My son has had his ups and downs over the past three years in school. If he grew up when I did, he would be called, “hyperactive”. That’s what I was called. I see in him a lot of the behaviors I had when I was young. He never runs out of energy and has a hard time settling down to get work done. He’s also disgraced mentally, which makes getting started on work an added challenge. Then, to add to the pile of challenges he has, he has anxiety about doing the work.
We had him tested over the summer. When I was a child I was tested too. The results came back and I was performing above grade, had the capacity and intelligence to learn and in fact I was learning, only I was a challenge to deal with in the classroom. Or at least that’s how I remember it. My parents would know more. My memory is only from a child’s perspective. Apparently I knew everything that was going on, it just looked like I wasn’t paying attention.
But as far as starting and completing work, I don’t remember having any problems in that area. When we say down with the child psychiatrist to review the results, she said, “he’s a very bright little guy.” And while Intelligence Quotient numbers aren’t solidified until a child is older, my son ranked in the very superior range overall. All the testing areas were quite high with one exception—processing speed.
This factors into the anxiety component. My son doesn’t want to get things wrong, have corrections, make mistakes. This can cause him to have trouble even starting to get work done and focus. His mind feels like it’s being attacked by warriors, soldiers, bad guys if you will. When that happens, he’s lost, he told me.
He’s been working on it though. He figured out how to put up a wall to battle the attackers and then was able to put a figurative “roof” up as well to keep the anxiety from winning. But it doesn’t always work.
He was doing well at the beginning of the school year, glad to be a second year in his class and an upperclassman to the first years. And then something happened, but we don’t know what it was. It was a big change. My son was barely able to get work done at all. One day this week he spent a half-hour drawing on his eraser. And he was complaining about feeling nauseated.
His stomach hurt when it was time to go to school, when we talked about school, when he was in school during work cycle, but not during playground time. We all agreed it was anxiety. I picked up my son on Tuesday to go to his integrative therapist and he told me how he was sick and I’d better stay away from him so I didn’t catch it.
I told him I didn’t think he was contagious because I thought what was making him feel sick was in his brain, not his body. He thought about it and said that yes, what he had was, “brain sickness”. When we got to Liz’s office we told her about his “brain sickness” and how it was making him feel so badly.
Liz had me stay in session with him and I we talked through what was happening. He said (and showed on his body) how the sickness was in his brain, it came around to his mouth (but didn’t get stuck there) and then went into his stomach, where it was causing him to feel sick.
Through the hour I watched Liz talk him through what was happening and help him come up with a plan, that we turned into a contract, that would help him. This combined two things: a means to get him to want to work at school, despite being afraid of not getting things right, and a reward system to get “freedoms” he wanted such as screen time, a second dessert, allowance and one on one time with a parent.
We called the contract, “Freedom with Responsibility” after a Montessori tenant. If my son met a certain number of the items on the list, he would get to select a freedom. But he had to be responsible first. Some of the items are easy, and some are more challenging. Working at school was one he is required to do each day if he wanted to gain a freedom.
So far, so good. He’s been able to get back to work at school and has been proud of what he’s doing. I also told my son we could give him a Tums before school—that dad takes them too—and they help with acid in your stomach, which is what gets produced in excess when you’re under stress or having anxiety.
My son has been happy about things every since Tuesday. He’s earned screen time, although he hasn’t used it like I thought he would have. He’s been more interested in playing outside with his friends after school, which is definitely preferable.
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Six Pack Discussion: At dinner tonight we were talking about moving a heavy desk out of a room that has a door that’s too small to fit the desk through without lifting and rotating it. My son said he could help because he was strong and he had a six pack. My daughter piped up, saying, “no you don’t, you have a four-and-a-half pack.” Then she asked, “Dad, how much of a pack do you have?” My husband explained that currently he only had a one pack. My son said, “well, Papa has a zero pack because he likes to eat everything."
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