There and Back Again

Argh! School Refusal Reared Its Ugly Head Again

2010-09-30T07:54:00.002-04:00

One month into school and Penny is back to 'I am not going to school. School is too hard. EVERYTHING is too hard!'

We had a major meltdown last night, including at least an hour of crying crying crying.

I am glad I get this opportunity to use my mindfulness...

Locus of Control

2010-09-28T08:36:00.005-04:00

Much to write but I have only a few minutes to introduce a new to me term.

Dr Plato asked X to bring Vincent to the last meeting and he talked to Vincent about locus of control, as in 'who or what determines what happens to you?' This was in the context of learning to drive as a specific example but it is obviously a much more general concept. Vincent explained why he didn't drive as much as he wanted to without taking any responsibility for his part in the equation.

Gotta run but I found a wikipedia article on Locus of Control and an online test to rate where one's own locus of control is located.

Session Notes III

2010-09-18T13:47:00.002-04:00

Dr Plato 'Is there any possibility Vincent might change her behavior when you talk to him about this?'
X 'Well, maybe, I don't know. Vincent's natural reaction to people making him do something is to push back. He would perceive it as me trying to assert control over him.'
Dr Plato 'So you can't say anything because you are afraid of his reaction?'
X 'I don't know.'
Dr Plato 'You are saying that he will deny, get angry, reject your words because he thinks you are trying to control him. That surely limits what you can say to him.'

X 'Maybe somebody else has to say it to him. Because he is getting good at tuning me out. I am usually not there.'
Dr Plato 'You are there more than anybody else.'
X 'Well, between working and trying to get groceries...'
Dr Plato 'What does Vincent do when you go grocery shopping?'
X 'He is sitting on his butt playing computer. Or sleeping.'

Dr Plato 'What is holding you back from expressing your opinion? It is your fear that he is going to be upset with you.'
X 'Well, I can push him, but I cannot really help him along.'
Dr Plato 'It would be much better to acknowledge your fear. If you don't, you have zero chance of solving this problem. Your stress will increase drop by drop and one day it will explode. It could explode inwards, and you would become ill. You were very close to that last year at that end of the school year. Or it could explode outwards. You will have a shouting match with Vincent, maybe even throw him out of your house.'

'If you adopt these strategies, not acknowledging your fears, not acting because you are afraid of the consequences, you are using the same model as the kids. You are not taking on anything that might cause you stress.'

Session Notes II

2010-09-17T21:45:00.004-04:00

Dr Plato 'What about Vincent?'
X 'Ha, he is doing great! He is making great progress in video games and in driving I guess.'
Dr Plato 'I see. How is the driving coming along?'
X 'He needs a lot of practice and I can't really do that much.'

Dr Plato 'That is regrettable. Earlier this year, I was hoping that Zac would emulate Vincent. But now it seems like the reverse is happening. Vincent is emulating Zac. Any idea why?'
X 'No, I don't know.' (A standard Zac response to anything he doesn't want to think about.)

Dr Plato 'Have you considered asking him? And telling him what you are observing?'
X 'No.'
Dr Plato 'What do you think would happen if you told him?'
X 'Um... I don't know.'
Dr Plato 'Come on, think deeper. What would happen? What could happen?'
X 'He would deny it.'
Dr Plato 'Is that all? Keep thinking. Anything else which could be happening?'
X 'I guess he could get angry.'
A long silence followed, broken by dr Plato 'Really? There are only two choices? He would deny it or get angry? These are the only options?'
X 'Yeah...'

Session Notes I

2010-09-17T21:29:00.005-04:00

Dr Plato 'How are things going?'
X, pondering for a while 'OK, I guess. Zac is going to school pretty regularly. But he has problems adjusting to life in general.'
Dr Plato 'Could you explain that some more?'
X 'He keeps himself separated from the rest of the world.'

Dr Plato 'Why do you think that is?'
X 'It stresses him out to interact with other people.'
Dr Plato 'Is he productive at school?'
X 'I think so.' adding the disclaimer 'But I don't think they put much pressure on him for high productivity.' (No kidding!)

Dr Plato 'What does Zac himself think about his productivity at school?'
X 'I don't know, I don't talk about school to him.' (Zac is extremely resistant to saying anything about school, he sees it as interrogating and a way of driving him crazy so he will commit suicide. So I can understand why X has not been talking about it at all.)
Dr Plato 'It is important that he considers himself to be making progress. When people think they are making progress, they keep going. If they don't believe they are making progress, they will quit, even while they are making huge progress.'

Fear and Anxiety

2010-09-17T21:02:00.002-04:00

Dr Plato tidbits.

What is the difference between fear and anxiety?

Fear is the autonomic nervous system kicking in when there is an actual threat. For example when a snake enters the room, many people would experience fear and a 'fight or flight' reflex so they can deal with the threat. Their heart rates goes up, they make adrenaline and their adrenal gland starts producing cortisol.

Anxiety is the same reaction during the ABSENCE of the actual fear object. This is often, but not always, caused by a memory of a fearful incident.

Dr Plato feels that Zac's body (and some of my other children's) has been conditioned to act like fear is present, even when it isn't. It is in his nervous system.

This seems to fit what I observe with him and the other children. I am learning a lot about the nervous system from these sessions. I am happy dr Plato is taking time to teach us. It fits my belief that when one is ready to learn, a teacher will appear.

Zac Update

2010-09-17T17:44:00.002-04:00

Zac is doing well at his level. He goes to school a few hours a day (not too much because he can't handle that). He has been going every day so far, the 9am bus, so that is encouraging. I think he does advisory with some other kids, but after that he spends two more 50 minutes periods in the Resource Room so that he does not have to interact.

He still hates having the younger children over to visit their dad and his standard whine is 'Make them go awayyyyyyyy' when they are over, which is not always appreciated by his siblings.

He continues to be mean to Bryan and Penny, but loves Baby Bear and sometimes takes her on a walk to a nearby gas station. I am thrilled that that gets him out of the house.

One big huge good thing is that he is volunteering at the local library. Today my friend saw him there and said he was doing well. It is nice to have community contacts to keep me updated ^^. I have no idea what he is doing, I am sure I'll hear more about it over the next few weeks. I am just happy he is doing anything out of his comfort zone. We proposed the volunteering at least a year ago, so it is encouraging that he was willing to do it.

Vincent Update

2010-09-17T17:22:00.004-04:00

Vincent is still very addicted to World of Warcraft, so is happy to live with someone who is willing to enable him. He quit his job in January or February, claims he wants to go to college but isn't actually making any steps in that direction ('I can be admitted to any college I apply for anyway') and wants to get his driver's license but isn't making many efforts to call my friend who is teaching him. For now he has put his whole life on hold till he has a driver's license and a car. I don't think he realizes how expensive a car is but I guess he will find out.

He claims he is not going to work at all till he is finished with college, so let's hope he gets a good scholarship and other financial aid. At least he did get his GED back in February so that is one baby step out of the way.

One good thing is that he is learning to cook some simple dishes and even has baked bread once ('Why didn't it rise mama, they were like bricks!'). It is not much but hey, learning to cook is a good skill.

Another good thing is that he goes out for walks occasionally, although he is always reading a book while walking, because imagine one would actually have to be bored without a book for a whole walk...

Frankly he does more parenting when the younger children are over than X does. Many times I hear 'Papa had to go to bed, because he was really tired, he needs to sleep a lot, you know!' while Vincent picks up some of the parenting slack that creates. He also does the dishes quite often according to him. Another good skill ^^

My hope is that he will wake up some time during the next few years and get off his butt and interact with the world. I have been talking to him about traveling, volunteering, anything he could do, but so far he isn't ready to listen yet. I am optimistic about him though, for now I am assuming he is not ready to step out in the world yet and is taking time off, not seeing it as a permanent condition.

Meditation

2010-09-17T11:42:00.002-04:00

Dr Plato is really focusing on breathing and meditation for the children. He taught us more breathing and talked more about the positive changes which happen in the brain when people do meditate.

There is a lot of research out there to show the mental benefits of meditation Very interesting stuff.

I told him about Penny wanting a book on her head when we were doing the breathing exercises. He felt that was cool that she did that, it would help her keep her head in the exact right position (posture) for meditation. Her body told her what she needed and she listened to her body.

More later, need to make lunch for a sick kid.

Summer Homework Hell

2010-09-03T12:22:00.002-04:00

Penny had summer homework to be finished over the summer vacation. What an idiotic and stupid idea. I just emailed her case manager to give her a heads up on the resulting anxiety issues.

The &%#&%(*&^^$#!@# summer homework led to TONS of anxiety over the summer and seems to still be rearing its ugly head. I am seriously wondering whether this summer homework thing was a good idea at all, it was and is extremely stressful for Penny and has not led to any clear benefits for her. I understand that the school doesn't want students to 'lose competencies' but I don't think this was the way to go or whether it would be less stressful to just do some review during the first weeks, which they seem to do anyway.

Penny didn't finish it all and now is stressing about finishing it, so much that she often doesn't even get started on it.

Yesterday she first spent the afternoon in the library with a friend and did about an hour of homework there. At night after dinner she still had to do homework (not sure whether that was summer or not, she wasn't very clear on it) and got started just fine making a book but it took her at least another hour to make that book. During that period she had a big fight with Ysa because Ysa wanted to practice chorus homework and Penny yelled that the only place she could make her book was at the piano and there were many raised voices and hurt feelings on both sides.

Anyway, this all culminated in a door slamming event, at least half an hour of Penny uncontrollably crying about homework, life, school and everything and refusal to take any of her night time meds (gah, I was soooooooooooooooo ready for her to go to sleep!)

Eventually I did get her calmed down, she finished the rest of her homework and went off to bed (way too late by now).

We'll see what her case manager replies.

Back To School

2010-09-03T12:17:00.002-04:00

After a superbusy but good vacation, everyone is back to school giving me a very much needed break during some days. Most of them seem to be adjusting well, although Penny is having homework issues already which I will tackle in a different post.

We had our first meeting with dr Plato and he started teaching a mindfulness exercise which is just awesome since I have been trying to meditate anyway. Funny how things work out that way. Last night I used the breathing exercise to help Penny calm down and it worked for her, wow.

I am reading 'Parenting the Anxious Child with Mindfulness and Acceptance' and I have had some good insights thanks to it. I am only halfway through, but I like it so far. I know it will come in handy dealing with the various kid's anxiety issues.

Still Alive

2010-07-27T11:32:00.002-04:00

Superbusy and Google ate my blog for a while although it couldn't decide whether it was for breech of terms of services, suspicious activity, unmowed lawn or because it was hungry. When I tried to jump through their hoops to get it back it stood on the side going 'Nah nah nah nah nah nah, that service is not available right now, but your call is important to us, please vote for us in the next elections.'

Vacation is great, we do tons of stuff even if it mostly involves me driving kids around all day.

Glad to have my blog back.

Taking Anxiety to a Whole New Level

2010-06-12T23:15:00.002-04:00

Penny had an interesting conversation with her guidance counselor. They talked about anxieties and what things she is worried about. She told him 'Well, I am worried about death. But not the normal way. I know a lot of people are afraid to die, because they think all will go black and it will be the end of everything. But I am not afraid of that, because I believe in reincarnation, so I will just be born again. Over and over. That is all good and fine, but it does mean that I am going to be around when the sun explodes! And then what?!!! I can't reincarnate anymore!'

Luckily we have a quick thinking guidance counselor who explained that she did not have to reincarnate on Earth, that there are many planets which could support life and she could reincarnate as an alien on one of those. In a different solar system. Phew!

He also pointed out that she didn't have to reincarnate as a human, but could come back as a tree or a rock instead. This got her really excited about what a cool secret life rocks would have. I mean, no one would suspect them of anything!' And trees are cool too. When you climb them they help you. If they didn't like you they would just push you out.

The curse of high intelligence and creativity making it way too easy to come up with many possible scenarios to worry about.

Vincent and Computers

2010-06-12T22:52:00.003-04:00

Over the last few months, dr Plato has been very clear in our meetings with him that the boys would benefit from restrictions on computer time. X has been resistant in implementing any such program. Apart from the one week where he tried to limit to three hours a day, but didn't monitor. Last week dr Plato told X again to turn off the computer or at least put a password on so they can't play unlimited.

X explained to dr Plato that he couldn't do that because Vincent would get annoyed... Zac would be ok with it, but Vincent would be annoyed.'

Dr Plato 'So what would Vincent do?'
X 'Well, he would go to friend's houses to play.'
Dr Plato 'He is that addicted? Does he have friends where he could just come and play computer all day?'
X 'um.. yes, no, maybe not.'

There was a lot more going back and forth, and the explanation that so much of Vincent's social life is in the computer (X 'he has real friends there!'), so he can't turn it off and X doesn't want to be bullying the boys around anyway.

The mind boggles.

Vincent quit his job and now plays World of Warcraft 24/7. In February he did get his GED but has not made any moves towards college. X explained to dr Plato that Vincent has lots of potential, but is waiting for X to get him into college. X stated 'Vincent needs a lighted path with check marks to cross off.' Dr Plato dryly commented that there are no lighted paths in front of the computer.

Lots more during this meeting, but my favorite was the 'No, I can't turn off the computer because Vincent will be annoyed.'

Ants and Anxiety

2010-06-08T08:32:00.002-04:00

Penny has had very much heightened anxiety for no clear reason. She was sick for one or two weeks, didn't go to school much, but once she was feeling better physically her anxiety was still up. She missed many days of school thanks to anxiety issues, and one night her worries reached a new level.

She was trying to fall asleep when an ant crawled over her foot. She totally freaked out, started hyperventilating, complained about not being able to breathe. She was sure ants were everywhere, they were scary and she definitely could not go to sleep because what if an ant came while she slept? Not to mention that there weren't any safe places to sleep.

After a few hours of that I called emergency services and we did get her calmed down enough to actually to get her to sleep but it took quite a while.

The next morning the psychiatrist had a cancellation, so they called us asking whether we wanted to take it. Did I ever! The psychiatrist evaluated her, agreed that her anxiety levels were way high and recommended anti anxiety medication. She didn't want to use prozac since that would take a few weeks to kick in and there seemed to be more urgency. So she is on guanfacine now.

