My Kid is a Damn Nutter - Page 3

Clodfobble · 12-08-2008, 10:42 PM

Oh sure, he can focus on lots of things for long periods of time, especially anything musical. He knows how to use the keyboard (the piano-kind, with programmable voices and all that) better than I do. The non-typical aspect would be that he constantly twists back and forth in the chair while he's playing with it, or climbs onto and off of the couch repeatedly while looking at a book, or just tries to make himself dizzy for a half-hour or more at a time. If he's sitting still, it's usually the first sign that he's sick.

Sundae · 12-09-2008, 08:26 AM

My favourite game pre-school was to make myself dizzy with the broom. You know, dig it into the ground by lurching round and round it until letting go to get a dizzy "high". I was banned after a while, because Mum thought I was doing it too much. In a file of my oldest memories is being asked to explain the inevitable, resulting Broom Holes in the grass. I felt like a junkie trying to explain away needle marks. I have a picture of me with the broom, grinning like it was my best pal, my hair puts me at about 3.5.

Good luck Clod. Your son does not sound normal. I'll love to respond "Neither was I and look how I turned out!" but then you'll have to be prepared for him to come back in 30-odd years to live with you. I hope he turns out in the best way of not-normal. Like, the rest of the Cellar sort of way

My brother in the other hand was the weirdest of all of us. My sister and I loved Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge because we finally realised we weren't alone. He is 32 now, working for The Treasury and happily married. One of the few things that I think, "If I knew then what I know now" would be to go back to those times and realise at an emotional level that he was family, he was never being sent back and be nicer to him much earlier.

Steven, I love you.

Beest · 12-09-2008, 12:14 PM

having read all the other responses,

Normal is over rated, maybe you could get a diagnosis of some such, many of us could. I played with him, he seemed OK, he put his toys back in place when I moved them, but he didn't have a fit about it, we built some block towers too.

Cabin fever. It sounds like he's bursting at the seams and needs to get out and do stuff , with other kids. Anybody who knows our kids schedules, swimming, soccer, gymnastics, hockey etc. etc.
At that age I think there was a baby tumbling thing, and swimming of course.

Clodfobble · 12-09-2008, 12:30 PM

Yeah, I signed him up for one of those baby tumbling classes, at The Little Gym. He enjoys it, but its primary benefit for him has been learning to take turns, stop playing with one item and move onto the next even if he's not ready, etc. It's been good, but for the money I don't think I'll do it again. Much better has been "Inflatable Wonderland," a huge arena full of those bouncy-castle things. It's $5 for an all-day pass for him, and he'll bounce and throw himself around for upwards of three hours. And if he's not tired yet, we can go eat and come back and bounce some more. That place is great. He loves swimming too, but it's not easy to take both kids by myself. I have this notion that I want to avoid using floaties on him, so he can learn to swim on his own from the beginning. But I should probably just abandon that idea, it would be so much easier if he were floating on his own.

monster · 12-10-2008, 04:38 PM

the difference between the inflatable place and a gym class is that in the class he sees the same kids again and again and gets to make friends. There's no social aspect to the bouncy place, other than fleeting interactions with strangers. Try to find a playgroup of some sort. if you go regularly to the bouncy place at the same time, you might well find yourself hooking up with other moms with kids the same age and your kids might even play nicely together. Sometimes. This is how our playgroup got started and we (moms)still meet weekly, even though the youngest is now in second grade.

It's better not to have the floaties for swimming if you can avoid it. could you hire a "mother's helper" for an hour to watch foblette on the pool side while you take a parent/tot class with Mini? are evening classes a possibility? could you sing up both kids for the same class and rope Mr Fob in?

limey · 12-13-2008, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZenGum

That's not a boy, that's a House Elf.
Send him around, will you, the place is a mess.

