New to the forum

flutterby

Fly away!
You can still send the letter and it still starts the timeline. If the school year runs out, the timeline resumes when school starts in the fall.
 

chococat

New Member
You can still send the letter and it still starts the timeline. If the school year runs out, the timeline resumes when school starts in the fall.
We plan on moving over the summer and will be in a different school, so that complicates things.
Even if we were not moving I think I would change schools, I've been very dissatisfied with this school...
 
Last edited:

Fran

Former desparate mom
You have painted a pretty good picture of a child who is wired differently.
The first and foremost issue is to have her seen and evaluated so that you can get to the bottom of what's going on. I do not believe they choose to be beligerant and uncooperative if they knew how. Potty training is often a big issue. I believe my difficult child just didn't get the connection between the sensation and the act of pottying. He wouldn't wipe. Why? if he did that, he would have to stop to wash his hands. So better to go and run out to play. Made perfect sense.

Kids who have a wide variance between their scoring on tests usually have some learning disabilities that work against them. None of this has anything to do with intelligence. Intelligence means she has what it takes to learn. Unfortunately different learners, learn differently and we typical people have no way of understanding how they learn or how to teach them to learn. It's the square peg in the round hole.

Your fiance is to be commended for trying hard to help. I must tell you if I knew what I know I would have ran very far, very fast from getting involved with a person who had a child like mine. He needs to know and understand that this is going to be a long term chronic problem that will probably get worse in adolescence before it gets better. If he is in it for the long haul then you are both stronger as a united force to advocate for your child. If he is going to be frustrated because nothing works then he will have to read other posts on this site. Warrior mom's and dad's are frustrated daily. We celebrate the small successes and despair at the failures but we get up every day, every week, every year to be the best parent we could be regardless of the positive reward to us. It's called love, committment, responsibility and parenting. There are amazing step parents on this site. It is a thankless job but they are doing better by their step children then many bio parents. There are also many step parents who end up pulling away and make things worse. If I were in your position I would present him with the possibilities and worse case scenarios so that he can make an informed decision.

Welcome to our crazy world. Hopefully we can share some of our experiences and offer support to help you on the path of parenting a difficult child.

One of my suggestions is start a parent report. It is found in the faq/board help forum. It's a good way to keep all your info connected and a wonderful way to present it to teachers and professionals.
Fran
 

Wishing

New Member
Hi my child was diagnosed with adhd. He was very strong willed and had to have his way when he was young. You have some additional challenges that I didn't have 1.)toilet training late. Mine was disruptive occasionally.

I did have mine evaluated by a phd and she recommended medication which took me awhile to get onto and we did and it took frequent re-evaluations almost every 3 months of different medications.
After you get your re-evaluation by a multidisclinary team and they may have a special program for her. This is what I found helped me the most.

I read a bunch of books on adhd but the one that helped me the most was Dr.Russell Barkley's therapist manual I think it was for adhd It was a skinny manual but I adapted his ideas to work with my son. I made a chart of behaviors I wanted him to do and some things he was already doing but gave him credit for. I had things like says: Hi to a friend,washes hands after bathroom, brushes teeth,says good morning to teacher and after each behavior he got several points and at the end of the week if he made a certain number of points there would be a reward. I made it so it was easy to get rewarded. You could reward her daily. In my son's case he would feel so bad
if I had minus points I decided to have no negative behaviors on my chart. I wanted to encourage positive behaviors. Before the behavior chart was to start however meaning several weeks dr. Barkley felt it was important to have fun time with mon which he discusses. this time was a set time every day and playing a game that my child loved and during the game you note positive behaviors and say great going I like the way you did that etc. You practice ignoring bad behavior. I found this very effective. After two weeks of this then I started the behavior chart.
I want to emphasize Dr. Barkley had several charts in the manual and I did not use them exactly but adapted them to my child.
In our school district we have school of choice and teacher of choice as we have two kindergarten teachers and two in every grade level. I talked to other parents and this was CRITICAL TO MY SON's school day. I found one teacher for 1st grade who I learned a lot from. She put my son in between two quiet A students and he modeled them. They were two of the lowest key students in the class and were always on target in their work and their behavior. In 4th grade the teacher I chose was so good that all of us moms cried at the back of the classroom on the last day bc we knew we would never have such a positive year again. I also went to each classroom and observed the teachers to decide which one I chose for my son. Even the principal told me I made good choices after the bomber with the 2nd semester kindergarten teAcherwe had. Some teachers are heavenly and their approaches are more conducive to lowering the anxiety level.
 

chococat

New Member
You have painted a pretty good picture of a child who is wired differently.
The first and foremost issue is to have her seen and evaluated so that you can get to the bottom of what's going on. I do not believe they choose to be beligerant and uncooperative if they knew how. Potty training is often a big issue. I believe my difficult child just didn't get the connection between the sensation and the act of pottying. He wouldn't wipe. Why? if he did that, he would have to stop to wash his hands. So better to go and run out to play. Made perfect sense.