She also has clonidine to help her sleep if needed.

The medication seems to help some, but we still had

half a day missed from school ('I am too scared to go to school' general anxiety with a bit of 'What if there are ants?!' specifics mixed in)
Sleep issues 'My throat is hurting. I am going to die! I am going to die! I am going to die.' That night we used clonidine which seemed to work.
Freakout at school play ground because of bug on her.
Another ant incident last night which yet again made it hard for her to go to sleep.

Not sure why her anxiety is so high, I am thinking either the sickness and recovery, the school end of year things being different, or maybe it is a result of puberty. We'll see the psychiatrist this week to talk about how things are going and take it from there.

Brotherly Observations

2010-05-27T09:50:00.002-04:00

Vincent 'Zac has been acting really stupid lately.'
Me 'Hmmm?'
Vincent 'He never wants to get out of bed for school, you have NO IDEA how hard it is for dad to get him out of bed!'
A moment's pause.
'Oh, maybe you do...'

I asked about other ways Zac was acting stupid, or whether it was just the morning thing. He said 'Oh, he is fine the rest of the time. As long as dad doesn't ask him to do anything.'

Book List

2010-05-12T21:09:00.002-04:00

Some interesting books dr Plato has mentioned which I am looking forward to reading some time soon. In my spare time indeed. Sharing for W and whoever else is interested.

Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are by Joseph LeDoux
Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina (Author)
My last note says 'What goes on in there' in my notes, but I can't find a book by that title. I did find What's Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life by Lise Eliot.

Anyone read any of these books? If so, please let me know whether you liked them.

Four Levels of Learning

2010-05-02T15:29:00.002-04:00

A list which dr Plato shared with me. Very interesting.

Levels of learning from lowest to highest:

1. FACTS - this is information gathered from books, the internet, anything one reads. You don't need to go out in the world to learn this way. Anyone can do it with little need for social interaction.

2. SOCIAL LEARNING - this is information one gains from others, often by their own personal experience. For example someone tells about hiking Mt Washington and the trail maintenance they were doing there as a team. The learner lives vicariously through the other person's experiences.

3. EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING - this is doing things, it involves the full sensory, emotional and cognitive experience. This could be hiking in the woods, it could be volunteering for trail maintenance or at the Humane Society. It can be anything that one actually experiences first hand.

4. EXPERT - when one reaches a high level of learning, then one is able to go out and teach others effectively at the vicarious learning level. The best experts can convey their experience to many different type of learners. The ability to convey their experience to all of these brain modalities often results in motivating students to the experienal learning level and beyond.

This was from Penny's evaluation. It is followed by the statement that Penny's learning has accelerated because she has moved beyond the first level. Hower she does not fully recognize or appreciate this phenomen. She will slowly but surely achieve this if her social anxiety does not cause her to retreat back to homeschooling.

As an aside, I find it interesting to see that even dr Plato doesn't recognize how much social learning there is in homeschooling. Even he still seems to think that homeschooled kids are at home all the time, he doesn't see the rich environment which is created by homeschool groups with many levels of learning and many different aged kids. But that is not what this post is about, I wanted to share the four levels of learning and the fact that all learning is social (if one wants to reach a higher level than just reading about it that is).

I haven't posted much, not because nothing is happening, but because of being swamped. I feel more on top of things than I did even a few months ago though. Which is good because I still am juggling so many balls and dropping some all the darned time.

Today I printed out the hardiness / heartiness vision statement and hung it on the family room wall so I can refer to it till my kids get sick of it and will just do it to shut me up. Penny and Baby Bear both have told me that they prefer to call it character instead of hardiness which is just fine with me. As long as they work on it.

Hardiness Vision Statement is Official

2010-04-15T08:50:00.003-04:00

X and I met with dr Plato and have solidified the hardiness vision statement. We are supposed to teach to this document and give it to all the therapists (done ^^) and tell them to help us support the children in developing hardiness / heartiness.

At home we hang up the list and point out when we ourselves do anything that is on the list (look, this is number 8, asking for help!) and when the kids do things on the list. This includes the kids helping the other kids to recognize when they are doing something that is on the list.

Dr Plato stated that a good teacher makes the abstract obvious, because just reading the list to them obviously isn't going to teach them much, since a lot of the list items are more abstract than concrete.

This will be interesting.

He asked for our feedback on this new approach. I told him that I liked the positive way to approach this and was looking forward to implementing it.

X's input was a bit more negative, but about me, nothing about the actual list. He claimed that I would not be capable of doing this, proven by the fact that I had said 'That builds character' to Bryan when he claimed boredom a few days ago.

Dr Plato asked him why he thought that was a bad thing to say. X 'She is saying this is not my problem, don't bother me! Frankly, I am not surprised at all that Bryan is so neurotic' (yes, he used that exact word for his son!) 'since she is so mean to him!'

Dr Plato asked what he would have answered when Bryan would have told him he was bored 'Well, I would have told him he could as well do his homework if he was bored anyway. He needs me to suggest things when he is bored!' Of course, my sarcastic self says that Bryan will never be bored at his house anyway because there is unlimited screen time.

Interesting to see how X still tries to blame everything on me. How there was no reflection on the vision statement at all, just on me. I was talking to my friend about it and she expressed that maybe I should always expect him to blame me so that I wouldn't be surprised.

Juggling

2010-04-08T09:06:00.002-04:00

This blog has been neglected a bit, which doesn't mean nothing is happening, I just haven't found the opportunity to sit down and write about it.

Every one has good moments and not so good moments.

Vincent has gotten his GED, quit his job and now spends 24/7 playing computer games... He does want to go to college, but hasn't made any moves yet in the direction to start making that happen.

Zac has not been visiting his weekly visits for about a month now, the only time he came over was Easter (there was candy after all ^^) He missed one day of school this week so far. The 'limiting computer time' at the ex's house is totally not working, I don't think there has been a very good attempt at all from the ex, which is both unsurprising and sad.

Ysa is doing a bit better, even if there are still moments like last night when she was kicking the doors because I didn't want to let her watch a South Park episode at 10pm.

The others have had interesting moments, and if I was in any way organized I would have documented them. But for now, just throwing out a 'I am alive and we are well' message.

I feel good about getting a lot of things done, even if blogging isn't one of the things. But I am keeping many balls in the air and not dropping many at all.

The Joys of Missing the Schoolbus

2010-03-30T08:04:00.002-04:00

The good news: Ysa was doing much better most of the time with her aggression / anger, including being more willing to join family events and even interact with her siblings and me.

But as always, we are seeing some backslides in her progress. Last night she was annoyed with her younger siblings and told me 'If they continue like this I am going to KILL them! I don't care if you call the police, I don't care at all, I'd rather be in jail than with them!' ok... I didn't call her bluff, but removed her from the situation and distracted her with school work and I told her all about the parent information meeting I had attended at the high school and she calmed down.

She has missed the morning school bus yesterday and today though. Which of course is all my fault. I clearly don't care about her education. Especially not since I don't want to drop everything and leave Baby Bear sleeping in the house by herself to drive her to school every time she misses it. She refuses to take the town bus ('I HATE that bus! I am too young to take a bus by myself!!!!' Yes, even if she has done it to go shopping, she can't do it to go to school ^^)

So for the last two mornings she has called her dad, whining and bitching and yelling at me and explaining how I clearly don't care for her and how daddy should hurry, she is going to be late! This morning she also was slamming doors and chairs and everything, such fun. She said she would just go live with her dad now! Ok... I was calm enough not to yell back at her 'Good riddance!' but I will have to admit that that phrase did make a short appearance in the forefront of my mind when she was behaving this way.

Thanks for All the Feedback

2010-03-30T07:48:00.004-04:00

I incorporated most of it, the only thing I had trouble with was the independence. I agree that it is not mutually exlusive from team work, but I am still not sure how to put in the list and how much emphasis I want to put on it. My Aspergers kids are Very High on the spectrum of 'I don't need anyone, I don't want anyone, I'll just be a cat lady (Violet), everyone around me is an idiot! (Zac) and have made it very clear that they want to be on their own and do not particularly need or want anyone. I wonder how much I would encourage that by adding it to the list, or whether I should just trust that the independence part will happen naturally.

My kids always have been good at doing independent stuff when they felt like / when needed. So it is not an area I am too worried about. Which of course doesn't mean I don't have to verbalize it, so I don't know yet.

I will have to ponder this more ^^

Getting Away from the Language of Fear and Anxiety

2010-03-22T12:50:00.003-04:00

First draft of dr Plato's homework, a vision statement.
Any feedback is welcome.

Dr Plato Rocks!

2010-03-20T09:50:00.003-04:00

X and I have been getting together with dr Plato and his new plan is to work on the positive attributes we want the kids to have, all concerning hardiness / heartiness. Write a document about that (going into the underlying character qualities of it) and give that to all the therapists as a 'This is what we want/visualize, helps us to work on that for this kid.'

This approach fits very much into the parenting I have done since they were born and into how I live my own life. Focusing on the positive, even if there also should be dealing with the negative, but I think some of the therapists have been swaying a bit too much into the direction of focusing on the negatives.

Lack of Life Skills?

2010-03-14T10:26:00.003-04:00

Last Friday Ysa was supposed to go over to X's house. She spent the day at an old friend's house (they have been friends for like 8 years if not more?) and asked her dad to pick her up at that house. He had never actually been there, but she gave him the exact address so he could look it up and get her.

Two hours after she should have been picked up, she came home. 'E's mom dropped me off. Daddy called he never could find their house, so I can't come over tonight.'

And yet another visit not happening and another opportunity to see his daughter missed :(

How can you just leave your daughter like that? How can he not have called to say 'I can't find it , can you give me directions?' instead of 'Oh, too bad, you can't visit.'

The Other Kids

2010-03-04T18:08:00.002-05:00

When Dr Plato met with me and X he also talked a lot about the other kids. He mentioned that they have serious problems too and whether we saw that. X claimed that the others do not really have any problems.

Ysa doesn't show ANY problems at his house. And she always had been the happiest child he has known and she should not say she wants to kill herself. She never has any explosions at his house, so he wonders what can be going on with her (Conveniently forgetting that she only spends a few hours a month at his house and he does not actually try to enforce any limits during these hours :p)

'The others don't have any problems either. Everything was just fine until a few years ago she (pointing at me) withdrew from me and the kids. All the kids problems started after I left the house, but I don't see them at my house. '

My mind boggles every time I get a glimpse into X's universe.

Window of Opportunity for Zac

2010-03-04T12:52:00.002-05:00

Last school meeting, X never showed up (he forgot) and Dr Plato really pushed Zac again. The fact that Zac did not totally break down, didn't threaten to kill himself, in combination with the resilience Zac showed during the school meeting before this one, led dr Plato to believe that this is the time for action.

He told Zac he was going to tell his dad to turn off the computers and held him accountable for his work at school. No school work = no computers.

Zac and dr Plato negotiated that Zac should work three times 35 minutes (he is in for three periods if he makes it to school) and that would entitle him to computer that day.

Dr Plato did set up a meeting for X and me for yesterday to talk about it. He started with telling X that computer on the days that Zac does perform at school should be limited to 3x35 minutes of computer time because that is how much he worked. Not more. X did not like this 'How can I enforce that??? I am not home! I work! I don't get home till 7 or 8!'
Dr Plato offered the option of putting a password on the computer.
X didn't like it. 'I don't want to push all his computer time to the evening. It is going to be a big fight!'
Dr Plato 'Do you want to fight now or later? The consequences might be more severe later. There is a window of opportunity, he was showing some resilicience now.'
X 'Well, he didn't do well this week at all and didn't do well today at the psychiatrist!'
Dr Plato 'Yes, he will bitch whine cry complain, it is typical avoidance behavior. But we might never get another chance, we are running out of time. If we don't act now, you will have a chronically mentally ill adult that you own for the rest of your life. I am not saying you won't if we act now. Maybe nothing we do will help him. But this is your chance.'

'The computer is poison, it is an addiction, it is slowly poisoning him. Yes, if you take it away, he will argue, he will make your life hell, but he will engage. Engagement on conflict is much better than withdrawal on the computer.'

X said that he thought that taking away the computer would only take away a symptom, not take care of the cause. Dr Plato retorted by asking 'You are trying to make this in a chicken / egg problem, do you know what any farmer says when you ask him what came first, the chicken or the egg? They will say I don't have time for that crazy philosophical crap. I need to feed the chickens, I need to check the incubators, I need to make sure I breed the best hens. There is work to be done.'

There was a lot of back and forth between X and dr Plato and I don't know whether X got convinced and will actually do the computer limits like dr Plato proposes. It is very opposite to his 'Zac is a teen and needs to make his own decisions!' stance. Too bad he didn't voice that to dr Plato :p

Anyway, I hope that X will take this opportunity, but I am grounded enough in reality that I know he might not and there is not a darned thing I can do about it.

Does Mama Want Baby Bear to Get Hurt????

2010-03-04T07:50:00.002-05:00

We were at therapy with Baby Bear and trying to get a handle on her not leaving the room when there were explosions happening. Trying to explain to her that for safety sometimes she does need to leave the room. Even if that means being away from me.

This was triggered by events during Penny's explosion when Penny was violent to her, but I was restraining Penny and was not able to physically help Baby Bear remove herself. It took a lot of talking and a long time and then she finally was willing to go with Violet.

Baby Bear has had other incidents that she'd rather stay with me and the exploding kid than get herself to a safe place, so that is something I want to work on with her.

The therapist tried to explain to Baby Bear that I was trying to make sure she didn't get hurt and did Baby Bear understand that? Baby Bear was busy playing with her dolls and didn't give enough feedback, so the therapist decided to write it down on the whiteboard. I am not confident anymore what she wrote, either the question 'Does mama want Baby Bear to get hurt?' or the statement 'Mama wants Baby Bear to get hurt.'

Under it she wrote:
YES
NO
??

She gave baby bear a marker to circle what she thought, and baby bear circled the ?? one. This was not what the therapist expected and she asked again and Baby Bear yet again circled the ?? one.

Then she decided to ask what about daddy? Does daddy want you to get hurt? Baby bear now very decisively circled NO.