Goddit · 12-13-2008, 06:40 PM

He sounds like a normal kid to me. Certainly he wants attention and you should (I never like using that word so forgive me) make a point of giving him one-to-one attention for a good period in the day. I totally dig the singing thing. My 3.5 year old does the same thing.
But please....your child is not a nutter. He will pick up every nuanced negative vibe you have towards him...it's not deliberate, kids just have a very sensitive subconscious built-in 'mummy is annoyed' radar that makes them want to pull your strings more.
If you get cheesed off with him, he will sense it and keep annoying you until he gets what he wants. Give him a little of what he wants. Set your boundaries. If he breaks them, time him to the corner or a stair (don't call it a 'naughty' corner.....kids only end up thinking they are naughty). In car parks, put a harness on him (yeah, I heard the whole 'but they're not animals' argument....it's not much of an argument if your child gets hit by a car).
Give him some responsibility....sing songs together while you both do the dishes.
But remember, the more you resist, the more it persists.

Clodfobble · 01-09-2009, 02:23 PM

Update: so at his sister's checkup, I got to mention a few things to the pediatrician, and of course she also got to witness again his general behavior when he's in an environment he doesn't like (in this instance, he was hanging off the door handle screaming bloody murder trying to escape the exam room, and giving extra punctuation to his protests when the doctor would look at or touch the baby--not him.) She referred us to an occupational therapist, and recommended strongly that we go. So we have an appointment for Tuesday. I'm kind of ambivalent about whether this lady will be able to help, but I was at least encouraged by the new child-patient questionnaire. It was 7 pages long and included a lot of surprises along the lines of, "Hey! Yeah, he does do that!" Lots of stuff that is not in the typical Autism/Asperger set of symptoms, which he honestly doesn't match up with at all. So at the very least they've dealt with his brand of crazy before.

Shawnee123 · 01-09-2009, 03:02 PM

Probably his young brain just needs to catch up with how smart he is...if he's anything like Mom.

Keep us posted.

lookout123 · 01-09-2009, 03:05 PM

good news. he's probably just acting out because the kids at preschool tease him about the pictures of his mom peeing on the liquor store floor.

footfootfoot · 01-09-2009, 08:29 PM

Was that Clodfobble?

Clodfobble · 01-09-2009, 09:08 PM

I'm tempted to go do it and post the picture just to live up to the hype.

Beestie · 01-09-2009, 10:01 PM

I think he'll always be moody but the only thing wrong with him is that his mind is too far ahead of his brain.

Once his brain catches up, stand back and be amazed. I suspect he's going to need a lot of stimulation to stay interested so plan ahead or prepare to deal with a child who doesn't handle boredom very well.

Just an opinion based on what I've read so far.

Griff · 01-10-2009, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Update: so at his sister's checkup, I got to mention a few things to the pediatrician, and of course she also got to witness again his general behavior when he's in an environment he doesn't like (in this instance, he was hanging off the door handle screaming bloody murder trying to escape the exam room, and giving extra punctuation to his protests when the doctor would look at or touch the baby--not him.) She referred us to an occupational therapist, and recommended strongly that we go. So we have an appointment for Tuesday. I'm kind of ambivalent about whether this lady will be able to help, but I was at least encouraged by the new child-patient questionnaire. It was 7 pages long and included a lot of surprises along the lines of, "Hey! Yeah, he does do that!" Lots of stuff that is not in the typical Autism/Asperger set of symptoms, which he honestly doesn't match up with at all. So at the very least they've dealt with his brand of crazy before.

You may want to pick up a copy of: The Out of Sync Child by Carol Stock Kranowitz. I just started reading it for work. It will challenge some folk's behaviorist doctrine unless they realize that biology determines how sensory inputs are processed. We also have to keep in mind that brain science is moving so fast that best practice will struggle to keep up. On a semi-related note, I'm training a kid in fencing with some body-in-space issues. It's interesting figuring out how to get him to find himself in a real world situation rather than a classroom.

Clodfobble · 01-13-2009, 05:16 PM

Well.

In case I had any doubts that we were doing the right thing by getting him evaluated, the last few days have been the absolute worst he's ever been. He's been completely insufferable and uncontrollable, instead of just a little "off" like he normally is. The hairtrigger emotional meltdowns with no cause (as opposed to the standard daily "going to bed" and "sitting down to eat" and "not getting to run in the parking lot" meltdowns) skyrocketed from once every few days to about 3-4 per day.

