That Explains A Lot!!!

It's no secret that we've been struggling with Tate and his behavior for a long time. He started seeing a variety of therapists when he was just 18 months old. We've always known that there was something different about him, something that made him special. We call him "the monkey in the middle" for a reason! But, for a long time we just assumed that his speech delays were the cause of his behavior problems. When your child can't talk until he's almost 3 years old it forces him to learn other ways to communicate and satisfy his needs. His inability to express his emotions verbally caused a lot of conflict in our home. Recently we began to suspect that there was something more going on with him, something that would explain why he was still having so many problems even though his speech has come a long way in the last 18 months.

We recently went in search of answers. Tate had a wonderful evaluation at Children's Hospital's Pediatric Neuropsychology Program/Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders. The results have provided us with more answers than we could have hoped for and we came away from our meeting with a plan of action!! Tate has ADHD: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. What complicates his case is that his ADHD is combined with strong intellectual abilities and an above average speech/language delay. They also said he has no impulse control. (I've always known this, but just never knew how to describe it!) His difficulties with impulse control make discipline AND reward systems ineffective. He thinks too quickly for them to have any affect on his behavior. He expects the world adjust to him 90% of the time, which it rarely does. He's definitely a kid that requires a creative approach to learning and behavior modification since his natural tendency is to disregard rules and boundaries and do the opposite of what is asked of him.

Another piece of his puzzle is something called ODD: Oppositional Defiance Disorder. While he is not being diagnosed with this disorder at this time, his behavior fits most of the disorders characteristics. They typically do not diagnose children of Tate's age with this because their behaviors are much easier to correct than an older child's. A child with ODD will have 4 out of 8 of the following symptoms:

• Actively refuses to comply with majority's requests or consensus supported rules (Tate)

• Performs deliberate actions to annoy others (Tate)

• Angry and resentful of others

• Argues often (Tate)

• Blames others for his or her own mistakes

• Has few or no friends or has lost friends (Tate)

• Is causing constant trouble at school

• Spiteful or seeks revenge (Tate)

• Touchy or easily annoyed (Tate)

For Tate, an inability to sleep is a persistent problem. He is frequently one of last members of our house to go to bed and the first one awake. This is a problem for many children with ADHD. To help with this his doctors have recommended a dose of Melatonin before bedtime. We are very hopeful that this will help our household significantly!! Sharing a room with his older brother often leads to them both being up until 10 or 11 at night. If Tate sleeps more than we all sleep more! To read more about ADHD, sleep problems and melatonin I recommend the following article:

http://akanemd.hubpages.com/hub/ADHD-Melatonin

Our course of action from here is to increase Tate's Speech Therapy sessions by adding a private speech therapist, adding Behavior Therapy and Occupational Therapy to help him learn how to function in the world better and how to interact with his teachers and peers in a positive way. We are also seeking to enroll him the Pre-Kindergarten program at Nathan's elementary school so that his Speech Therapist at the school can work with him in a classroom setting 5 half-days a week. Unfortunately this will be a difficult process because their Pre-Kindergarten is an Inclusive Program that enrolls 6 special needs children and 6 typical peers in each classroom. Tate is not considered a good candidate to be a typical peer because of his speech delays. These students are encouraged to model good behaviors as well as good language and good classroom habits. We are hoping that Tate's diagnosis and his problems in his current classroom at his private preschool will now qualify to be one of the other 6 students.

To finish, I'd like to share part of a post I started in January but never posted. It explains a lot of what we've been struggling with, but as I read it now I'm hopeful because we finally have some answers and can put names to a lot of what we have been struggling with.

Tate had a speech delay. He still has trouble pronouncing most words and has a limited vocabulary, but in all other areas he's considered normal. But we just clash. I love him more than I can say and feel guilty because I can't seem to connect with him because he doesn't like affection. He doesn't like to be read to. He doesn't like to sing. He doesn't like to interact with people in general, but he typically responds better to men than to women. He spends most of his day telling me "me hate you mommy," "me no like you" and doing everything he can think of to physically hurt me, damage my belongings or to hurt my feelings. I've been stabbed with a pencil and had dinner spit in my face. Most days are spent with hair pulling, scratching, biting, hitting and kicking. He hates getting dressed, he hates leaving the house, he hates going to school and daily fights ensue just to get him dressed for his speech therapy and pre-school, let alone getting him in the car and in his classrooms. The only time he's happy is when he's watching TV or playing in the dirt. It's enough to wear a person down mentally. I'm not sure what went wrong- I don't even know how to fix it. I worry about him. I'm so tired of never being able to let my guard down. I feel trapped in my own house because I can't leave with him. I can't take him anywhere for fear he'll disappear or do something to endanger himself or others. He has a tendency not to recognize danger and will run through parking lots and disappear in stores frequently forcing me to choose between finding him or leaving the twins in an unsafe situation. It's never a good position to be in. He loves to play with knives. He's not good at communicating with other kids, which makes him not good at sharing. He loves to be destructive, destroying things that other kids have built or games that they are playing. I feel like nothing I do or say is getting through to him. I feel like nothing is ever going to change. I am working on accepting that his personality is always going to set him apart from the other kids in our family and other kids his age. It's also about accepting what I can change and what I can't. I can't change the personality he was born with. I can't change the fact that he has a speech delay and what that delay did to the way he interacts and communicates with others. I can't change the way this affected his personality or the personality traits he was born with. I hope 2012 brings some answers. I hope it brings some peace. I need to accept the things that I can not change and move forward. Move forward with finding some answers and finding some solutions.

I am so happy to report that we are well on our way to finding the answers and the solutions! I'm praying that all of these efforts help him to succeed in life!!