Okay?

What’s in a word?   We’ve starting taking my son to see the same play therapist we’re taking my daughter to.   We realized he was likely affected by his sister’s eye situation, but we weren’t sure what was a result of seeing his sister get “special attention” with the doctors, what was his personality, and what was basic boy versus girl behavior.  

We had a meeting with his teachers at school in which they talked to us about some observations they had had behaviorally where my son couldn’t keep his hands off other children and had some challenges focusing while in the classroom.    I’m ever so glad we have Dhruti, our children’s therapist, because in just two meetings we have vastly more information than we did before and we have a greater understanding of what’s going on in his mind.

The first meeting was with my son and me only, in which we did specific tasks (games in bags with instructions I read out to him).   The session was recorded and my son thought the entire hour was good fun.   Later in the week my husband and I met with Dhruti to review the videoed session and get her advice and plans on how to proceed.

The first thing she said was that what’s going on is age-based and correctable—and quickly so.   She said with a combination of giving him some skills as well as some ways we could change things we were doing we would see quick and dramatic results.   He doesn’t have development issues, although there are some things he’s having challenges with because of how he’s managing his world right now but they should correct themselves as we move forward.  

This is good news.   We’re looking forward to a plan for us and some specialized  “lessons”, as they call it in Montessori school.    She told us that the majority of the time my son is living in a chaotic mind.   He’s not being defiant (behavior we thought we were getting all the time) but trying to put together things happening in a very crowded brain.     She said he’s lacking some skills in compartmentalization and as such, everything is always up in the air and he’s just overloaded with processing everything.

For example, having a calendar on the refrigerator in which we can cross off the days until an event (could be the weekend or vacation or party) will help relieve him from having to keep it on his mind.   He’s running his life without the proper skills to mentally say, “I don’t have to worry about that now” or “that’s finished and I don’t have to think about it any more.”   I don’t have a lot of additional examples, but with I’m sure I’ll have more soon as we move further into his therapy.

Dhruti said my son has very low self-esteem as well.   There was a bit at the beginning of the recorded session in which we were supposed to play with two stuffed animals.   My son selected the frog and the play between my dog and his frog went from friendly to aggressive fairly quickly.   Then, my son said something interesting, he said, “my frog hates himself.”   Wow.   I’m not a trained therapist, but I knew that was something important.

Dhruti showed us example after example on the tape where my son made a choice and then changed to another option immediately afterwards.    For example, I’d say, “where do you want the pretend grocery store to be on the table?”  He pointed to one of the corners so I moved the dog to the corner and then my son said, “no, it’s going to be in the middle.”    That doesn’t sound important at all to me; children change their minds all the time—but it was.     He’s struggling internally with chaos and he’s trying to control the world around him to try and lessen the chaos.

Choices are important, but a child shouldn’t be asked to manage a family or all the decisions in a day—it’s too much on them.   They’re not equipped.   I mentioned in a post a day or two ago that children are literal creatures.   The most important and immediate change she told my husband and me to implement was how we were handling things with both words and expectations with him.   Instead of giving him more choices to try and help with his need to have control, we should be giving him less.    Yes, let him pick milk or orange juice, but calmly state other things like, “we’re eating dinner at the table tonight; your seat is here.”

I didn’t think that would work, but it did.   He didn’t balk at some decisions being made for him in a non-authorative way.   The next part was the most interesting to me.   Dhruti said, “when you make a decision for him such as, ‘let’s move on to the next activity’ in the video, you’re actually saying, ‘let’s move on to the next activity, okay?’"   There is a huge difference in the two sentences in for my son.   The first is a statement, the second is a question, and a question that ends with a request for my son to evaluate the situation and make a decision.”  

As an adult, that added, “okay” at the end is commonly understood to be, “do you hear what I’m saying” or “let me know if you disagree with this plan.”   To him, it means he has to think about what’s happening and make the decision himself.

Dhruti said from my son’s side, she was going to give him some tools/skills to help compartmentalize things so he could put them out of his mind and focus on what he’s currently doing, lowering his frustration and stress.    Today, I picked him up from school and asked him what work he did during class.   He told me after lunch (for two hours) he did nothing but stand around and lie on the floor.    He’s stuck in chaos and isn’t able to move forward because he’s still processing what’s been happening.

I’m looking forward to the next few months for my son.   I think Dhruti is going to be a great help to both him and our family.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been mad about the Power Rangers lately.   There are a few different shows, but he knows which one he wants to watch.   I thought these were old shows but they’re new and they are build around merchandising products—featured in the show by the characters and could you please put them on my wish list mom.   As I sat holding my son’s hand to watch an episode before bed last night my son told me all the names of the characters as the theme song began and they were each introduced.   He would shout out, “Black Power Ranger”, “Green Power Ranger”, etc.   The last character came on and he paused for a second and said, “Whatever Power Ranger”.   I thought he had forgotten what color that girl was, but no, she wasn’t in the show at all.   If I figure out what color the “Whatever Power Ranger” is, I’ll let you know.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I asked my daughter on the way home from school today about her orientation and mobility session with Jane at the museum (an off-site trip they had scheduled for the two of them.)  She told me about butterflies, animals, trees and other things that you have to be able to see to know are there.   I asked her if she had been able to see things more easily with her new lenses to which she impatiently replied, “remember, I told you a long time ago [yesterday], a lot lot lot lot better.”  I’m anxiously awaiting an email from her O&M teacher to get her opinion on how the day went now.