We spent an hour with the occupational therapist this morning, and she gave a general diagnosis of Sensory Processing Disorder (which is the topic of the book Griff recommended, points duly awarded,) with some other red flags (like the lyric-reciting, toy-car-spinning, and the fact that he has a very high vocabulary yet for the most part does not speak in sentences or use pronouns) that may indicate PDD-NOS after further evaluation, which is basically the catchall diagnosis for high-functioning autistic disorders that don't match up with Asperger's or one of the other common ones.

This is not really news to us of course, but it still makes me really sad.

On the one hand, we have caught it relatively early, which is great for treatment options, but it also means that we don't yet know what other idiosyncrasies may develop. As an example, he currently has no muscle tone in his lower face, presumably because he has tuned out those muscles because of constant over- and under-sensed oral inputs. Right now the only outward sign is slackness and drooling, but without improvement, it could lead to greater speech problems down the road, which would impair communication/self-esteem and possibly lead to the more recognizable Asperger's symptoms like non-sociability and poor communication skills. There are specific regimens we're supposed to use to get him to learn how to move and sense his mouth normally, like spray this incredibly sour liquid on his lips and pull on the insides of his cheeks in that typical "funny face" kids do. He thinks the sour stuff is great (it is painfully sour to most people) but really, really doesn't want me messing with his cheeks (which is exactly why I have to do it, but getting bitten is not fun.) Another thing I'm supposed to do is make all of his toys as heavy as possible, because it will help his muscles and movement if he gets more feedback from the things he is doing. In most cases this means drilling small holes and filling them with sand or rice. He freaked out about the weight belt at the therapist's office, so I'm also working on finding ways to make his clothes heavier, possibly by sewing little bean bags into the legs of his pants.

We will be going to the occupational therapist once a week for now. Twice a week is also an option, but our insurance only covers 60 visits for the lifetime of the patient, and we would burn through them pretty quickly at that rate. But that's per diagnosis, so the workaround for that is to leave him at a diagnosis of only SPD for now, and then upgrade him to PDD for another 60 visits, but really treat him for both the whole time.

Regardless, I really hope this week was just a bad week and not an indication of his new baseline. It was pretty damn rough.

12-08-2008, 10:42 PM	#31
Clodfobble UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 20,012	Oh sure, he can focus on lots of things for long periods of time, especially anything musical. He knows how to use the keyboard (the piano-kind, with programmable voices and all that) better than I do. The non-typical aspect would be that he constantly twists back and forth in the chair while he's playing with it, or climbs onto and off of the couch repeatedly while looking at a book, or just tries to make himself dizzy for a half-hour or more at a time. If he's sitting still, it's usually the first sign that he's sick. __________________ My book My other book My spirit animal

12-09-2008, 12:30 PM	#34
Clodfobble UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 20,012	Yeah, I signed him up for one of those baby tumbling classes, at The Little Gym. He enjoys it, but its primary benefit for him has been learning to take turns, stop playing with one item and move onto the next even if he's not ready, etc. It's been good, but for the money I don't think I'll do it again. Much better has been "Inflatable Wonderland," a huge arena full of those bouncy-castle things. It's $5 for an all-day pass for him, and he'll bounce and throw himself around for upwards of three hours. And if he's not tired yet, we can go eat and come back and bounce some more. That place is great. He loves swimming too, but it's not easy to take both kids by myself. I have this notion that I want to avoid using floaties on him, so he can learn to swim on his own from the beginning. But I should probably just abandon that idea, it would be so much easier if he were floating on his own. __________________ My book My other book My spirit animal

12-10-2008, 04:38 PM	#35
monster I hear them call the tide Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Perpetual Chaos Posts: 30,852	the difference between the inflatable place and a gym class is that in the class he sees the same kids again and again and gets to make friends. There's no social aspect to the bouncy place, other than fleeting interactions with strangers. Try to find a playgroup of some sort. if you go regularly to the bouncy place at the same time, you might well find yourself hooking up with other moms with kids the same age and your kids might even play nicely together. Sometimes. This is how our playgroup got started and we (moms)still meet weekly, even though the youngest is now in second grade. It's better not to have the floaties for swimming if you can avoid it. could you hire a "mother's helper" for an hour to watch foblette on the pool side while you take a parent/tot class with Mini? are evening classes a possibility? could you sing up both kids for the same class and rope Mr Fob in? __________________ The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity Amelia Earhart