I was sitting there 'Great, after 5 years of protecting them from his issues and divorcing him, this happens', also realizing that yes, my household has way more explosions at the moment because of setting limits and more time spent there and more kids at the same time, and I can understand that she feels in a way more protected at his place where they are only for a few hours and there are less violent explosions. Not to mention that she doesn't read yet and it seems unfair to put this sentence on the white board and expect her to give an answer like that.

The family therapist was 'very concerned' about her answer though and it looks like now it is coming back to haunt me in being labeled with 'lack of nurturing' 'lack of availability' and 'being aloof'.

Please give me a reality check. Does this question seem , put this way, feel like she was putting thoughts in Baby Bear's head the way she stated it? I have an iffy feeling about the whole interaction. I see what she wanted to try to do, she expected a resounding NO, but doesn't it feel a bit strange to do it in this way with a non reading / writing kid who is only 5 years old? A very mature 5 years old, but still... And she does recognize yes and no, but still... She definitely doesn't recognize or understand ?? symbols.

Book Case Organization...

2010-03-01T17:01:00.002-05:00

Even although Penny has never been diagnosed with OCD, she definitely has some tendencies in that direction. Last week she decided to alphabetize the books on our living room's book shelves. Which went well until she found some Chinese books in between the English book. She gave them to me and refused to include them on the bookshelves, because it was impossible to decide where they would go in the alphabet and what would be the order within their group if she grouped all Chinese books together.

She was very adamant about it that these could NOT be in the book shelves.

At least it makes for a funny story ^^. For now I put the Chinese books on non alphabetized book shelves. Let's just hope she doesn't make it through all the book shelves in the house or I don't know what I will do with them :p

Hmmm, Anti Large Family?

2010-02-26T13:36:00.002-05:00

Even although our family therapist has a lot of good things going for her, she also seems to have a bias against large families. She keeps asking why we had so many kids, and yesterday she stated that it is almost impossible to love this many kids and I sure shouldn't do any of my hobbies anymore because the kids need my time and energy too much.

Strike 1: yes, I can love and take care of that many kids, and there are a lot of advantages of a large family if only the abundance of sibling relationships and the amount of fun and love that there is, even if therapy necessarily focuses more on the problems in their relationships. It doesn't mean there are not many good moments too.

Strike 2: the dad and Zac have been complaining about my hobbies even although I spent considerable less time on my hobbies than dad does at the computer playing World of Warcraft. But god forbid mom should have a life at all!

Whatever, I will ignore the hobbies advice and the large family bias, since she also has good input regarding ways to deal with the kids. I am just annoyed right now that when Baby Bear puts four puppets in a house to play, two older kids and two younger kids, she writes down 'Ah, I see! Kids taking care of kids!' and how she keep trying to claim that Ysa had the mother role in the family and she is so angry now because she isn't the mother anymore. Huh?!

Bowling...

2010-02-23T17:38:00.002-05:00

Last week, Bryan's case manager Peter took Bryan bowling. Bryan told me 'I won! Easily! Peter is not a very good bowler!'

Given Bryan's athletic skills it is hard to imagine that Peter did his uttermost best to beat Bryan ^^ Or maybe Peter really is a lousy bowler.

She Has Left

2010-02-20T11:50:00.003-05:00

Lots of issues, and tears and despair, but Penny decided to go with him to the local art gallery where they do a fun class on Saturday. After AVA she will come back home.

Summary 'I don't want going to daddy because Zac is there. Zac always is mean to me and daddy tells him not to, but he doesn't listen and keeps doing it over and over and papa says Zac has to make his own decisions, so he can't tell Zac not to play computer.' 'And anyway, the only reason I go to papa is because I get to play computer because I NEVER get to play computer at home because I have to school ALL THE TIME and I don't want to go to school anymore I want to be HOMESCHOOLED, just like the kids in Baby Blues. They get to be homeschooled, why can't I?!?!'

I see.

More Details on Last Weekend

2010-02-20T10:33:00.003-05:00

Last Saturday Zac kept calling Penny a bitch and EVERYONE was mean to her. Not only is she not going anymore, but X told her 'You can't come over anymore if you behave like this', which she, unsurprisingly, heard as 'You can't come over anymore.' Which is just fine with Penny, she is totally done with visiting him.

Kind of a bummer to send such a message to your 10yo daughter. Today she is refusing to go, and even although I encouraged her yesterday, I am going to let her stay home today if he can't convince her, since I think therapist involvement would not be bad before the next visit. Both for Penny and for him, since I have a family therapist meeting with X and me on Thursday and this seems perfect to bring up.

As an aside on last weekend, Bryan and Baby Bear were going to visit him last Sunday, and had been looking forward to their special visit. But he told them 'No, you can't come anymore because Penny acted up and I am sick now.' Lovely, just lovely.

Interesting Insight or the Law of Shifting One's Normal a Little Bit Every Day

2010-02-18T21:48:00.004-05:00

Yesterday we had the Penny incident, which was a big freak out, but not particularly stressful or that noteworthy in my current life.

She is only 10 years old, so even although she was attacking people, it was not impossible to prevent her from harming them;
She always explodes big, but once she finally calms down, she actually IS calm and can talk about what happened and process it;
It really is small potatoes compared to Zac's past incidents.

Today I was talking to Penny's therapist and she convinced me otherwise. This was not small potatoes. She said 'I bet you were really upset afterwards and stressed out. It would have been ok to call emergency services and run this by them and talk about it after the fact, even if you can't call during incidents like this.' When she said I must have been really upset I did realize that no, I was not upset at all, this felt like a minor blip on in my life, nothing big. When she said it could have been appropriate to call the police, I realized that yet again I was suffering from a 'Normal' which has shifted over time to an 'Not so normal after all'.

When Zac was younger, he had many sensory issues, and many explosive issues, and we all were used to his idiosyncracies and used to living with them, accomodating them, trying not to bother him, trying not to make him explode. Every day we accomodated him a bit more. Every day we broke another egg to add to the egg shells to walk on. Every day we shifted our normal just a tiny bit.

Until things got so out of whack that hospitalization was his only option. And I did take a step back and looked at all the egg shells on the floor in horror and realized that we had added to them day by day, shell by shell and not really noticed till they covered the whole floor. Our normal had shifted significantly.

When I was married to my ex, he had somewhat of a temper. Slowly he started yelling more and more. But things were ok as long as we stayed out of his way. We could just go out and do things away from the house. We had good moments in between the bad ones, so it would be negative to only look at his explosions, right?

He started destroying chairs and laundry baskets. He was throwing boots, emptying garbage cans, yelling more and more. But as long as we did nothing to upset him, it was only single incidents and of course our normal was just normal. Apart from his temper, but that only happened when we annoyed him. Or when the laundry was behind. Or when there were was too much clutter on the kitchen table. Of course that would annoy him. It would annoy everyone who worked so hard all week and just needed to relax now.

Every day our normal shifted a tiny bit. Every day we put more egg shells on the floor and tried not to step on them. Every day we adjusted just a bit more to a life where we constantly had to be careful not to trigger him.

Until he started saying things like 'Why don't you kill your kids?!' and his incidents got more and more frequent and more and more scary. Until Zac went to school crying and with a panic attack because his dad was so out of control when I wanted to donate videos to the thrift store. Until I realized that our normal had been pushed over lines it should not be pushed over for anyone.

That was when my eyes opened to the reality and when we got separated.

And again I find myself in a 'shifting normals' situation where Penny's incident felt like almost nothing , but outside input made me realize that oh, maybe it was significant after all. And maybe a new visit to the police station to talk about possible calls from our home is in order. And maybe I should look at my normal and try to see it with outsider eyes instead of with 'boring old; same over and over; no big deal' eyes.

Penny

2010-02-18T13:38:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Penny got REALLY upset which started with me asking the kids
to help me shovel the driveway. She put her face up to Bryan's face and SCREAMED as loudly as she could, slammed doors.

She often does calm down after a bit, so Bryan, Baby Bear and I went outside to start shoveling, and after a while she came out but was still in a bad mood. She claimed her coat was wet and she couldn't shovel. When I proposed to either use another coat or wear a sweater under her coat (she was wearing a tanktop) she disappeared inside again. She came outside and started yelling that she couldn't zip up her coat and she needed help and I clearly hated her and she couldn't hear me and more of that. I told her that she could come down the driveway where I was shoveling and I would help her, and after a lot of screaming she did, where she proceeded to YELL, SCREAM in my face, and throw herself on the driveway, claiming that I clearly hated her and I wasn't helping her and I was just saying horrible things to her and I was trying to kill her. I was talking to her and said I loved
her but this was not acceptable behavior and I would help her once she could calm down. She never did and kept screaming and kicking the ground.

By that time Violet had come out too and helped shovel while Penny was having her temper tantrum. After a while we were done shoveling and went back inside, where Penny proceeded to be upset. Ysa was not helping by mimicking her, and she got so mad about that that she started hitting her. I sat in between them to prevent things, but Penny kept escalating and was hitting, kicking and even biting Ysa. I had to restrain her, and even then she still managed to kick Baby Bear, and throw things at Ysa (mostly clothing items, although I intervened when she tried to throw a brown paper bag with a tin can inside. The socks and scarves and everything else I let her throw. She threatened to kill Ysa several times. She threatened to kill Baby Bear. She threatened to kill me. She claimed I was killing her.

I offered her her corner, or to go to my room with me and some food, but she kept refusing and she kept refusing to promise to not attack people. I talked about her using her skills but she was beyond any coping skills and just was erupting. At some point she grudgingly said 'I will not attack them if they just stay out of my way!' but I felt conditional safety was not enough with her in this mood. 'In her way' could be interpreted quite broadly in her state of mind. I felt at a loss what to do, beyond being there, preventing her from hurting others (she tried to bite me, but never was successful) and talking calmly and offering food and solitude, and after a while she did calm down some what and we did end up in my room with food and she totally calmed down. She claimed she never had problems like that before she started school, but I did not agree with that ^^

I would have wanted to call emergency services, but I had no way to keep her and the other kids safe while talking on the phone and once the episode was over I didn't feel I needed them anymore. I could have called the police but that felt like an overreaction. I will talk to her therapist how to handle these situations when she is out of control like this and impossible to calm down. When we did talk about things, she said she was hurting Ysa because she was being a poopyhead but Baby Bear she was hurting just because she was there.

I am NEVER EVER EVER ...

2010-02-15T21:22:00.002-05:00

Penny after her Saturday visit: 'I am NEVER EVER EVER EVER! going to daddy's house again!'
Hmmm, I think I have heard this before ^^

I haven't heard the specifics yet, because I usually just let her rant and rave and discharge just after it happens and talk about it more in depth the next day. Only the next day was Valentine's Day, so we were busy doing stuff for that.
The bits I did get 'EVERYBODY was teasing me! Zac was calling me a bitch!' From the others 'Penny screamed so loud that the neighbors came over to ask about it.' It sounds like she didn't want to leave and that is what started the fun, although it looks like it escalated a bit...

I wonder what happened, but in a way I am happy that now he can't say anymore 'Penny never has ANY problems at my house! '

He left Bryan with Zac while he took Baby Bear to a birthday party (to which Bryan also was invited, but he'd rather play computer games at X's house). Bryan said 'it was ok, since Vincent was there' but then later told me that Vincent was asleep all the time. Gah.

Haha

2010-02-11T07:49:00.002-05:00

Guess who missed the school bus again this morning?
Yup, Ysa.
She came back into the house, annoyed 'I missed the school bus, I will just call daddy!'
Picks up the phone 'Daddy? Could you please drive me to school? I missed the bus and mama is too lazy to drive me! And she said she will call the police on me if I don't go to school!' (which is interesting, since I have not said that, but I think her assistant principal might have mentioned it to her when she came in so late on Monday) After a moment of silence, she added 'Thank you, daddy!' in a very sweet voice.

There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth and 'You are stupid for using the police as a taxi service if YOU could just drive me to school instead!'

I did talk to the girls case manager about the 'miss school bus / daddy = savior' issue, and Zac's case manager will talk to X about it. I am not holding my breath for X getting it though, and I can see where it is much better for X to be the good cop, so he can feed into his 'I am a great father and she is a horrible mother' view of the world. I have filed it all in my 'Whatever' bin.

Ysa

2010-02-10T14:49:00.002-05:00

Yes, I am behind in updating everything, today is Ysa catchup day.
Late January, she had her meds eval, and the psychiatrist felt strongly that she was just angry, spitting mad angry and didn't need meds. She even questioned whether therapy was helpful at all right now, since Ysa clearly isn't in a space yet that she is willing to talk, making it harder to benefit from therapy. The general feeling is that therapy makes her even more angry.

In consultation with her therapist we decided to stop therapy for now, but have immediate consequences for
1. Threatening to kill oneself : ambulance gets called
2. Hurting others : police gets called.

She has been doing well so far, I think she is realizing that we were not joking and this is what is going to happen and she has been able to change that part of her behavior. She is participating in a school play too, and I feel that that is helping her in addition to the new 'rules'. We'll see.

Getting up has been an issue lately, she missed the school bus last Thursday and Friday (which in our house means 'take the public bus to school'). She does NOT like that and always calls her dad 'Daddy? Please drive me to school because mom is too lazy!' Whatever ^^ Naturally, he drops everything and drives her.

Yesterday was more fun though. She did her usual missing the bus routine, but I had a dentist appointment with Baby Bear and told her she could come to that and walk to school from there. (about 5 or 10 minutes from the dentist). She must not have heard the walking part, because when we arrived at the dentist she asked 'WHY DIDN"T YOU DROP ME OFF AT SCHOOL????!'. I told her we had an appointment and no time to drop her off, but she could walk and she got mad, but started walking. At least, that's what it looked like.

Forty five minutes later we come out of the dentist and guess who is sitting in the car? 'I didn't feel like walking. I can just skip a bunch of classes, I'll call daddy when we come home.'

Um...
no.

I drove her to school and she crossed her arms over her chest and said 'I AM NOT COMING OUT!' I said 'ok', took Baby Bear and we went into the school. I smiled at the secretary and stated 'We have a small problem. Ysa doesn't want to come to school and is in the car refusing to get out, is there anyone who could talk to her?' She got the assistant principal who had a very nice demeanor and said 'Call me any time if she refuses to come to school, I can come to your house with the police to get her if needed.'

