What a child screaming in frustration sounds like...behavior problem.

My son is amazing.  For the last 8 months (ending 8 weeks ago), he was expressing extreme frustration at school and no one understood what was the cause.  Looking back, he was feeling like in spite of doing what his parents and teachers suggested, he was failing at writing.  And he was really trying. It must have been awful for him.

We subjected him to a barrage of occupational therapy, academic and cognitive testing which he endured with a great attitude. We sent his au pair to school with him as an aide and scribe. His au pair also sensitized him to his own disruptive behaviors.  The OT determined he needed some fine motor adjustments which we started immediately.  In his very first session, he was like a sponge – grabbing on to the modifications his therapist suggested.  A slant board. Well lined paper.

Within two weeks, he started doing his own writing, by choice.  Still not very neat – but not frustrating either.  For months, he had been frustrated because he was trying to fix himself and failing.  No one – his parents or teachers – was helping him or explaining to him why all his efforts (and he was working hard) were failing. It was excruciatingly frustrating – he doesn’t give up and he knew he wasn’t succeeding.  But once he saw the path – he ran for it and never looked back.

Would you believe that from the day the au pair arrived in school, my son completely stopped having behavior issues? 

It took longer to get the results from the academic and cognitive testing – and even longer to synthesize those results into something that fit my son. It’s easy to fall into a diagnosis with the justification that it would give everyone a common language – but that was never our goal.  Our goal was to figure out what was making our son crazy at school but happy at home and with his friends. 

We learned that he’s exceptionally bright and that his brain processes information exceptionally quickly.  Meaning that he’s easily bored and needs a lot of challenge. We learned that in contrast to all that, his auditory processing abilities are below average – meaning that he actually cannot process auditory inputs very well. This means that when you give him spoken instruction, he’s not getting all of it. And he’s working double time to get what he gets.  He needs instruction and information provided in writing.  Not surprisingly, so does his Dad.  His Dad graduated with honors from Harvard and didn’t go to his lectures because he got what he needed from the books. But he knows he likely could have gotten even more if he dealt with his auditory processing challenges. So we’ll help our son with that issue to see if we can help him get more out of spoken instruction. 

To top it off, when he’s frustrated or bored, he’s impulsive and energetic. It’s not a reaction he’s choosing – it’s his wiring.   For years we’ve joked that he doesn’t idle well – we were right.

But the amazing thing is that he took advantage of the information from his au pair and his OT to self-adapt. Once he realized that he can keep himself busy with a book or an art project AND that he enjoys being in class reading, writing and participating – it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. He’s articulating when he needs to go burn some energy or needs something else to do. And his class is doing a lot more project work and he’s loving it.

Looking back, I think we should have done the OT testing in second grade as soon as we knew his handwriting was a problem.

More importantly, it took a psychologist who deeply considered the academic, cognitive and behavior data all together (and had unlimited observation of my son, to be fair) to discern the true root cause of his frustration - and the reason that his frustration was manifesting in disruption.  My suggestion to anyone going through this is to keep pushing until you get an answer that makes sense - do not let yourself be intimidated by professionals (pscyhological or educational) into accepting a description that simply doesn't fit. And when you have something that fits, move swiftly to help your child. Mine felt like suddenly everyone understood and was giving him the tools to succeed.

Naturally, with all this testing, we also got a plan from the school.  It’s a reasonable plan – but my son is way ahead of all of us. We threw him a life ring – and he grabbed on and learned to swim.  Amazing.

Support helps more than gossip

Dear Fellow Parents,

My son is having a rough school year - and many days he's disruptive in class. We know about it. We're working on it.  We feel terrible for him, his teachers and for you.  And hearing about people talking about him doesn't help your child, my child or our community.

His challenges started in the middle of last year when youthful silliness and energy escalated into troublemaking and obstinance. Interestingly, this only occurred at school.  At home and in after school activities, he was still just silly and energetic at times. Together with the school, we tried to figure out what was happening that was triggering this response. Suffice to say, we tried lots of accomodations, but never understood the cause.

This year, school started well, but within 2-3 weeks, we were back in the land of disruption. And I know you are paying a lot for your child's education and perhaps you'd prefer that my child be asked to leave the school. Thankfully, our school decided two years ago that we valued inclusivity and that we wanted to figure out how to teach every child unless the staff really felt we couldn't.  And when you are thinking it would be better if he wasn't there, ask your child who helped them with math, sat with them at lunch, offered to play.  Guess who?  

Children learn differently and mature at very varied rates.  And when a young child is acting out, there is a root cause and it's not the desire to mess with your child or the teacher.  It's a cry for help.  And parents like me spend virtually all our psychic energy trying to figure out what he needs.

Here's my guess - he has a lot of trouble printing.  It's slow, sloppy and frustrating.  And by the middle of second grade, it's one of the primary ways a student demonstrates what he knows to his teacher and class. My son has command of the content and concepts, but cannot communicate it in writing.  Talk about frustrating.  And all last year, we worked on improving his handwriting - so yes, we were aware and acting on the problem.