12-13-2008, 06:40 PM	#37
Goddit Non-Newbie Sort Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 6	nutter? He sounds like a normal kid to me. Certainly he wants attention and you should (I never like using that word so forgive me) make a point of giving him one-to-one attention for a good period in the day. I totally dig the singing thing. My 3.5 year old does the same thing. But please....your child is not a nutter. He will pick up every nuanced negative vibe you have towards him...it's not deliberate, kids just have a very sensitive subconscious built-in 'mummy is annoyed' radar that makes them want to pull your strings more. If you get cheesed off with him, he will sense it and keep annoying you until he gets what he wants. Give him a little of what he wants. Set your boundaries. If he breaks them, time him to the corner or a stair (don't call it a 'naughty' corner.....kids only end up thinking they are naughty). In car parks, put a harness on him (yeah, I heard the whole 'but they're not animals' argument....it's not much of an argument if your child gets hit by a car). Give him some responsibility....sing songs together while you both do the dishes. But remember, the more you resist, the more it persists.

01-09-2009, 02:23 PM	#38
Clodfobble UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 20,012	Update: so at his sister's checkup, I got to mention a few things to the pediatrician, and of course she also got to witness again his general behavior when he's in an environment he doesn't like (in this instance, he was hanging off the door handle screaming bloody murder trying to escape the exam room, and giving extra punctuation to his protests when the doctor would look at or touch the baby--not him.) She referred us to an occupational therapist, and recommended strongly that we go. So we have an appointment for Tuesday. I'm kind of ambivalent about whether this lady will be able to help, but I was at least encouraged by the new child-patient questionnaire. It was 7 pages long and included a lot of surprises along the lines of, "Hey! Yeah, he does do that!" Lots of stuff that is not in the typical Autism/Asperger set of symptoms, which he honestly doesn't match up with at all. So at the very least they've dealt with his brand of crazy before. __________________ My book My other book My spirit animal

12-09-2008, 08:26 AM	#32
Sundae polaroid of perfection Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 24,185	My favourite game pre-school was to make myself dizzy with the broom. You know, dig it into the ground by lurching round and round it until letting go to get a dizzy "high". I was banned after a while, because Mum thought I was doing it too much. In a file of my oldest memories is being asked to explain the inevitable, resulting Broom Holes in the grass. I felt like a junkie trying to explain away needle marks. I have a picture of me with the broom, grinning like it was my best pal, my hair puts me at about 3.5. Good luck Clod. Your son does not sound normal. I'll love to respond "Neither was I and look how I turned out!" but then you'll have to be prepared for him to come back in 30-odd years to live with you. I hope he turns out in the best way of not-normal. Like, the rest of the Cellar sort of way My brother in the other hand was the weirdest of all of us. My sister and I loved Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge because we finally realised we weren't alone. He is 32 now, working for The Treasury and happily married. One of the few things that I think, "If I knew then what I know now" would be to go back to those times and realise at an emotional level that he was family, he was never being sent back and be nicer to him much earlier. Steven, I love you.

12-09-2008, 12:14 PM	#33
Beest Adapt and Survive Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Ann Arbor, Mi Posts: 957	having read all the other responses, Normal is over rated, maybe you could get a diagnosis of some such, many of us could. I played with him, he seemed OK, he put his toys back in place when I moved them, but he didn't have a fit about it, we built some block towers too. Cabin fever. It sounds like he's bursting at the seams and needs to get out and do stuff , with other kids. Anybody who knows our kids schedules, swimming, soccer, gymnastics, hockey etc. etc. At that age I think there was a baby tumbling thing, and swimming of course.