He walked to the car, opened the door, and very matter of factly and calmly stated 'Ysa, it is your job to be in school. Let's go.' She got out, followed him and went into the school.

Today she did make it to the bus in time.

A More Advanced Family

2010-02-04T21:05:00.002-05:00

Bryan's therapist asked him why he said things like 'I am going to kill myself' at home but not at school. He said that it would scare the kids at school, but it doesn't scare his siblings, because we are 'a more advanced family.' The therapist asked what made us an advanced family. Bryan replied 'Well, me and my siblings know more swears and more about sex than the kids at school.'

Geez, thanks Bryan, for putting our family in such a good light... He said that Vincent and Zac have taught him a lot about sex by talking about sex when he was in the room, not specifically to him, but he says he learned a lot by listening to them.

Today's Zac Meeting (looooooooooong)

2010-01-25T19:53:00.005-05:00

Today's Zac meeting was interesting to say the least. The school psychologist asked whether Zac was willing to start in a regular class again this semester. Zac replied that he didn't think that was a good idea. The psychologist noted that his attendance has been up and down and that any setback at school translates to yet another school refusal period.

The vice principal proposed to go the GED and school-to-work program route, since the current school program clearly isn't working. They talked for a while about pre-GED testing and the Vocational Rehab program and about what kind of things are expected in a work situation.
- follow directions
- punctuality
- be presentable
- nice clothing
- good hygiene

During an earlier meeting Zac had said he would be willing to volunteer, although today he first stated he preferred to volunteer for politicians. When they told him that that wasn't an option for school supported volunteering, he agreed that volunteering at the thrift store or at a local community center might work too.

Dr Plato offered that Zac doesn't like to be evaluated, and asked Zac whether he was ready for the evaluations and commitments he would need to endure for a job. Zac said 'I don't know.' Plato warned that Zac gets disappointed easily and could give up.

I noticed that dr Plato mostly listened during the main meeting, didn't have a lot of input beyond some tempering words here.

But after the main meeting was over and most people were leaving, dr Plato asked Zac, me, Zac's dad and the psychologist to stay behind so he could talk with us.

Dr Plato started out with asking X how Zac's mood has been lately.
X told him that it was great for the last two weeks, and Zac had put himself on a sleep schedule which was better than any one else in his house. (My cynic note to myself: Yeah, that is why Zac made it to school only one day out of the four days of that first week :p)

The school psychologist said that things like book reports really paralyze Zac, because he doesn't know how to do a book report. Dr Plato perked up. 'Ah! here is where you can see how he is being poisoned by not knowing how to do a book report. He doesn't know and he does not have an antidote for not knowing. All of us encounter the poison of not knowing. But most of us have developed antidotes for it.' He went around the room and asked what people used for antidotes.

The school psychologist said that he wrote down things on paper and when he was anxious, he would recite poetry in his head (like The Cremation of Sam McGee)
X said that he made lists.

I said that I talked to friends and divided tasks into baby steps. Dr Plato grabbed onto that one by rephrasing it into asking for help. He compared my antidote of asking for help with Zac's antidote of anguish and anxiety.

He turned to X and stated that Zac and him should find a way to help Zac develop hardiness at home and ways to help him feel more powerful, less helpless.
Panic is not an effective antidote to deal with problems / not knowing.
Zac by now was starting to get fidgety and said he wanted to leave, hid his face, started being whiny and stated he would just burn down the building. Dr Plato challenged him right into his face and said him 'Leaving this meeting is your problem, now solve it. Show us your problem solving abilities.'

Zac said he could just get up and leave but X had the car so that doesn't work. He got more and more worked up and stated that he was just fucking worthless and would kill himself. Dr Plato was not impressed and used it as a way of showing that Zac desperately needed to learn better coping skills. He feels Zac has gotten really good at performing something that looks like anxiety, but it really is defiance. He is good at portraying himself as way more wounded than he actually is. He has learned the language of anxiety, but the way he managed to calm himself down during today's meeting when his threats and whining didn't work shows that he can control it.

Zac's avoidance response is so fast and so intense that he often does get away with it. Dr Plato told X that he should not allow Zac escape his problems. That Zac still lacks the ability to ask for help. That even people with low intellect who have learned to ask for help function on a higher level than Zac does now.

Dr Plato does not expect a high level of success from this new GED / school to work program. I agree. But at this point I am not sure what would be a successful program, and X has taken on the responsibility, so I'll let the two of them figure out how to teach Zac to problem solve, to ask for help and to not use escape as the best solution for any setbacks. Good luck to them.

Frankly I think the school just wants him out of there and hopes that the GED will accomplish just that. I don't know that the school has been extremely helpful or useful during the last years, so it is time to let go of dreams, accept reality and hope for the best. At least if he has a GED he might be able to use that as a stepping stool if he matures enough to develop better coping and problem solving skills.

'Stop and Think!' Bag

2010-01-24T21:05:00.002-05:00

Baby Bear came home with her very own special 'Stop and Think' bag after her case manager outing. It is both a reminder for her to stop and think before she starts getting physical towards people. And it has some stuff for her to DO when she gets mad. So far she has a stress ball and a tiny magic 8 ball in it. Let's hope it will work for her. I have a bruise on my leg from when she bit me a few days ago, ouch!

Zac School Stuff

2010-01-24T08:19:00.003-05:00

Zac still has truancy issues, making it a few days last week, and only one day the week before. The days that he doesn't make it it usually is because he is scared of going to school. He'd rather stay home and play video games all day. Since that is much safer...

Tomorrow we have a meeting with dr Plato at school. Will be interesting to hear his input.

Drama Queen in Training

2010-01-22T07:34:00.002-05:00

We spend quite a lot of time in the thrift store as we were doing a few days ago. I was helping the older girls find some clothing for their concert, while Baby Bear went through the toys and art supplies and found something she desperately wanted. NOW! Her whole happiness was dependent on owning this one very special item.

I told her no, and she was annoyed at me and mad and asked a few more times before she decided to dramatize the moment a bit more. 'If I don't get this, I am going to die!!!!!!!!' Not quite convinced, I answered 'That seems unlikely.' Upping the threat, she claimed 'I am going to die the day before my birthday! No! The day before Bryan's birthday! NO! I will die the day before YOUR birthday!' Having a hard time not laughing out loud I told her that that would make me very sad. I could feel the amusement of the shoppers around me who were watching this tiny girl having a big temper tantrum.

End result was a girl being carried out of the store kicking and screaming after she bit me in the leg. Wow. Can't wait for her to turn into a teenager and get her dramatics fine tuned even more :p

I Am NEVER EVER EVER Going to Daddy's House Again!

2010-01-19T21:57:00.002-05:00

Saturday night Penny came home from a visit very upset.
'Baby Bear kept pulling my hair and she wouldn't stop and she hurt me and daddy did NOTHING about it and I am NEVER going there again!'

From what I understood from Baby Bear and Penny is that they got into a fight, and Baby Bear was upset with Penny and started pulling her hair, and things detoriated. Penny said 'Daddy tried to make her stop doing it, but gave up after a few times. I don't want to go there anymore! Baby Bear will hurt me again!'

Today Penny told me that Vincent tried to help and even lectured daddy that he shouldn't let Baby Bear get away with it. 'But daddy didn't seem to care! He never shows his emotions, only when he yells.' Interesting how Vincent more and more seems to be taking over the role of grownup in that household.

The Optimistic Child

2010-01-18T14:49:00.002-05:00

During our last 'big meeting', dr Plato recommended a book named 'The Optimistic Child' by Martin E. Seligman. It took me a while, but (after finding it in my own darned basement of all places) I finally started reading it. I am only at the beginning chapters of the book but I like what I have read so far.

The book talks about 'a proven program to safeguard children against depression and build lifelong resilience'. I found a pretty good summary / review of the book here.

I am looking forward to reading the book and putting into practice all the new techniques I will be learning. I am a very optimistic person. In a way I seem to have thought that my kids would pick this up by osmosis, just by modeling optimistic behavior and good problem solving techniques. Especially since I always have been the primary caregiver and the ex's pessimism was mostly withdrawal, so how could they be influenced by that???? Nice when the world is clear and black and white like that.

Only, as always it isn't. Yes, I am optimistic, but no, my kids are NOT picking it up by osmosis as much as I would have liked them to. Actually they seem to have picked up WAY more pessimism from the ex than they have picked up optimism from me. Which is not fair of course, but we all know how totally non productive the 'not fair!' whining is as opposed to the 'this is where we are, what are the issues, how can we move into the direction we want to?' thinking.

So I am reading this book and hopefully will be able to use it to teach my kids optimism in a more concrete way than I have been doing so far.

OCD Funny

2010-01-17T23:01:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I was visiting a friend and we were doing quite a lot of cooking with timers needed. First she used the microwave timer and then used another timer for the second dish. An hour later, when I did my share of the cooking I found myself making sure I used these two timers in exactly that order, because I am soooooooooo used to people caring about stuff like that. I was amused at myself and shared my thinking with her. She hadn't even noticed my thoughtfulness, glad I pointed it out to her :D

Today's Therapist Meeting

2010-01-11T20:36:00.002-05:00

Today Yet Another meeting of all the kids therapists.
Zac is still not doing well. His dad 'He did very well for the first two days after the vacation and then his anxieties got worse again. This morning he refused to get out of bed, and was afraid he would get hurt at school.'
Family therapist (FT) 'Does he have any anti anxiety medication?'
His dad 'Yes, but he does not want to take it. He is scared of it.'

My sarcastic reaction (not out loud) 'Yeah, if the choices are taking anti anxiety med and going to school, or sleeping in as long as you want and then play as much computer as you want, I can see why he doesn't want to take them.'

Penny's therapist is still getting to know her, since her 'old' therapist left the practice. She says Penny is very motivated, fun to work with, and very creative. For now they are working on figuring out how long she can go without hitting and / or screaming so they have a baseline and then can set reasonable goals based on that. The therapist then would reward her for 'two days without hitting' and similar goals and slowly increase on these. It is a system which in the past has worked well for Penny. I don't think she has made one day without screaming yet.

They also have touched on all the scary things she has seen in the last few years, between Zac and dad, and Bryan's issues, and Ysa's explosions. Penny agreed there were scary things, but she does not like to talk about them. For now they are sorting things into 'easy to talk about', medium to hard to talk about' and 'really hard to talk about' and will do a little bit every session.

Baby Bear still issues with hitting her siblings. Her dad explained that it is because Penny is so bossy and aggressive and because Zac gets upset because 'The little ones are so present and noisy and they interfere with EVERYTHING!' (is that Zac talking or dad talking? :p)

Bryan's therapist is out of the office, so couldn't make it to the meeting. His dad wanted to raise an issue about Bryan though. He stated that the teacher at school didn't see what I was seeing at home, and how Bryan was just fine when they did art at the art gallery.

He gave us are two theories:
1. At home he behaves worse than at school.
2. I, as his mother, have problems judging Bryan's behavior and things really aren't that bad, and how can they fix him at school if it is all problems because of his home environment????

He also has called the school and wants to talk to the school psychologist about the discrepancy between mine and the teacher's results. The funny thing is that he himself had a questionnaire to fill out too, but did not fill out most of it, which made it impossible to rate it and use it in any of the comparisons.

I have thought about it and it feels that if he can 'prove' that Bryan's problems all are because of the 'bad home environment and not so good judgement by the mother' that Bryan doesn't really have any issues. But who knows. It is a surprising development, but for now I am considering it a 'Whatever.'

Bryan has been diagnosed with PTSD by his therapist, so it is hard to claim that I just made that up.

Quote of the Day

2010-01-11T19:40:00.002-05:00

Penny 'Vincent is a much better daddy than daddy is!'

She has interesting insights into the situation.
She also explained to me that daddy doesn't have any furniture in his apartment, just boxes, but that is Vincent and Zac's fault since they moved in. Followed by 'Hmmm, I guess it's his own fault because he let Vincent and Zac move in.'

I just listen and go 'hmmm' at appropriate places.

Stress and Humor

2010-01-09T11:40:00.004-05:00

Baby Bear came back from her case manager outing and told me that they had talked about stresses. 'She says that laughing and using humor is a good way to deal with stresses.'

Cool, I like her case manager already ^^
It is definitely one of my coping strategies, and pretty effective too.

Ysa Update

2010-01-08T13:30:00.002-05:00

Interesting observation: Ysa was doing much better during the school holidays (almost two weeks around xmas / new year) than she was while school is going on. Which makes me think that school indeed is a considerable source of stress for her. She makes high grades, got on the honor roll, but it seems to eat all her energy, and I am afraid she might be depressed. When she is not in school, she spends 98 % of the time in her room, reading or sleeping (or eating junkfood and leaving the plates / cups / empty chips packages in there, but that's another story)

During the vacation she seemed less withdrawn, joined in more family activities and exhibited less aggression. Now that vacation is over, we are back to her 'normal' which is aggressive, sullen, and withdrawn.

Yesterday she was hitting me again, and today when I told the therapist, she told me to call the police when Ysa hits me. I am still not particularly happy with that solution, but I can also see why she recommended it. It is assault and Ysa is at an age that she should be aware of that. It just is hard to call the police on a child. Gah. Ysa was there when the therapist told me to call the police, so I am hoping that that will be enough of a deterrent to help her make other choices, although who knows.

We set up an appointment for a meds evaluation. Everything at the moment seems to be pointing to depression. Ysa stated 'I am NOT going to take meds, you will have to FORCE THEM DOWN my throat!' Later she changed it to 'I will turn religious and taking meds will be against my religion and which religion is it again when people will not take any meds??'

Case Management

2010-01-07T22:35:00.003-05:00

Today Baby Bear and Penny both got to go out with their case manager for the first time ever. The case manager takes them out in the community and supports the skills they work on in therapy. It seems way more fun than the boring therapy, Penny went to Panera, a bakery / sandwich place, came home with happy stories about Pandora. She clearly remembers more about Greek mythology than about the names of restaurants.

Anyway, another baby step taken in support of the kids.

