School Nurse Wants to Help!!!

[nurse alex]

I am an elementary school nurse and a child in my school has recently been diagnosed with ODD. She has not yet been diagnosed with any other disorders and is not on medications. Her therapist and mother do not have any suggestions on how we can help this first grader through her difficult mood swings. I happen to work in a small rural school where most of the staff think this child just needs an "old fashion whipping." We all know that will solve nothing and probably make things worse. She has become a danger to herself and others. She has run out of the school building and becomes physically and verbally aggressive when we try to bring her back in or block the exits to prevent her from leaving the building. Talking with her in a calm manner does not seem to help. I try to get her to tell me how she is feeling and what she would like to do. Most of the time she wants to sit in my office or in the hallway all day. While it may keep her calm, this does not provide an education for her. We can not monitor her in the hallway to ensure her safety and there are privacy issues with keeping her in the school clinic. I desperately want to help this child succeed!!! I have been unable to find any info online geared towards school personnel. I think as parents who have been dealing with school systems, you may be able to help. What would you like to see happen with your own children? Does anyone have a positive experience dealing with a school? Please keep in mind any solutions also have to take the other children in the classroom into account. Thanks for your feed back. Sorry this was so long!!!

 

[nvts]

Whoa! You MUST be a saint! I'd repost this in the General Forum - there are WAY more people floating around there that can help.

Welcome! You really are trying "one child at a time!".

One of the moderators may move it for you, but you can just copy what you typed and open a new thread on the "General" forum!

Beth

:smile:

PS: Can you give us the diagnosis? Since we have no idea where you're from or the childs name, I don't think this would violate the privacy but would be invaluable as to potential tactics. Also if there's medication involved that you know of it would help as well!

Beth

 

[nurse alex]

Thanks Beth, but a saint I am not. Just a mom who would want her own kids helped. My daughter had severe depression with psychosis when she was just 10 yrs old. The right medication and a few months of therapy was all she needed to get better. I have also suffered with depression and understand how psychological and emotional disorders can prevent "normal" behavior and reasoning skills. Hopefully this is the first step in change for my district.

 

[KTMom91]

I understand your frustration and your feeling of helplessness. In addition to being the parent of a 16yo daughter diagnosis'd with ADHD/ODD, and I suspect BiPolar (BP), I'm a substitute teacher. I see so many children who seem to spend their days spinning out of control, which must be terrifying for them and upsetting for the other children. Bless you for your care and concern.

 

[SaraT]

Remembering back to difficult child's 1st grde year it was a nightmare. School just didn't get it. You are a saint, or at least should be in my humble opinion.

I am not sure this will help in school, but a good book that helped most of us parents is The Explosive Child, By Ross Green. If I remember right it did have school suggestions in it.

What worked for my difficult child was to have a "safe" place when she couldn't deal with things. This ended up being a secluded corner in the office where she was alone, but the adults could still see her. We placed a teddy bear there(any favorite stuffed animal will work) and let her use that bear for hugs, squeezing, whatever she needed to calm herself. Going to her safe place could be initiated by her or the teacher/adult.

If you feel it is right, you could also suggest to the parents that ODD rearly runs alone, and that it might be a good idea to get the child a full evaluation to see if something else is going on. My difficult child was diagnosis'd ODD, but later found out she is actually ADHD, mood disorder and Aspergers. Just a thought.

Way To Go for trying to help this little one.