Friday, February 18, 2011

Anticipation and anxiety

When I was a kid, report card time was a terrifying time for me.  I never did well (thanks to an undiagnosed learning disability) and the results of the report card always ended up in having my ass whooped, being told I'm stupid and lazy and other uplifting things like that.  I'd be a mess and the teachers would always tell me that it's never as bad as I imagine it to be.  What they didn't get was... it was that bad.   It wasn't always physical.  My parents eventually gave up on me (and reminded me of that often) so all I had to suffer were the verbal affronts.

It took a long time for me to learn that in most situations, the anticipation of the event is always more stressful than the actual event.  I had to learn the "short term pain/long term gain" concept because I kept putting things off in anticipation of how horrible they may be when I had to actually deal with them.  I've gotten it down fairly well.

However, right now, I sit in anticipation of Dylan's developmental pediatrician appointment.  It's just shy of 1 week away.  Originally, we were going to see a doctor at a satellite office so we wouldn't have to pull Dylan out of school early or take off too much time but the doctor we originally saw at the main office changed gears on me after he received Dylan's teacher's assessment forms.  He felt that it would better to see him and the new doctor together because it may be hard to accept a diagnosis from a doctor we just met.

What does that mean?  I know what it means.  I also know I shouldn't care.  I know I should just continue with my mantra - "Dylan is Dylan and you can stick any labels on him that you want but it won't change the fact that he's Dylan".   This doctor wants to tell us that Dylan has autism.  He's be put on and pulled  off the spectrum so many times it's silly.  I know it doesn't change anything but still, there is this part of me that is scared.


Monday, February 14, 2011

A chance to win a really cool book....

For those of you with sensory seeking/avoiding kids, you'll know that there isn't much out there in the way of books for them to read to understand themselves.  Well, a new one was just published and all you have to do is go here to the SPD blogging network to enter for your chance to win.

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Adoption Relevance

Of course, adoption is very relevant.   My question is more towards people's insistence to constantly point out that Dylan is adopted.  I understand it's relevance in his medical reports.  A lack of a medical background is very relevant.  What I don't understand is it's relevance in a behavioral specialists report.  "Dylan lives with his adopted family".  Does she write "Jane lives with her biological family" on other children's reports?  How is his being adopted relevant to the fact that he can't sit still, gets into his classmates personal space and has a tendency to hit other kids in order to gain sensory input?   Yes, I'm pissed at the overall report.   Her recommendation of positive reinforcement every 3 minutes is laughable (although I'm told that this is common with how behaviorists write reports).  It gives no real life answers to his educational challenges.   But I'm more pissed about the inclusion of how he became part of his family as being relevant to her task at hand which was to observe him and make recommendations on how to better manage his behavior in the classroom.

So... adoption friends... tell me.... am I off base here?  Is it relevant?  Am I the only one who gets pissed at this kind of thing. 

I still remember correcting a teacher who referred to my Mom as my step Mom.  I told her not to call her that and she challenged me because "that's what she is".  I proceeded to tell her about my birth mother and the abuses I suffered at her hands.  I told her that my Mom is my Mom and that she is not to label my family.

Dylan is saddled with enough labels.  How he became part of a family shouldn't be one of them.

*EDIT - Marc thinks I'm way off base.  That maybe the fact that Dylan is adopted is at the roof of his issues or a lack of medical background is the reason for the mention.  He thinks I just don't like the report (true) and maybe looking for things.  I'm standing my ground for now - I'm open to the fact that I could be wrong but for now, I think I'm in the right.

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

My boy just can't catch a break... or a ball

I got to day care yesterday to find that Dylan was in the gymnasium.  I went to pick him up and usually, I can spot him as soon as I open door.  I didn't see him and saw one of the other teachers with an ice pack on a kid's head.  I asked where Dylan was and a teacher, who's back was to me, turned and there was Dylan, hysterical crying with blood just gushing out of his nose.  He took an errant basketball to the face.

I rushed him into the woman's locker room (ignoring the sign that says that children over 3 of the opposite sex are prohibited), put him up on the sink and set about getting the bleeding stopped.  It was swollen.  It hurt this a.m. but thankfully no bruising.

Initially, I wanted to take him to the ER but I called his pediatrician's office and they said not to bother, it's not like they can do anything for him if it is broken.  Today they just told me to bring him in if he has trouble breathing through his nose or if it looks crooked.

Poor Monkey.