Penny School Meeting

2010-01-05T14:17:00.002-05:00

Catching up, one meeting at a time ^^

In December, we met to discuss the results of Penny's testing. She does not qualify for an IEP, but she could qualify for a 504 (which is a different way of accomodating her issues) based on her anxiety disorder. For now we are holding off on that, but the teacher and the school case manager are monitoring her classroom behavior.

One day she had a total freak out because of phys ed, when 'basket balls were coming at her from ALL DIRECTIONS!' The good news is that she was able to hold in her breakdown till she was in the case manager's office.

She also is displaying a lot of the 'whatif!!!??!' and perfectionistic behavior, asking 43 questions per minute to make sure she DID get what the teacher wants her to do.

There is going to be an anxiety group for fifth graders in which she will participate, which hopefully will help her by teaching her strategies and by realizing she is not the only one who has anxieties.

She could qualify for homework modification (under 504) if the homework is causing her lots of anxiety and she ends up spending 3 hours of freaking out on a assigment which reasonably should only take her 20 minutes at the most.

Summary: no educational disability, but possibly accomodations needed because of her anxiety disorder.

Today Bryan Therapy

2010-01-04T20:29:00.002-05:00

Bryan 'When I ask for ice cream at daddy's house, he always says I can't have it because he doesn't have any money. And then he yells at me. And then Zac joins in and daddy gets madder and things get badder and I run into daddy's bedroom and lock the door. When I am in daddy's bedroom he can't yell at me as much, because he has to be quiet for the neighbors. But then I get scared of the monsters and I unlock the door again, because I am scared.'

'Daddy never says anything to Zac when he says bad things to me, Vincent always takes care of it.'

'Daddy lets me play Halo at his house, because Zac says that he should let me play it, even if mama says I should not, since daddy is the grownup and should make his own decisions.'

I don't even know how to comment, so for now just documenting.

Keeping the Therapy Center in Business

2010-01-04T17:25:00.002-05:00

Five kids with their own therapist.
Four of these kids have case management now (Zac has had it for the last 2.5 years, Penny and Baby Bear are starting on Thursday and we are still figuring out when to start Bryan).
In addition, we have a family therapist and a psychiatrist.
I feel like I spent half my week at the center, although the case managers will actually pick up / drop off the kids at home, so that will be helpful.

So Many Problems of my Own....

2010-01-04T09:55:00.002-05:00

Last Zac school meeting, Dr Plato summarized Zac's situation by turning to Zac's father and saying 'Now that he lives with you, your support will be very important for Zac's success.' His father was taken by surprise and replied 'Well, that is a problem. I have so many problems of my own already, I don't think I can add Zac's life to that!!'

Um.. well, then you shouldn't have filed for custody, geez. I am very much realizing that this is a 'be careful what you ask for, because it will be given to you' situation for him.

I was mostly surprised that the ex did admit to his own problems in one of these meetings, usually his contributions are limited to 'Zac is doing so well!'

Christmas was Good

2009-12-30T21:53:00.002-05:00

We had a good Christmas. The two boys came over early in the morning, around 8am and stayed till 7pm. We did all our usual Christmas things including a tree with TONS of presents (Yay for the thrift store, getting me many cheap filler presents, mostly books and barbies)

The ex told them he wouldn't celebrate Christmas with them 'because he doesn't have have any money.' Baby Bear's response 'That is just silly! He could just give us a $1 item!' Amen ^^ Ysa's response 'He could just get rid of all his World of Warcraft accounts and would have way more money.'

Not to mention that celebrating Christmas is not only about presents and money, it is about spending time together as a family and doing enjoyable things. I can come up with many many things we could do without spending any or just a little money, but I guess the ex is not there yet and will very likely never be there. Last year he promised Christmas but never did it, I guess at least he is not giving expectations this year and then not following through, so that is progress, right?

No Christmas decorations either, but then he doesn't have a couch or bed, so it would be unrealistic to think about Christmas if he can't even furnish an apartment or unpack his boxes.

The good thing is that I had a wonderful Christmas with all the kids and everyone was happy with their presents and we ate tons of not particularly healthy but very satisfying food.

Bryan School Meeting

2009-12-22T13:58:00.002-05:00

I know it sounds silly, but in a way I am happy that Bryan now has an 'official learning disability.' Even if 'disability in written language' is what it says and his picture is sooooo much bigger and more complicated. Having an IEP will enable him to get the help he needs, even if it's not related to written language.

Again a pretty high iq (not surprising given siblings iq's) but can't write or spell and that's why he is eligible for an IEP. The principal of the school correctly identified that every single person around the table was talking about social / emotional / anxiety issues and that that seemed to be a bigger issue, but no one (psychologist in particular) was willing to commit to a 'social emotional disturbance'.

He is withdrawn at school, so they don't see all the behaviors I see at home I guess. The father filled out only part of the questionaires, since 'he didn't know the answers to all these questions.'

Anyway, it took us from September till December to officially qualify him and his case manager will start working on his IEP in January. Three kids on IEPs and counting.

One thing writing-wise is that he seems to like cursive and it is easier for him than printing. He also is pretty able with a keyboard, so there can be modifications in his work by replacing some of his writing with keyboarding.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

2009-12-21T10:43:00.002-05:00

So many posts in my head, so little time. Quick update before running off to get Baby Bear to school and pup walked.

The good: Today Bryan will have therapy again, tomorrow Penny will have therapy again after about 6 months of no therapy at all (Insurance claims: 26 sessions of therapy should solve anyone's problems, very generous we are). Bryan will see his old therapist, Penny will see a new one since her old therapist has left the practice. This new one comes highly recommended by Violet's case manager, looking forward to getting to know her.

The bad: On Saturday Bryan had suicidal statements. On Sunday Ysa stated 'I just will kill myself.' Both were not extremely likely threats, but still means I increase my vigilance and make sure Emergency Services phone number is very accessible.

The ugly: Over the last few weeks, Ysa has started hitting and kicking me, although it hasn't happened in the last week (I suspect her therapist has talked to her about it). She still destroys property though. Yesterday morning we got a new hole in hallway wall (sheetrock). It is very discouraging to try to get a house ready for sale while she keeps destroying things. I haven't found anything that works for her yet. She keeps slamming doors, kicking doors, kicking walls, behaving passive agressively and downright aggressively to her siblings, using swears and curses, refusing to do anything around the house.

A Good Thing about That Meeting

2009-12-18T14:20:00.002-05:00

One of the good things about that big meeting last Wednesday is that Bryan's case manager was there and got a MUCH better insight in the size of the problem. Bryan's school has had a lot of 'It was the divorce. It was the homeschooling. He is just shy. He makes eye contact so he can't have Aspergers.' Sitting in the meeting and hearing all the HUGE issues the kids have and how Dr Plato talked about them hopefully made her WAY more away of the size of the problem.

For now Bryan is not doing badly in school (apart from spelling / writing) but he has huge anxiety and his clumsiness regularly lands him in the nurses office. We have another meeting about him on Monday, and I really hope that the input of dr Plato will change the dynamics of the meeting from 'This overprotective mom wants to see problems which are not there.' to 'How can we give Bryan support to overcome his genetic dispositions and all the trauma he has experienced.'

Zac

2009-12-17T08:52:00.002-05:00

Last week, Dr Plato met with Zac. The good news is that he did not at all play the mom card anymore. The bad news is that since he can't blame anyone, he now feels he is going nowhere, and it is all him, it is all his responsibility, it is all his guilt. There is so much anxiety about not being good enough. Which dr Plato feels is present in all my kids. Even Baby Bear, who is worried about failing kindergarten en failing swimming lessons.

Back to Zac, dr Plato feels he is a fact collector. A fact collector who thinks he is MUCH smarter than anyone around him. Dr Plato has pointed out to him that he is in fact not more able or has more information than anyone with a library card and an internet connection.

Zac cannot handle whole brain learning and perspective taking, or inferential thinking. All the logic in the world does not get past the stimuli in his brain stem area (anxieties and such)

He does not have any internal reinforcement, only external ones. When dr Plato asked him what he wanted in life, his answer was 'money, more money, most money.'

Zac is addicted to videogames, very much so. He uses it to handle his stress and then he gets more stressed because in a way he realizes he is hurting himself. And needs more video games. Classical addiction pattern. If he is not playing videogames, he is thinking about video games. I know this is not a huge surprise, given the fact that his father is just as addicted, but it still adds to my guilt / frustration of having Zac move in with his father. Yes, even if I know that is silly and there are many good things about that move, I still have to acknowledge to myself that I feel guilty about things I cannot control.

Zac's therapist told the group that she is really struggling with Zac, she cannot at all reach him. He cannot handle anything that he would need to help him move on in life.

Dr Plato considers Zac to be stuck at a 5yo level. But we expect goals and behaviors of him which are not consistent with a 5yo level. It is not easy to accept that my 16yo is stuck at 5yo, sadly enough, but it does fit his behaviors and maturity. Although in a way I have done a lot of this accepting over time, it still is an ongoing process for me.

Zac does know a lot , but there is a HUGE difference between knowing and performing what you know. This is where his lack of executive skills comes in and his anxiety of 'I am not good enough.' He does not appreciate what he has done, and only focuses on what he is not doing.

The main theme of the meeting seemed to be 'We cannot fix Zac, but we can attempt to keep the others from becoming Zac. There is a time bomb ticking in all of them.'

Easy to listen to this in a very egotistic way and say 'I screwed them up! It is all my fault!' but of course that is not what they were saying. Not to mention that Vincent is relatively unharmed and more social adept, even if he has videogame addiction issues too. Somehow Vincent was only mentioned in passing at the beginning of the meeting, and after that everything was focused on problems, problems, problems, problems. It was very intense.

PTSD or More Alphabet Soup

2009-12-16T16:37:00.002-05:00

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

It came up more often than I would like to admit in today's meeting. It came up in Baby Bear's therapy last week. Bryan's therapist talked about it as a given for Bryan. Penny's therapist has talked about it in the past.

I know it is just a label, but it also makes me feel like a 'failure' for not having protected my kids better. Which is totally nonsense. But the feeling is there and I want to acknowledge it before I can let go of it.

Of course I did partly protect them by getting out of the abusive marriage.
But how can one protect them from their own siblings in their own house????

Such a joy to add more letters to all the diagnoses, even if I know that the kids aren't defined by their labels, and it's appropriate to look at them from a developmental perspective instead of from a label perspective, it still SUCKS to see these labels associated with my children.

Parents' Pride

2009-12-16T14:48:00.003-05:00

Today we had a big meeting, with all the kids' therapists, and some of the school people and dr Plato. It was very useful, interesting, and gave me more ideas for concrete things to do. I will write about it soon, I promise but for now just sharing Dr Plato's 'I am constantly amazed by the complexity and severity of some of your kids symptoms.' Ha! That is really how one wants to stand out and be known 'The woman with all the Really Weird, no seriously, Very Screwed Up kids'

I am glad I have a sense of humor about it all ^^

Enjoying the Differences

2009-12-14T10:37:00.002-05:00

Monday morning chatty post before I jump into current challenges.

Last week I was out with the four youngest and almost ready to leave the cafetaria where we had been hanging out for a while. Just before we left, one of the kids' art teachers from our local art gallery came in. My kids were happy to see him, and he was happy to see us.

Of course, this means that suddenly we were not going to leave yet, because we had to talk for a bit and then he wanted to show us his stunning pictures from his trip out West. Followed by pictures of the girls' art class. One thing led to another, and it was at least an hour later before we finally left.

What was interesting to me was to observe the TOTALLY different way Penny and Violet spent most of that hour. Penny glued herself to the art teacher, talking about a variety of issues and subjects, carrying on a long and involved and interesting conversation. Violet borrowed the teacher's camera and spent all the time arranging her 'sculpture' she had made out of jackets and other items and making pictures, which had to be just right, she made maybe 5 pictures in half an hour, spending the rest of the time arranging her subject and finding the right angle to take the picture from.

It was like the poster children for 'See the difference between Aspie and more neurotypical sibling'. Not like I don't see it all the time, but this particular instant it struck me more than usual for some reason, because it was so 'perfect'.

Meanwhile Bryan started breaking down, so while I was observing, I dealt with dramatic breakdown since he had had it. Wasn't easy to get either Penny or Violet to give up on their activities though. Violet had to make one more perfect picture, and Penny had to tell the teacher just a bit more about whatever.

And Yet Another Zac Truancy Day

2009-12-07T11:06:00.002-05:00

Today Zac isn't in school yet again.

X sounded depressed when I called him at work.
X explained 'I couldn't get him out of bed, he said he was scared.'
Me 'Hmmm, that is too bad.'
X barked at me 'YES IT IS!'
He added 'Things are pretty hopeless.'

I think the reality of Zac's issues is sinking in and he doesn't like it. My sister said 'He doesn't even know how to be a NORMAL parent, let alone how to deal with the very special type of parenting that Zac requires.' Yeah, that is a good description.

I was tempted to say 'See that this placement is NOT working for Zac???' but I kept my mouth shut because I know from experience that X is not ready to listen and might never be ready to listen. If Zac goes to school again tomorrow, the X's universe will be 'Zac is doing so well!' without seeing the bigger picture. Not a huge surprise, but it still is hard to watch it happening.

Ysa Therapy

2009-12-04T14:53:00.003-05:00

Today, Ysa had her first therapy session.

Last night 'I am NOT going! I HATE my therapist! I'll just move to papa! He won't make me go to therapy! And you can't get me back anyway because you couldn't get Vincent or Zac back either. I will just tell her I am anorexic, so I have something to talk about! I will tall her I want to kill Penny so I will have something to talk about! I am not going to say ANYTHING! I will run away from school so I don't have to go!'

A few minutes later she hit Penny when Penny ran past her. 'Oh, I was just brushing my hair out of my face and Penny ran into my arm...' Um... I saw her hit very deliberately AND Penny cried from how hard she hit.

Today, she did go though. Although her input when I was still there was mostly 'hrm' and shoulder shrugging till I brought up the Penny incident. 'It was all Penny's fault, I was just standing there.'

No idea how much she talked when I was out of the room. She agreed with therapist to go next week. I hope it will help her to have someone to pat her on the back and help her find strategies to deal with her stupidhead mom.

