Back to School - Transitions can be Tough - Fit Update

Today is back to school day for Dekalb County. Sunny will be starting second grade. He has not been taking it well. He's been wetting the bed more and having more fits than usual. He also wet himself during the day a couple times last week, and tried to hide it (we don't punish him for wetting, so that wasn't a motive) . Our new therapist agrees that his behavior is definitely in response to the transition, and represents temporary regression.

We're definitely tightening things up and getting stricter. Some upcoming changes we've talked about:

-- no video game time on weekdays
-- no playing or going outside until homework is done on weekdays
-- no going inside the neighbors' house on weekdays until he can be trusted not to wheedle them into letting him play video games
-- going back to reading books at night. We had slipped into the habit of reading him classic Spider-Man. From now on, reading Spider-Man to him is conditional on first reading something else on his own.

There are a few more "consequences" we're instituting:

-- When I 'm talking to him and he puts his hands over his ears, I will assume he doesn't want me to speak to him, therefore I will not say anything at all to him for five minutes (I don't have the heart to do this any longer, he is generally crying his eyes out after a couple minutes).
-- If he refuses to read a book at night in bed, we will go out in the hallway and read the book there.

I've started up a formal behavior chart again. The five entries are: Do Homework with No Complaining, No Fits, No Backtalk, Flush Toilet and Read Books Nicely. Flush Toilet is the "gimme". He usually does it anyway, it's just really nasty when he forgets.

He already lost the "No Backtalk" star for today. This morning, while I was making breakfast, he got to the screaming point about a class he's taking at school. I could tell it wasn't really about the class. He was really casting about to find something that he sort of wanted, but I wouldn't immediately give him, so that he could have an excuse to blow up.

He's been having 1-2 fits every 7-10 days. We're both very used to them. When he gets to that point of cold rage, there's nothing else to do but tackle him and pin him down. It sounds horrible, but there's no other option. The only variant is that if he's not on a carpeted surface, we carry to him to a surface that is carpeted, and then we pin him down. This variant is often quite painful, since it gives him a chance to get in some kicks and punches.

I used to softly reason with him during these fits, but our new therapist, who has experience working with kids in a residential treatment facility, tells us not to say anything at all until Sunny calms down, and the rage will fade away a little faster. It turned out to be good advice. He's not listening to a word I say during that time, anyway.

Guy is learning how to handle the fits better. He used to almost go into a rage himself. It was the cursing. When he came to us, Sunny's strongest curse was "poopoohead". His neighborhood friends taught him a lot more. Now during fits we get random strings of really nasty curse words, including M-F. I had no problem ignoring these but it took my husband a while to develop tolerance.

He had a fit just last night. The names he uses during fits are bad, but oddly enough, the threats are awfully mild. I've heard of much, much worse threats from other foster/adoptive parents. For example, he doesn't say "you're not my real parents". He'll say, "I hate this crazy house!" or "I wanted to stay with (foster mom)!" or my favorite threat (I've got to find the humor where I can): "When I'm 18 I'm leaving this house!"

After the fit, when he's truly remorseful (sometimes he fakes it, then tries to hit or bite me when I let him go), I hug him and rock him for as long as he needs, then he goes and hugs Guy and apologizes. The only bright side is that they're a bit shorter than they have been in the past. They're rarely longer than 15 minutes now, whereas in the past, they've lasted up to an hour. Then we talk about how he needs to work on controlling his anger, and not let his anger control him, and to try harder next time to fight back his anger and take a deep breath instead. We've had the exact same talk a gajillion times but hopefully at some point it will sink in.

I don't think that negative consequences after the fact do much to stop them. So we don't punish him for them, other than sometimes taking away DVD time or video game time for the night. We're trying to reinforce positive consequences for "No Fits" instead.

We also talk candidly about the things we're doing to stop the fits, such as neurofeedback and medication. I told him yesterday that it was especially important to help him stop the fits now, when he was young, because when he was an adult, if he had a fit, the police might shoot him. He said, "that's not very nice of them!" and Guy said, "No, but it doesn't matter if it's nice or not when you're dead."

I know that sounds pretty bad. We shelter him from a lot of negative things in the world but I believe in total honesty in this area. I so often read news like this -- Mentally Ill Offenders Strain Juvenile Justice System -- and it scares me so much. I could barely stand to read that article.

If he still has behavior like this as a teenager, we'll be in a Catch-22 situation. I would have to call the police on him, but then I'd have to make sure the police didn't shoot him.

Obviously, that is the worst-case scenario. Ideally, he'll grow out of it... and these are just extra-strength tantrums that will pass once his brain develops more. Or maybe he does have some variant of bipolar disorder, but will learn how to control it with a combination of medication and therapy.

Anyway, I worry about this stuff, but it doesn't consume me. I was just saying to Guy last night that we have to be happy in the present -- there is no other time to be happy! That sounds a bit sappy, I know...

I'm hoping that some of Sunny's stormy behavior will turn around after the first week. He says he hates school, but when I ask him what he doesn't like, it's 1. having to do homework 2. having to do "boring stuff" in class sometimes. He has a ton of friends and loves most of the stuff he does in class.

We're working out rewards for the behavior chart this week. I'm trying to work out a few things that aren't just treats or extra minutes of video game time, but involve him getting more control over his environment in some way. I know control is very important and lies close to the root of much of this behavior.

This stuff sounds like a battle. It can be... but I think of it more as a game of chess. In fact, I've been playing some computer chess just to make sure I can keep beating Sunny at chess. He got very good at the game very quickly after chess camp! At the ending tournament, he won second place (4 out of 5 games) in his age division. Sunny is very smart, uses aggressive tactics and would quickly overwhelm a less prepared opponent. Beyond that, the parenting/chess analogy breaks down because he doesn't really know what he's playing for, but I do.

Also, I added the "Nurtured Heart" book that zunzun has been recommending to my wish list, and I'll get it in the next batch of books I order. I'm looking forward to reading that. Guy also took Sunny to see a new psychiatrist. They gave us an order for a blood test to get baseline chemical levels and make sure his atypical antipsychotic wasn't causing any serious imbalances. The test came back all clear. We'll be taking him back to the psychiatrist in a month or so for a follow-up. I like the cautious approach.