Then we started with talk therapy, but that didn't make an impact. Now we are going down the path of extensive testing so that we understand exactly how he thinks, rule out any behavioral disorders and identify the issues that are making block print writing a huge source of frustration for him.  It takes time for the various professionals to collect, analyze and report on their data.  In the meantime, we've got him doing a novel form of therapy where the therapist uses touch to help calm the mind - and teaches him how to self-soothe. And we've sent our au pair to school to observe, help the teacher and be his scribe so that he can fully participate in class without a moment's frustration about his speed, quality or presentation of writing.

Good news - we're up to 7 good days in a row. Seems promising. Hope you think so too.

Our hope is that the data will give the professionals the information needed to guide the school on how to teach our son - and those accomodations will also help your child since variety in teaching styles benefits all the students. 

So, instead of gossiping about what a problem my son, or anyone else's child is, put yourself in our shoes. It's really embarassing when your child is misbehaving. It's really frustrating when they struggle and you cannot figure out what will help. Try to imagine, for a moment, that a thoughtful, proactive parent like yourself could face a situation where you are not in control and your child is struggling.  What would you want from the other parents?  Patience.  Sympathy. Empathy. Understanding.  Not judgement.

Thanks.

Back to School Traditions

Somehow, the first night all my children slept in their beds since June 20 was tonight (August 30) - and it's the night before school starts. They had busy, wonderful summers visiting family back east, attending sleepaway camp and spending time with family out west - no complaints. But no time to really transition into a school mindset.

Time constraints forced me to focus - to identify the most important back to school activities:

• Clothing that fits and is suitable for something other than rags. 
• School supplies 
• Dentist, orthodontist - check and check.
• Haircuts...not crucial.  Not done. 
• Buy books for summer reading - did this in June. Whew.

My time jam also put the sleep routine at risk. Luckily, our children have a pavlovian response to their own bedrooms - or to the exhaustion of their summer - bedtime was on track, without resistance and should lead to a solid 11+ hours of rest before school starts tomorrow.

Beyond the practical, I fantasize about having back-to-school traditions. Thus far, the tradition is taking a day off from work and spending it with my school-age children doing something. Mini-golf is popular. So is bike riding. And lunch. And I fantasize that this experience opens meaningful discussions about goals and concerns for the upcoming school year.  Realistically, it reinforces that I am a better Mom when I work and spend evenings with my children because my patience for sibling rivalry and bickering is, well, not great. 

Most of the families I know from other schools have already started - we start tomorrow. The kids are excited and the parents look estatic. Our big family tradition is to take a picture outside our house before school on that first day. It's not time consuming and it's never particularly calm, but I do enjoy seeing them over the years.

What's your back-to-school routine and tradition?  Is it for you or your kids?

How zero tolerance punished the wrong child

My son started kindergarten with exuberance and within a week was sullen. Soon after, we started receiving notes from the school that he was harassing three girls. As a consequence, he was not allowed to run on the field; he had to stay on the playground so that he and the girls could be separated. He was devastated.  We were confused and concerned. We believe in logical consequences and if he was bringing these girls to tears, he had to be restricted. But it was totally out of character. In 5 years of day care and pre-school, he never bothered, harassed or did more than horse around with another child.

Nothing I’ve experienced in my life compares to the hurt I felt when my son was hurting. We couldn’t figure out what to do. We talked with him – but he couldn’t explain what was happening. We didn’t know if one of us should stop working to help him to figure this out. We asked the teachers to tell us what they saw. I even tried to surreptitiously observe recess. We asked friends and parents for ideas. Maybe he was too young for school.

Then my husband tripped on a toy train and put his arm through a plate glass window severing his ulnar nerve.

His reluctance to tell many people how he got hurt led him to sequester himself with the children at a community event and he saw an older girl, a third grader, approach our son.

“Chase me?” she asked.

“No” he responded.

“C’mon, chase me!” she said

“No” he responded.

“Please, chase me!” she goaded.

“OK”.

And he did. Caught and tagged her. Then she burst into tears and headed for her parents. She didn’t count on being observed and intercepted by his Dad. My husband told her he saw and heard everything. After a feeble attempt at denial, she acknowledged that she was asking my son to chase her.

It was a game – three third grade girls discovered they could control the teachers by provoking my son to chase them, crying about it and getting him punished.  He was just 5 and had no way to put together that the invitation to play tag was the bait to get him in trouble.

Suffice to say, the game ended that night. My husband spoke immediately to two of the girls’ parents (with the girls whimpering alongside) and I informed the Head of School about what was transpiring.

To the Head’s credit, he immediately apologized; spoke to the on duty teachers and the girls and the behavior stopped. And that same day, my exuberant, giving child re-emerged.

Zero tolerance was punishing the WRONG child. It’s so much harder to observe and prevent verbal/emotional bullying.  Kids are smart and they hide it. 

I wonder how else we could have figured out the problem.  Any ideas?

Guest blogging in October at the PEJE Assembly

Next week, I'll be at the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education Bi-Annual Assembly learning more about how to shape the future of Jewish education.  PEJE has asked me to blog about programs at the assembly and share my thoughts.

I've shared what I hope to learn on the PEJE Blog - hope you'll read it.