Interesting 'Insight'

2009-12-04T14:49:00.002-05:00

Remember how X let Zac and Bryan be alone all the time anyway, even while it was not safe 'because he didn't want Zac to feel broken'?

Today I suddenly realized that when he asked me to not leave Ysa with the little ones, he didn't worry at all about her feeling broken. Hmmmmmmm. I guess he identifies with Zac a LOT more than with Ysa, but still a bit weird how Zac has to be protected against 'feeling broken' but Ysa doesn't. (in his universe that is)

It saddens me both for Zac and Ysa.

Zac Absence Today

2009-12-04T14:40:00.002-05:00

Today I checked the school website 'Excused Absence' for Zac.
I called X to find out what's up.
Me 'How did Zac do today?'
X 'I don't know, I had a doctor's appointment so I don't know whether he made it to school.'

I see. So Zac is home, X didn't even know about that, and the school logged it as an excused absence. Maybe Zac called to tell the school he was sick? Who knows. Or he missed the school bus. I could call school and find out but it seems irrelevant and since I am not pushing for the CHINS or residential anymore, it doesn't really matter whether it says excused or unexcused absence.

It just feels soooooooo frustrating, seeing the level of care X is giving to Zac, and knowing that this is not in Zac's best interest at all. But X doesn't care and Zac is just happy to be able to stay home all day and play computer. Zac got onto gtalk around 1pm but the moment I said hi to him he disappeared. How surprising ^^

Ha, Not Playing the Mom Card Anymore

2009-12-03T14:02:00.003-05:00

We had very interesting school meeting with Dr Plato a few weeks ago. Dr Plato met with Zac before the meeting and figured out what he is interested in. Not surprisingly, for Zac everything is about money. Together dr Plato and Zac came up with a plan where he would make a business proposal (Zac is planning on selling tshirts) which he could present to the 'find financing for small businesses association' here in town to see whether he could get financing.

Of course, to create his business proposal, he would need to do some research in other businesses and talk to people and write up what he talked about and come to school to get help with the creation of this business proposal.

This is a big change from 'I want to go to college' and frankly I don't expect too much success right now, but it gives him a direction and a motivation for coming to school, and I can only hope it works out. Dr Plato talked about hopelessness and helplessness due to his depression and that this is a small flame of hope, although it could get extinguished quite soon again, but for now it's there.

The good news is that Zac kept blaming me in the meeting 'Well, I have not been coming to school because my mom abused me so much and I am so stressed out by her.' Uh huh. Dr Plato calmly stated 'How long will you let your anger to your mom stand in the way of making money?' and that since I am not fighting for custody anymore that there is no real reason to be stressed out about me anymore. Maybe he could let go of this particularly issue? Zac didn't agree. 'I WOULD, but I am still so traumatized!!!' Dr Plato asked 'How much time do you need to help you deal with the trauma? ' Zac 'Oh, till next Monday.' Dr Plato said 'OK, so from Monday on you won't use your mom as an excuse anymore.'

Ha! I thought that was a pretty clever way to get the mom card out of the way, even if I don't know yet whether it will work.

It is an interesting experience to be considered so powerful that all one's problems can be blamed to me.

Later my sis asked me 'Do you think Zac will ever realize what a powerful ally he lost when he moved to X's house?' I replied 'No, I don't think so, and I don't think it matters either. I doubt he will ever have the social recognition and self insight and bigger picture thinking to see what happened and read all the undercurrents and even the big story.' For Zac the big story will most likely always be 'My mom is a bitch but my dad saved me from her.'

Interesting side tidbit. The ex now pays him for going to school, $1 a day. He has been doing that for a bunch of weeks and there were many absences, so it doesn't seem to be super effective, but who knows.

Um... (slightly amusing)

2009-12-03T09:41:00.003-05:00

'Amusing' Things They Say.

Lots of noise and commotion.
Bryan crying 'She hurt me!!!'
Penny, indignantly 'I didn't even TOUCH him! I just shoved him out of the way!'

Shoving someone out of the way without touching him? Impressive... Especially since it looks like Bryan was climbing on the couch around the location where Penny was sitting and he ended up on the floor. No one got really hurt, but there was a lot of angry voices. They did calm down pretty easily though, and I have to admit that I was amused by the 'Didn't touch him, just shoved him!'

Still have lots to post, and no time, so I might just do a highlights post some time soon.

Penny Phone Call (funny)

2009-12-01T12:54:00.003-05:00

Today I first talked to my lawyer about all kind of ex crap and custody stuff, then I got the Zac phone call, and I ran a bunch of errands. When the phone ran AGAIN, and I saw yet another call from one of the schools. I was like 'Great, I wonder what it is now.'

Penny's teacher 'Penny's pants got muddy at the playground and since you guys are having a long day today (we have all kind of activities after school) she would love it if you could drop off a clean pair of pants.' She put on Penny and we chatted and I committed to bringing pants when I pick her up.

Nice to have a more down-to-earth, easy-to-solve issue after the Zac issue.

Zac Phone Call

2009-12-01T12:48:00.002-05:00

This morning, Zac's school psychologist called and told me 'Zac was having a hard time today. Vincent overslept his alarm and there was yelling (I assume his father yelling at Vincent?') and then when his father drove Vincent to school, Zac cried for twenty minutes. The psychologist asked him what he was thinking during that time and Zac answered 'I was thinking I could just call all my medication all at once and then call 911.'

Well, at least he was going to call 911 :p
On the other hand, this seems a bit more likely ideation than the 'jump out of a window or hang myself from the balcony'. The psychologist talked to him about calling the therapy center's emergency number when he feels like this and made sure he knows where the card with the number is.

He also talked about who he could contact at school on days that the psychologist isn't there for issues like this.

The good news is that he will see his therapist today.

Woohoo, Medicaid!

2009-11-28T21:04:00.002-05:00

Today I got a letter that my five younger children qualify for medicaid. This means they can go back into counseling and medicaide will pick up the cost. Which is quite significant since once I get everything set up, four out of five will be in counseling. Violet is almost graduating (one more session) because she is doing so well.

Baby Bear barely got started a few weeks ago and I think will benefit from someone to talk to with all the things which are happening in her life. Penny and Bryan haven't seen a counselor for a number of months because they ran out of therapy even although they haven't run out of issues yet ^^

Ysa doesn't know it yet, but is going to be in counseling too, I already got in the paperwork. I am worried about depression for her, and she clearly is VERY ANGRY at me for putting her in school AND is adjusting to 8th grade as her very first ever year in school AND she is 'suffering' from puberty. No wonder she is a mess :p

Big Penny Breakdown

2009-11-27T17:33:00.002-05:00

Wow!

Haven't seen such a big breakdown in a while, or at least not including people getting hurt. Usually it's just door slamming (LOUD and repeatedly and repeatedly and a few more times for good measure) and lotsa screaming, but today she escalated to hitting Violet.

Because... Violet had deleted some of Penny's miis on the wii. Six months ago or at least not very recently at all. Penny discovered it today and it was the end of the world as we know it and she started screaming and then went into hitting Violet. She also told them that she wanted Zac and Violet to be killed (the only two other people in the room)

There was no reasoning with her and I ended up half dragging her out of the room while she tried to bite me, kick me, hit me, do ANYTHING to not be taken out of the room. Somehow I got her out and sat down with her in the hallway, hoping she would calm down. Which of course she didn't.

'YOU ARE TRYING TO KILL ME!!!!!!!! VIOLET IS TRYING TO KILL ME!!!!!!!!! ZAC IS TRYING TO KILL ME!!!!!!' YOU ARE TRYING TO KILL ME!!!!!!!! YOU ARE TRYING TO KILL ME!!!!!!!!'

When Ysa showed up to ask politely (yes that is sarcasm) 'Can you fucking be QUIET?' This was Penny's trigger to change to 'YSA IS TRYING TO KILL ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' in between the other people AND the dog trying to kill her. Ha!

She still was trying to bite me, kick the door, kick the dog, kick me, kick everything around her and very much out of control.

I haven't seen such a big freakout in a pretty long time. School stress? I have no idea but I can't say it's very fun. When I thought it was safe to let go of her, she ran into the bath room, slamming and kicking the door a few times.

Later when she got out she locked herself in the basement. When she decided to leave the basement she opened the front door, so I ran to the hallway to make sure she wasn't leaving. Which got me many 'YOU ARE TRYING TO KILL ME! GO AWAY! STOP LOOKING AT ME!' and she put on her coat and disappeared in the basement again.

Yes, with door slamming :p

She is calmer now and cutting up 40 pieces of paper in the family room, putting numbers on them for no clear reason. I am just grateful that we seem to be past this crisis. I will be hopeful for her therapy to kick in again soon though (depends on medicaid) since she clearly isn't dealing well with something.

What IS Anxiety?

2009-11-25T19:09:00.002-05:00

Yes, I am still tons of posts behind and have much to tell and share, but for now pondering the question 'What IS Anxiety?' in such a way that it can be explained to Penny at 10 years old. We were driving, and she was telling me about meeting with her case manager and how she is supposed to write every question she asks on a yellow post it note now (not sure why, to raise her awareness about how many questions she asks maybe?) and she started talking about anxiety.

'Mama, I really don't KNOW what anxiety is, I mean I know what anxious means, but I still do not GET what anxiety is.' I gave a bunch of examples, but I am not sure whether I did a very good job. I am wondering how to best explain anxiety in a way that makes sense for her.

I did some web surfing, but although I can find tons of stuff to explain anxiety to adults, I can not really find anything which I felt was a good way of explaining it to her.

Any input welcome.

Penny School Anxieties

2009-11-23T13:46:00.002-05:00

Today I got an email from Penny's school case manager

"We've been feeling our way with Penny for a few weeks and I feel it's at the point to address it with you. Penny has had an extreme increase in anxiety related behaviors. Inability to "let go", obsessing over mistakes and/or not even allowing herself to make mistakes to begin with so she'll ask question after question, and if something is late or she is behind the others (like the map) she'll worry. We spent a good portion of the morning talking today about this. She doesn't feel "worried" but when she's talking to you about it you start feeling anxious because she's so tightly "wound" and can't define it.

We discussed how to write questions down for a later time that may be more accepting for teachers, we talked about how to define a good question and from that comes giving yourself time to come up with the answer (research, ask a peer, answer what you can first and go back). We also talked about doing what the teacher has asked instead of making up your own choice, which then leads to a lot of "off topic" questionning. The last point was to ensure she's advocating for herslef as a homeschooled student who may not have had the instruction the previous year (sometimes Penny can get "stuck" when a teacher prefaces the instruction with "you probably already had this, so I'm going to go fast...".

My thoughts: Penny has anxiety. I do think she's done a lovely job transitioning into public school and one would expect her to have a certain level of anxiety. BUT, she is getting stuck and obsessing. I will advocate for the anxiety group for 5th grade, but that doesn't start for some time now. I will always be available to her teacher to help with strategies as well. Dr. F will check in with me tomorrow when she's here and may even have time to meet with Penny to get a sense of needs (she and I talked about Penny after dr Plato's meeting with us).

So, I guess just a heads up for now and let's keep an eye on how she implements the strategies from today's chat."

Random Anxiety of the Day

2009-11-23T08:26:00.000-05:00

While driving to school, Baby Bear pipes up from the back seat, in a worried voice.
'Mom? I don't think it is a very good idea they placed those traffic lights at the botoom of this hill.'
Me 'Hmmm?'
Baby Bear 'No! What would happen if you were driving down this hill and cars were stopped and your brakes weren't working???? You would crash into them for sure!'

Zac

2009-11-13T19:18:00.002-05:00

Last week, missed Wednesday and Friday.
This week had school on Monday, was dismissed early on Tuesday. Wednesday was a holiday, so no school, but he missed yesterday and today again. His father said panic attack, and that his sleep is all messed up again.

I asked about the lightbox, and no, he still isn't willing to use it. Big surprise :p

Zac and Vincent have been visiting me Thursday afternoons, and it's going reasonably ok. Zac is cursing a lot and didn't feel very stable yesterday, but for now that is the ex's problem. Did I mention the sense of relief which is at least as strong as the other emotions I am going through with this custody crap?

BIG Baby Step

2009-11-05T12:32:00.002-05:00

Remember Katie Beckett, Zac's medicaid based on 'severe mental health disability' which pays for all his medical expenses? It is an awesome program, but as with all those programs, there is quite some paperwork involved.

Every year, they want me to send in financial information, which is a pretty simple form, although this year I was late submitting it (I blame life) His Katie Beckett got canceled for a few days before they reinstated it when they received the forms.

This summer, I got a new stack of forms, to redetermine eligibility, which is a LOT more work, and I put it in my desk to take care of soon. But of course, as always, life happened and I hadn't filled out the forms yet, and even LOST the forms because we were moving around so much stuff in the house. So that was one of these things to feel guilty about and I was going to call the office to get replacement forms, but even that hadn't happened.

In October, I got a certified letter from the State and I went 'Uh oh', fearing the worst. But happily it was just a reminder 'Fill this out or ELSE' and a NEW stack of the forms, so that I didn't have to locate my old ones. Woohoo!

They gave me till November 13th to finish it and I worked on it on and off over the last few weeks. Including organizing all Zac's stuff in folders to help me find the copies of the forms I filled out two years ago to help me in filling out the current ones. Some things had changed but a lot of the issues still are the same.

I was done on November 3rd, copied them and realized they asked for a current IEP. Which I copied today and then we drove to the post office and MAILED everything. It feels soooooooooooo good!

Next BIG baby step is getting the 42 forms needed to complete my application for medicaid for the other kids. But for today I am celebrating the completion of the Katie Beckett baby step ^^.

Family Therapist and other Therapists Meeting October

2009-11-03T10:31:00.004-05:00

This was meeting with Family Therapist (FT), X and me about visitation schedule for the kids who have been reluctant. The short story is that the boys will visit me for a few hours on Thursday after school, while Dawn will visit him on Friday night for dinner. The meeting started with just the FT, later other kids therapists joined in.

The FT asked whether X had any idea why Zac is so hostile to me. It was very clear to X 'Well, she is trying to get him on a school schedule and she is pushing the autistic program for him and she is constantly trying to control them. Both Vincent and Zac get annoyed at being controlled. They are TEENAGERS! And she is continuously filing lawsuits against him. No wonder he is hostile to her!'