Kids who have a wide variance between their scoring on tests usually have some learning disabilities that work against them. None of this has anything to do with intelligence. Intelligence means she has what it takes to learn. Unfortunately different learners, learn differently and we typical people have no way of understanding how they learn or how to teach them to learn. It's the square peg in the round hole.

Your fiance is to be commended for trying hard to help. I must tell you if I knew what I know I would have ran very far, very fast from getting involved with a person who had a child like mine. He needs to know and understand that this is going to be a long term chronic problem that will probably get worse in adolescence before it gets better. If he is in it for the long haul then you are both stronger as a united force to advocate for your child. If he is going to be frustrated because nothing works then he will have to read other posts on this site. Warrior mom's and dad's are frustrated daily. We celebrate the small successes and despair at the failures but we get up every day, every week, every year to be the best parent we could be regardless of the positive reward to us. It's called love, committment, responsibility and parenting. There are amazing step parents on this site. It is a thankless job but they are doing better by their step children then many bio parents. There are also many step parents who end up pulling away and make things worse. If I were in your position I would present him with the possibilities and worse case scenarios so that he can make an informed decision.

Welcome to our crazy world. Hopefully we can share some of our experiences and offer support to help you on the path of parenting a difficult child.

One of my suggestions is start a parent report. It is found in the faq/board help forum. It's a good way to keep all your info connected and a wonderful way to present it to teachers and professionals.
Fran

I saw the parent report and I plan on putting that together :) Seems like a great tool. Thanks for the encouraging words :)

Hi my child was diagnosed with adhd. He was very strong willed and had to have his way when he was young. You have some additional challenges that I didn't have 1.)toilet training late. Mine was disruptive occasionally.

I did have mine evaluated by a phd and she recommended medication which took me awhile to get onto and we did and it took frequent re-evaluations almost every 3 months of different medications.
After you get your re-evaluation by a multidisclinary team and they may have a special program for her. This is what I found helped me the most.

I read a bunch of books on adhd but the one that helped me the most was Dr.Russell Barkley's therapist manual I think it was for adhd It was a skinny manual but I adapted his ideas to work with my son. I made a chart of behaviors I wanted him to do and some things he was already doing but gave him credit for. I had things like says: Hi to a friend,washes hands after bathroom, brushes teeth,says good morning to teacher and after each behavior he got several points and at the end of the week if he made a certain number of points there would be a reward. I made it so it was easy to get rewarded. You could reward her daily. In my son's case he would feel so bad
if I had minus points I decided to have no negative behaviors on my chart. I wanted to encourage positive behaviors. Before the behavior chart was to start however meaning several weeks dr. Barkley felt it was important to have fun time with mon which he discusses. this time was a set time every day and playing a game that my child loved and during the game you note positive behaviors and say great going I like the way you did that etc. You practice ignoring bad behavior. I found this very effective. After two weeks of this then I started the behavior chart.
I want to emphasize Dr. Barkley had several charts in the manual and I did not use them exactly but adapted them to my child.
In our school district we have school of choice and teacher of choice as we have two kindergarten teachers and two in every grade level. I talked to other parents and this was CRITICAL TO MY SON's school day. I found one teacher for 1st grade who I learned a lot from. She put my son in between two quiet A students and he modeled them. They were two of the lowest key students in the class and were always on target in their work and their behavior. In 4th grade the teacher I chose was so good that all of us moms cried at the back of the classroom on the last day bc we knew we would never have such a positive year again. I also went to each classroom and observed the teachers to decide which one I chose for my son. Even the principal told me I made good choices after the bomber with the 2nd semester kindergarten teAcherwe had. Some teachers are heavenly and their approaches are more conducive to lowering the anxiety level.
Thanks for sharing your story with me :) Yeah, we're changing the medications pretty frequently (Strattara is her third medication in 3 years, with a number of dosing/timing changes in the interim)
I'm hoping that next year I'll be more prepared to take on the school, and that they'll be more cooperative lol
 
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