01-09-2009, 03:02 PM	#39
Shawnee123 Why, you're a regular Alfred E Einstein, ain't ya? Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 21,206	Probably his young brain just needs to catch up with how smart he is...if he's anything like Mom. Keep us posted. __________________ A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones who need the advice. --Bill Cosby

01-09-2009, 03:05 PM	#40
lookout123 changed his status to single Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Right behind you. No, the other side. Posts: 10,308	good news. he's probably just acting out because the kids at preschool tease him about the pictures of his mom peeing on the liquor store floor. __________________ Getting knocked down is no sin, it's not getting back up that's the sin

01-09-2009, 08:29 PM	#41
footfootfoot To shreds, you say? Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: in the house and on the street-how many, many feet we meet! Posts: 18,449	Was that Clodfobble? __________________ The internet is a hateful stew of vomit you can never take completely seriously. - Her Fobs

01-09-2009, 09:08 PM	#42
Clodfobble UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 20,012	I'm tempted to go do it and post the picture just to live up to the hype. __________________ My book My other book My spirit animal

01-09-2009, 10:01 PM	#43
Beestie -◊\|≡·∙■·∙≡\|◊- Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Parts unknown. Posts: 4,081	I think he'll always be moody but the only thing wrong with him is that his mind is too far ahead of his brain. Once his brain catches up, stand back and be amazed. I suspect he's going to need a lot of stimulation to stay interested so plan ahead or prepare to deal with a child who doesn't handle boredom very well. Just an opinion based on what I've read so far. __________________ ♠ ♥ ♣ ♦

01-13-2009, 05:16 PM	#45
Clodfobble UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 20,012	Well. In case I had any doubts that we were doing the right thing by getting him evaluated, the last few days have been the absolute worst he's ever been. He's been completely insufferable and uncontrollable, instead of just a little "off" like he normally is. The hairtrigger emotional meltdowns with no cause (as opposed to the standard daily "going to bed" and "sitting down to eat" and "not getting to run in the parking lot" meltdowns) skyrocketed from once every few days to about 3-4 per day. We spent an hour with the occupational therapist this morning, and she gave a general diagnosis of Sensory Processing Disorder (which is the topic of the book Griff recommended, points duly awarded,) with some other red flags (like the lyric-reciting, toy-car-spinning, and the fact that he has a very high vocabulary yet for the most part does not speak in sentences or use pronouns) that may indicate PDD-NOS after further evaluation, which is basically the catchall diagnosis for high-functioning autistic disorders that don't match up with Asperger's or one of the other common ones. This is not really news to us of course, but it still makes me really sad. On the one hand, we have caught it relatively early, which is great for treatment options, but it also means that we don't yet know what other idiosyncrasies may develop. As an example, he currently has no muscle tone in his lower face, presumably because he has tuned out those muscles because of constant over- and under-sensed oral inputs. Right now the only outward sign is slackness and drooling, but without improvement, it could lead to greater speech problems down the road, which would impair communication/self-esteem and possibly lead to the more recognizable Asperger's symptoms like non-sociability and poor communication skills. There are specific regimens we're supposed to use to get him to learn how to move and sense his mouth normally, like spray this incredibly sour liquid on his lips and pull on the insides of his cheeks in that typical "funny face" kids do. He thinks the sour stuff is great (it is painfully sour to most people) but really, really doesn't want me messing with his cheeks (which is exactly why I have to do it, but getting bitten is not fun.) Another thing I'm supposed to do is make all of his toys as heavy as possible, because it will help his muscles and movement if he gets more feedback from the things he is doing. In most cases this means drilling small holes and filling them with sand or rice. He freaked out about the weight belt at the therapist's office, so I'm also working on finding ways to make his clothes heavier, possibly by sewing little bean bags into the legs of his pants. We will be going to the occupational therapist once a week for now. Twice a week is also an option, but our insurance only covers 60 visits for the lifetime of the patient, and we would burn through them pretty quickly at that rate. But that's per diagnosis, so the workaround for that is to leave him at a diagnosis of only SPD for now, and then upgrade him to PDD for another 60 visits, but really treat him for both the whole time. Regardless, I really hope this week was just a bad week and not an indication of his new baseline. It was pretty damn rough. __________________ My book My other book My spirit animal

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