The FT asked whether all Zac's hospitalizations were with X's agreement, or was it just me who felt it was necessary? X said 'Well, she iniated it, but I guess I gave my agreement by not opposing it.' She asked him whether he would be willing to tell Zac that he was supporting these decisions? He was kind of lukewarm about that. I am not holding my breath for it ever happening, but who knows ^^

We talked about Ysa and the FT mentioned that when Ysa and Violet visit he probably should not be doing the computer and whether he had any plans for interacting with them. He thought for a moment and offered 'No problem, we can watch a movie.' I said that maybe they could play cards or a game , but he felt that there would be no games that everyone would like, so that couldn't work. Vincent and Ysa both are fanatical about winning, so playing games with them is hard.

The FT asked whether he had any idea what was going on with Bryan, and he explained it by 'Penny is so pushy and dominating that Bryan withdraws from any conflict with her and now he is oversensitive to hostility.'

It is fascinating to get these glimpses into X's universe.

The good part is that Zac and Vincent came to visit last week for a few hours and will again this week. And Ysa went to visit him on Friday night, although it took me considerable convincing before she went. I have no idea what it was like, she didn't communicate about it. I know she refused to have Violet visit at the same time, which had been the plan, but that was ok with me, since Violet often visits him when the younger ones are visiting anyway.

Homeschooling 'Funny'

2009-11-02T19:51:00.000-05:00

Theme of the week: being behind on everything still and too tired to write anything useful, so just getting a funny for now.

Two school meetings today one for Zac, one for Bryan.
Bryan meeting 'He doesn't initiate conversations with other children, only with adults, but we think that is a function of the homeschooling. Since you were homeschooling him, he only had contact with you and your husband, right?'

There is just sooooo much wrong with that picture that I couldn't even start to address, so I briefly mentioned homeschool group and many other social opportunities, but I doubt that they grok it at all.

Woe is Me!

2009-10-31T15:42:00.002-04:00

Next week is a totally crazy week with 42 school meetings, parent teacher conferences, tons of other stuff going on. Early releases when I didn't expect early releases, more, more, more. Not to mention that I was supposed to have respite care tomorrow but for circumstances beyond my control that didn't work out and I am a bit bummed about that, because it also complicates my Monday morning Zac school meeting when my respite care provider was going to be there but now isn't.

There has been lots of drama (nothing big, just Kids and Girls Drama) continuously around the house for the last few days and I was feeling just a tad overwhelmed.

This morning, my friend called and asked me to come over to their town tonight for a fun Halloween event and my first inclination was 'No way I can do that.' I have to be a good mom and be home for trick or treating. I have to be a good mom and available for the kids when they come home with candy. I have to be a good mom and cannot just do whatever I feel like, even although I desperately want to go out with my friends. '

I knew the ex was most likely going to drop off Baby Bear and Bryan at my house right after trick or treating and I didn't know yet what Penny's and her friend's plans were and I just KNEW it couldn't work.

My inner child mentally sat down in the corner, feeling morose, going 'Woe is me!' and whining that 'I NEVER get what I want!' and 'It's not fair.' and more of these types of uplifting thoughts.

My more reasonable self observed my inner child doing that and said 'Wait a minute! What about you stop feeling sorry for yourself and you look at it from a more reasonable perspective and maybe we can come up with a solution.'

All this happened during my phone conversation and it was interesting to be on a third level noticing this inner conversation in myself and to help the more reasonable self to find solutions.

And of course there were solutions, like there usually are for any problems, and I decided to ask the ex to keep Baby Bear and Bryan till I would come pick them up after my event and the teens would have a great time at home anyway, didn't quite need (or even WANT) me there and Penny is going to sleep over at her friend's house after trick or treating.

My phone conversation morphed from 'I am sorry but no way' into 'Hmmm, I might be able to pull this off after all'. Now I am looking forward to a fun time with my friends and amused at myself for my silly first reaction.

I suspect there is a life lesson in there somewhere if only I could find it ^^

Working Memory Skills

2009-10-29T22:21:00.002-04:00

It is WAY later at night than I want it to be, so this will be very short blog post about Penny, on whom I got more information in a meeting with dr Plato today. He talked about her working memory and her ability to manipulate items in her short term memory, proven by the fact that she could recite seven random numbers backwards to him. He only had seen one other kid who was able to do that, which frankly scares me since I want 'normal' kids, but I guess that is just a stupid desire since all kids are special anyway.

Although it is wonderful to have one at the 'gifted' end of the spectrum instead of at the 'autistic' end of the spectrum, and I realize that she has a very good problem solving ability and agility of mind which will help her much in her life. She is willing to consider opposing viewpoints, which has not always been possible for my Aspie kids, especially Zac, who considers himself super smart and everyone around him an idiot so will not contemplate ANY input from those retards...

Anyway, I read up on working memory today and found all kinds of interesting tidbits, some of which will help me with my own studying. Meeting dr Plato always gives me useful insights, and websurfing shiny 'memory web sites' gave me lots of good ideas for my own life. One of which is reminding myself how important sleep is, which I am still getting used to after so many years of ignoring the need for sleep. And I was doing a pretty good job at ignoring it too, since I am very good at being stubborn and it was my way of dealing with certain night time issues with the ex which were easier avoided than faced.

Off to bed ^^

Locked in the Bathroom??? ^^

2009-10-29T14:47:00.000-04:00

No idea what is going on, but on my way to pick up Zac and Vincent for short visit and Violet's school calls 'We wonder whether you could come pick up Violet today, since she locked herself in the bathroom and says she is ok but she just needs more time.'

Um...

ok ^^

Off to life, I have tons of things to write and Dr Plato ROCKS

Well... (Good Penny News)

2009-10-27T22:00:00.002-04:00

Definitely no Aspie or autistic tendencies in Penny.

Interesting news: her intelligence is high, she tested in the 130s in all the tests he did apart from processing speed, which only tested at 106. He felt this was mostly due to her being a slow writer since handwriting wasn't something we had focused on in our homeschooling. He expects her to catch up, and see her at the top of her class at the end of this year and would not be surprised if two years from now we will discuss her skipping a grade. Zac and Violet test in the 120s, but he felt she was way more intelligent than they are, with a mind which is very good at making associations. He clearly very much enjoyed working with her all day.

In the morning, when I was still there, he asked her about school and she complained about being bussed on one of the very early buses and being on one of the last buses to leave school at the end of the day. She also talked about how she enjoyed the social time at school with her friends. Dr Plato turned this complaint around very nicely by stating that she was so lucky, that she was on the bus route which got the longest before and after school social time.

He wasn't very worried about the things she is hearing, so I guess I shouldn't worry either. Nice to have a positive neuropsychological evaluation for a change.

Zac: No School Today

2009-10-27T12:57:00.002-04:00

Zac didn't go to school today and was late for school yesterday.
His father states 'He is not doing well, he has nightmares and can't sleep and that's why he isn't going to school.'

I didn't ask about the lightbox. I think I know the answer, although for the sake of completeness I should ask. I guess it will come up in next Monday's meeting at high school anyway.

Hole in the Wall

2009-10-26T21:50:00.001-04:00

Did I mention that Ysa must have kicked a hole in the wall a few days ago when she had her 'You are not letting me play piano at 10pm? I sooooooo hate you!' temper tantrum? Gah. Just one more thing to deal while trying to get the house ready for sale.

Yes, I am Behind on Everything

2009-10-26T21:41:00.003-04:00

Including updating this blog.
The good news is that I found Zac's old Katie Beckett application, which I can use for filling out the forms they send me to do the Katie Beckett review. To find them, I sorted through a big box of Zac papers which now all are in files, organized by date.

The other good news is that Dr Plato is going to do a neuropsych eval on Penny tomorrow. On the one hand I am thrilled he is going to look at her, on the other hand I want to put my head in the sand and not have another 'diagnosed' kid. However ridiculous that sounds, that's the double feeling I am having now.

She still is hearing voices. Sometimes they say her name. She can't figure out whether it's a male or female voice, somewhere in between she thinks. She also hears music 'Partly it is in my head, but also partly out of my head.' She hears our phone when she is at school. She hears her best friend Suzanne here at home when Suzanne is not visiting, but she still can very clearly hear her. She is describing all those experiences very vividly and I think it's good to have a psychologist get deeper into this and help us figure out what is going on.

A 'funny': When I was filling out one of the many forms for Penny's eval, one of them had tons of stuff that I checked off for Zac and Violet, but I always had been happy that 'hears voices' wasn't one of them. You know the old 'Well, they might have issues but at least they aren't hearing voices.' Gah.

I guess now I'll joke 'At least the voices aren't telling her to kill us.' but maybe that is a too dangerous thing to joke about. Humor seems to be my first line of defense, even dark humor.

Let's just hope that the voices have an innocent explanation.

Interesting Observations about Stupid Papers

2009-10-23T10:43:00.002-04:00

Today I am going through Zac's Big Box of Papers, full of school , hospital and medical crap and organizing it into files. One of my friends went through them earlier this year and did a sorting by year which will help, but I am not even at that part of the box yet and surprised how much emotional pain and 'interesting memories' come up, just by looking at the stupid papers.

I hold a flyer of the child psych ward (what time is visiting hours, and other administrative things) and find myself not only remembering the times Zac spent there, but also wondering 'Should I throw this out or will I be hospitalizing other kids there in the future?' Which is a totally stupid and unproductive thought, so it surprised me how strongly it came up in me and how resistant I was to throwing out this paper. I did throw it out though, don't worry.

While I am being stressed and dealing with the emotional issues, at the same time I am able to take a step back and observe myself doing so and recognizing that this might be an inevitable part of my growing up. So I write and drink tea and will go back to sorting papers now ^^

Breathe deeply and stay composed.

Ysa ...

2009-10-23T07:50:00.002-04:00

Last night Ysa yet another rage incident. She had been grumpy when she got out of school, but disappeared to her room after a while. She refused to come down for family dinner though, which frankly was just fine with me.

I took the others to some school function so she was home by herself for a number of hours. When we came back she was downstairs and in a much better mood, having fun with her siblings, and things were good.

Until it was time for people to go upstairs to bed, and about half an hour later Ysa decided to play the piano, and I asked her to please not to, since by now her siblings were trying to sleep and frankly I didn't feel like listening to her one piano song over and over either (although I didn't say that, I just used the sleeping excuse). She got really made and rude at me, which is not unusual, but things escalated when Baby Bear came downstairs.

Baby Bear wanted to start playing the piano too and Ysa very aggressively would move her elbows and knees in Baby Bear's direction, not totally hitting her, but very threatening. When I closed the piano and physically sat on the lid (nice to be heavy enough to frustrate the 13yo trying to open the lid (do you even CALL it a lid anyway, alex???)) Ysa got really mad and started screaming, yelling, hitting the walls, kicking the walls, the whole works.

Oh, it wasn't only the piano, she also was mad that I couldn't find my router and there was no internet (I had taken it to the school function and put it down 'somewhere' when I came back and truly had NO idea) She was mad about that too and told me I KNEW where it was and I was just lying and I was always lying and there was much yelling about that too. But she didn't really explode till the piano incident.

Hmmmmm, if things continue like this she is not going to have a choice about counseling. I had been taking a wait and see approach, but I didn't like at all what I was seeing last night.

Baby Bear

2009-10-21T12:35:00.002-04:00

I have been noticing that every day Baby Bear runs into the house after her afternoon kindergarten, drops her backpack and runs to the bathroom.
Today I decided to ask about it.
Baby Bear 'I don't want to use the bathroom at school, I am SCARED!'
I tried to figure out what she is scared of, but I wasn't able to get her to verbalize it. I know at home she likes to keep the bathroom door open and gets all freaked out when Bryan closes it.

Hmmmm, not worried, but monitoring and will give her teacher and guidance counselor a heads up.

Zac Attendance and Light Box Update

2009-10-21T12:07:00.003-04:00

Last Thursday had a hard time at school and was dismissed early (by the school).
Friday made it to school.
This week Monday and Tuesday Zac made it to school.
Today didn't make it.

His father 'Zac was depressed and didn't want to go to school.'
Me 'Oh, too bad, did he talk at all about why not?'
X 'No, he said he was worried, but didn't want to tell what he was worried about.'
Me 'Did he sleep?'
X 'Yes' (although I know I talked to Vincent on the computer at 11pm, so I know there were still at least some computers on then, but not important enough to get into that now)
Me 'Ah. What is he doing now?' (very well knowing that Zac is home and the ex is at work, but hoping that eventually the ex will agree to having some kind of backup plan for when Zac is 'worried and depressed' and is home alone all day)
X 'I don't know. Sleeping I think.'
Me 'I see. Well, let's hope he makes it to school tomorrow.'

X took the lightbox on Friday. I gave him the instructions from the doctor, basically every morning, same time every day, sit in front of it for 20 minutes. Best with eyes open (I had it located right next to the computer) but can be used with eyes closed if eyes open don't work. (Next to his bed maybe?)

Monday I asked about how things were going. X 'Zac hasn't been wanting to use it yet. I don't want to push him, I just want him to encourage him so that he decides on his own to use it.' Good luck! Zac seems Very Determined not to use it but will be interesting to see X try.
Today I asked about the lightbox again. 'No, he still doesn't want to use it?'
Me 'Maybe you can try putting it next to his bed, closed eyes is better than no lightbox at all.'
X 'No, he will just put his head under the blankets and it won't work anyway.'

Ok ^^ I doubt that Zac is going to agree to the lightbox at any time, but at least the lightbox is there now and he has the option. And it is one less thing in my house ^^

Zac School Meeting

2009-10-20T09:18:00.003-04:00

Last week we had yet another meeting at school for Zac. My dissatisfaction with the current placement was put on the table, which got translated by Zac into 'My mom wants to send me to retard school! All the windows are dirty because of the retards licking the windows the whole time!' Zac has been refusing to visit the local program. X also has not visited the local program, even if the team asked him during the last meeting to do so. Both have a totally wrong perception of the program of course, but one can only help people who are open to some kind of help.

