The days are longer, the sun is brighter, and the world seems a little bit brighter, right? For most of us we are lucky enough to feel a little bit more of a jump in our step as winter turns to spring and spring to summer, but for our Dude this change wreeks havoc in his little body!
As of right now he has what they call an unspecified mood disorder, because of his age his doctors are reluctant to nail a name to it. Which I can respect and appreciate. But it doesn’t change the fact that there is something going on on the mood scale! Season changes are hard on him, even with his medication holding he can go from one extreme to the other, happy and hyper to withdrawn, mad and sad, and very quickly! Add to that his sensory overload from choas at school this time of year and it causes some major chaos in our home, stresses me out, so I can’t even imagine how he feels!
As he gets older he is getting so mature and now able to verbalize how he is feeling with much more accuracy then prior years. I have had people say to me recently “he is so grown up, he is so well behaved!”. Well here is the brutal truth people…..he is, but let me tell you it takes a lot of work, he tries so so hard, he has to try harder then most to keep it together! He has 4 years of major therapy under his belt to teach him coping skills, and he uses them every second of every day. So when other kids his age act out (in their age appropriate way) he holds it together, because he knows with in himself if he gives an inch, he’s gonna go a mile.
Dude’s personality is truly a blessing that helps him alot. He is a caring, respectful, sympathic kid, he always has been, that has not come from therapy! So you mix that with intense work on his part, and you get this 9 year old wise beyond his years.
I am so proud of him and all of the work HE has done to be able to sit in a choatic classroom without melting down, to pull off good grades with none of the assistance he is supposed to have!
So yes these season changes cause an uproar within him, but you won’t see that because of him and his hard work! He saves it all for us, because when he walks through the door at 3:30, he is safe to let it go, to have a meltdown, to cry and scream. Which one of us can say we control ourselves for 8 hours a day every minute of that day? Not me that’s for sure!
So happy spring/summer. We will try to have a happy one, even though for 2-3 hours every evening we are calming him, reassuring, giving him sensory input or for that matter totally avoiding anything or anyone because he has had to deal with that all day, and for crying out loud he is going to be him in the evening!
Comments
j
Excellent post.
LuvMyCrzyLife
I could have totally written this post! This is my D through and through. He has worked so hard to learn to hold himself together at school, etc. but like your Dude, mine lets loose at home.
I’ve often described him as a volcano. He boils under the surface from the minute he gets up in the morning – every little thing causes him to boil a bit more. Once he comes home, he has to erupt because he just can’t hold the boiling lava under the surface anymore.
Thank you for sharing!
Martianne
This is a major reason why my husband and I chose to heomschool pre-k and k. we just did not feel we could handle the intense “decompressing” our son would do after school. Even as an infant, he saved it for us — always quiet, almost as if he were sleeping, at parties (before he hit the on the go stage) and, then, cry-cry-crying in the car and at home as soon as we left.