has until next Wednesday to wrap up everything because grades are due Thursday.

I talked to him about his anxiety levels in general over this whole procedure. He says he's just trying not to think about it, but he does not expect to give us any trouble tomorrow at all. He says he knows it's something that has to be done and he's looking forward to getting it over with. So fingers crossed.

The hospital called yesterday to tell us we got bumped up because of a baby that needs to be seen before difficult child 1, so now he's due to check in at 11:15 instead of 9:15. So that gives me more time to give him his medications in advance of everything (he's supposed to be NPO for 8 hours prior). But he is going to be one very hungry and likely grumpy fella that afternoon!
 
Top