The good news is that dr Plato is part of the team now, he will see Zac once a month. Dr Plato is a formidable psychologist and will have very valuable input. I feel that this is the best thing which could have happened to Zac in the current placement.

We talked about the light box and melatonin and proposed Zac starts using them again. Zac flatly refused. Someone asked him 'Why are you against all those suggestions we are making to help you?' He replied 'Because my mother wants me to and she is a control freak.' They reiterated that these suggestions are made by medical people, not by his mom, but he was still being oppositional. This is where the X jumped in, said something about 'Here we are trying to do what is best for you. We can talk in private about strategies to annoy your mother.'

Robin, Zac's high school case manager, told us about the list of five requirements of getting into college which Dr Plato had given to Zac. Zac got upset and didn't want to hear. He told her she could just show them to people on paper, he did not want her to read them out load. At all. He very ostentatiously put his fingers in his ears during this whole part of the meeting.

The world studies class we (including Zac) agreed on last time didn't work out. Zac refused to go and made it clear to them that he 'had missed too much already anyway, so would NEVER be able to catch up.' This means that Zac is not in any mainstream classes now, although he sometimes attends advisory. Zac's take on advisory 'It's ok, sometimes you get candy.' Can we say emotional age being lower than chronological age?

The rest of the day he spends in the resource room with different people. Which he doesn't like. But he also isn't willing to do anything else, so whatever.

We talked about his difficulties falling asleep and about his anxieties. This somehow led to Zac saying that he thought that what he said to dr Hildegaard was private, and should not be shared with anyone. Dr Hildegaard agreed, but said the exception was if there was danger to him or to others. Zac said 'FINE! SHARE it but NOT with my mom! I don't want her to know!' Dr Hildegaard calmly explained that he would have to tell me too, to which Zac replied 'OK, I'll just let my thoughts rot in there then until eventually I do it!' He added 'I will end up a mass murderer.'

Zac will work on social thinking once a week with a speech therapist. He will see dr Plato once a month. The school summarized the current program as 'Zac will have a very unique program instead of SAP (the program for autistic kids).

Dr Hildegaard noted that 'Not only the schol has to change, Zac really has to change his commitment to coming to school.' He also noted something about not only thinking about college as a goal, but also keep independent living in mind.

Zac is supposed to use the lightbox now, and by now the lightbox has moved to X's house and we'll see what happens.

After the meeting Robin (case manager) had a private chat with Zac's psychiatrist and me and expressed her concerns about the 'I will just become a mass murderer!' statement. The psychiatrist confirmed this was concerning and to call the therapy center any time he made statements like that. She also said that she had increased his prozac and he was still on geodon, to help him with his anxieties and his psychotic thinking. They asked X whether Zac ever said things like that at home and X said 'No, not really. Only when I try to make him do something, like going to school.'

Throughout the whole meeting Zac was rude to me, I clearly am the enemy at the moment. I am just happy that dr Plato got involved and that the school seems to be giving him more support for social thinking skills and such, even if they are not willing to pursue other placements. Which would be hard now anyway, since during this meeting Zac's father stated that he does NOT agree with any other placement. The more this develops in the current direction, the happier I am to have made the decision to give up custody to Zac's dad, since I am not confident about long term (and even short term) good outcomes without major interventions.

Proud at Ysa

2009-10-17T19:52:00.002-04:00

Last night there was a dance at the junior high school. Ysa had been doubtful about it 'I don't think I want to go. It would be so much more fun to go with someone else. And I don't know what to wear.' Many reasons not to go.

But on Friday she came home and had changed her mind 'I will go, almost everyone is going.' I still could tell that she was a bit anxious about it, but she clearly was willing to work past her inhibitions and jump into this new social happening. When I dropped her off, there still was some hesitation in her.

I was very happy to pick her up two hours later and she was all bubbly and happy 'I had such a good time! I just walked around for like ten minutes and then more and more people started dancing and I joined in and it was really cool. I am tired now, but I am also feeling very energetic'

I am so glad and proud that she managed to overcome her 'I don't really want to go' feelings, went and had a wonderful time! Very encouraging.

Meeting with Dr Plato

2009-10-15T13:39:00.002-04:00

Dr Plato pointed out a lot of differences between Zac and me.

Zac is detail oriented. I am more a Gestalt thinker, more big picture oriented.
Zac's reaction to a problem is to avoid it. He doesn't have very good problem solving ablities. My reaction to a problem is solving it and I am good at that.
Zac is very low energy. I am high energy.
Zac has a very narrow range of interests. I have a very wide range of interests.
Zac's gives up very easily if there is any obstacle in his way. I am very determined to get where I want regardless of obstacles.

I agreed with his assessment on those differences and he moved on to the fact that Zac moving out of the house into X's house benefits the other kids, which in a roundabout way benefits Zac again. Which made me feel less guilty for 'abandoning' Zac, which I know is a nonsense concept anyway.

He did mention Zac's hostility against me and he verbalized it as in 'It is almost like Zac divorced you after you and X got divorced.' He also did mention that he felt that X's mind and Zac's mind are much closer than Zac's mind and my mind. He told me he was going to meet with X too and said 'I can't wait to meet him and see whether I am right.'

Interesting comment about my marriage 'Frankly, I don't even understand how you two lasted this long together, you are so different.' I told him that it was my determination to make the marriage work which made it last this long. I wasn't going to have a divorce.

He felt that with Zac's low energy, he would be able to do a lot less in a day than a 'typical kid' could tolerate. Maybe community college at night and school starting later during the day. A lot of Zac's energy is used on anger and anxiety.

Dr Plato had met with Zac already and heard Zac's view on his future, which dr Plato described as grandiose. To probe Zac's commitment to going to college and getting friends (two goals Zac stated to him) dr Plato described to Zac what he would need to get into college and to get scholarships.

A good GPA. Zac immediately said that his GPA sucked, but dr Plato pointed out he could increase it over the next two years and that colleges do give weight to the fact that it improved during the high school years.
Good SAT Scores. Which can be improved by taking a course.
A personal statement not only showing that you are intelligent, since 'everyone' who goes to college is intelligent. It should show your leadership abilities, it should show a passion.
Two letters of recommendation.
Extracurricular activities.

Dr Plato gave him this list so that Zac can think about these and start working on accomplishing them if he does want to go to college. He said that Zac seemed stressed about it, both during the meeting and his teachers later commented on a higher level of stress in him.

Yesterday during the school meeting Zac TOTALLY refused to discuss any of those points. He was rude and said he didn't want to hear it. When the vice principal put a stop to the rudeness, he put his fingers in his ears so that he didn't have to listen to his case manager reading these 'steps to college' to the group. Halfway he took his fingers from his ears, asked 'Are you done yet?!' and put them back in when she said 'No, not yet.' Good example showing his 'problem avoidance' behaviour'.

Anyway, I suspect Dr Plato got involved thanks to my letter to school asking for different placement. I am thrilled to have him on Zac's team. In this meeting he still was at 'information gathering mode' and he was going to talk to the ex, Zac's therapist, Zac's teachers and everyone involved and then will give his recommendations.

He doubts that Zac will be able to live independently given the limitations of his mind. He already gave me a preview of that concept last year, so it did not come as a total shock, although it is a problem I would rather avoid. I quote from a meeting last year "The psychologist also mentioned that he would most likely live at home for many many years to come. Yesterday so many dreams of 'normalcy' were shattered for me. It is not like I didn't know that things were very bad, but somehow yesterday made it hit home harder than it had before."

The dreams already were shattered and now it's time to look at the reality and try to help Zac live up to his highest potential. The good thing is that the ex wants custody and he will be the one who will have to deal with a grownup Zac if he indeed isn't able to live on his own. Maybe it's the best outcome for both and that would be just fine.

Fully Functioning Adult

2009-10-14T21:27:00.002-04:00

Monday night, I got a phone call from our local Big Wig psychologist, Dr Plato. He told me 'I talked to Zac and I would like to meet with you to talk about him. Could you meet me in my office at 10am tomorrow morning?' That was easy of course. I mentally checked my morning, knew there were no appointments, knew that I just had to find someone to watch Baby Bear, but that shouldn't be too hard. And I was really
curious to hear what he had been talking about with Zac and how he felt Zac was doing. Every time I talk to him, I come home with valuable insights in Zac, myself and our family situation, so I jumped at the chance of meeting with him.

There were many fascinating aspects to the conversation which will morph into posts once I have verbalized them more clearly, but for now I am posting about one specific aspect of the meeting.

Early in the meeting, he asked me 'So what do you want for Zac? What is your vision for his future?' That was easy. I use the words all the time, so I replied 'Well, I want him to be a fully functioning adult. Being able to hold down a job. Have friends.'

Sounds good, doesn't it? Only instead of just noting it and going on with the discussion, Dr Plato challenged me. 'Hmmm, a fully functioning adult. How would you define that?' and I realized that I never had. I never sat down and thought about what EXACTLY I wanted for Zac beyond the easy term 'fully functioning adult.' I mean, I know that I want him to be happy and successful and wonderful and fullfilled and surrounded by wonderful people, but all those are vague terms and I
never verbalized closer beyond those vague dreams and hopes which aren't very realistic in the first place. I have been bogged down into details and into crisis management too much and haven't looked at the big picture as I should.

I bought myself some time with 'That is a good question' and after some reflection did a reasonable job of specifying more by saying 'Someone who does things which bring him pleasure and satisfaction. Someone who is able to maintain his own household, hold down a job. Someone who has friends.' It was amazing how hard it was on the spot to come up with the right words and concepts. While I was talking I was thinking 'Are friends necessary for being fully functional? I think not, but they are helpful.'

I have been thinking about it since and been talking to friends and briefly touched on it when I saw our family therapist. My friends had a bunch of additions, and also talked about basic biological needs (food, shelter, sex???? ^^)

I pondered 'Is happiness a part of being a fully functioning adult?' and have decided that it is not. I know people who are not happy, but fully function in society and in their own life. Who are angry and unhappy. But could I call them not functional? Not really.

Is a fully functioning adult an 'ideal' fully functioning adult or can we just
be 'good enough' fully functioning adults or even barely functioning adults? Of course good enough seems just fine. Looking back and after hearing feedback, I might have list of goals (maintain a place to live, buy / cook food, find / keep a job, pay bills, do laundry, etc) instead of a catch-all phrase of fully functioning adult.

A list of independent living skills to master would be helpful for the transition into adulthood. The life skills most of us learn on our own, just by watching other people or figuring it out, but which might not come as easily to people with Aspergers unless they get help acquiring them.

Teen Girl Funny

2009-10-14T08:14:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, Violet wasn't feeling well and ended up staying home from school with a stomach ache. When Ysa came home from school and found out about it, she was Very Pissed. 'VIOLET isn't sick! She is just pretending! She just went to sleep late! *I* have been sick through yesterday and today. *I* have a sore throat! *I* am sniffling! *I* am really sick! If she isn't going to school tomorrow, *I* am not going to school either!' Rinse and repeat a bunch of times.

I calmly suggested 'If you are not feeling well, what about you go to bed and take a nice nap.' She looked at me with that look that has been perfected by teen girls all over the world and said disdainfully 'No! That would ruin my MAKEUP!'

Zac School

2009-10-13T23:57:00.000-04:00

Zac made it to school on Monday. Not on Tuesday. The ex's theory 'He was couldn't fall asleep because he was so worried about making it to school in time.' Yeah, whatever.

Decision: Made

2009-10-13T22:02:00.002-04:00

After much soul searching and tons of talking and shitloads of going around in vicious circles, I made my decision. Or maybe I made it a few weeks ago, when I came home from my lawyer and was sitting in my car with my friend and verbalized the hard truth about maybe this fight not being worth it. Not leading to anything good. And costing a darned lot of money and energy which could be used much better in other ways. Still it took me a while to look at it from many different angles, throw it in the group, verbalize pros and cons and play devil's advocate with myself.

But there is much clarity to me that this is the decision which will benefit the highest number of people, including Zac. I am not going to fight this physical custody fight about the boys. If he wants it, he can have it, and realize he might have had to be more careful about what he prayed for, because it has been given to him.

Thanks all for the feedback. All of you have contributed to greater understanding of the situation and have helped me make the right decision. And I find myself almost more relieved than sad. There is mourning and sadness, but there also is a HUGE sigh of relief. A sigh which almost makes me feel guilty, but which also confirms that this is the right decision for me.

I still will have shared legal custody, but I won't have to deal with the physical crap of getting him up in the morning. Or getting him to sleep at night. I don't have to be super vigilant about him and Bryan at my house. I don't have to deal with passive aggressive and outright aggressive behavior and talk. I will still be involved in his life and work on my relationship with him, but the ex can have the day to day struggles and choke on them, I mean, deal with them. Yes, there still is a bit of resentment, but it is much tempered by humor and relief.

I still want my child support money though, but that is a different fight and most likely much easier to win than the custody one. And if I lose... the perspective of 'I would happily have paid $850 per month for someone to have gotten rid of my teenagers' from someone who has a twenty-something kid in severe trouble (started in his teens) is interesting to say the least. And thought provoking.

I feel tons lighter and will work on 5,000 other things now.

It is the College Classes

2009-10-09T11:08:00.001-04:00

Talked to the ex 'Zac doesn't come home from community college till 9pm on Thursday night and that is why he couldn't get up today.' I see... So maybe signing him up for these classes while he was adjusting to the new school schedule wasn't the brightest thing to do, was it. Don't worry, I didn't say that, I just thought it.

And again he can only have a few young ones at a time to protect Zac and it is such a relief that it's not my problem this weekend, since I have a good baby sitter here and when they are gone, they will be gone and when they are not, they'll have a wonderful time with the babysitter. Not to mention that Penny is going to stay over at a friend's house and I am just going to go AWAY from it all for a few days!

Respite care ROCKS!

And Yet Another Day of Truancy

2009-10-09T10:29:00.002-04:00

Attendance officer called: 'Zac isn't in today. His dad said he couldn't get him out of bed.'
I have tried calling the ex, but no answer at work or at home. Maybe will find out more later, but it seems harder and harder for him to state that things are going so well, but then I am shifting my fight anyway I think towards residential / local day program, so who knows.

For now I am going to pack clean underwear and go away for the weekend to have some breathing space and time. I love respite care!