Parenting Conundrum

I've been duped. A little over 6 years ago we decided to have kids. I felt wholly prepared. I watched Roseanne and Married with Children, so I knew how NOT to mess up my kids (special thanks to Mom and Dad for contributing to that knowledge database as well). I watched The Cosby Show and Full House, and I read the parenting books. I felt like I had a pretty good handle on what to expect and how to deal with every tricky situation, from those tough, uncomfortable questions to emotional matters to skinned knees.

And then I had a child. Not one of those shows prepared me for delivery room drama or boundary stomping relatives. They didn't cover what to do when your child decides to cover herself from head to toe in Vaseline on a suede couch. I was at a loss for what to do for those mystery sicknesses, when your child has a 103 degree fever at home, but comes in at 99.2 at the doctor's office. Parenting is not as easy as I thought it would be. But that's okay, we are enjoying the ride.

We have, however, hit a unique speed bump that, all joking aside, was not covered in parenting books, or on the wholesome, or even not-so-wholesome family shows. What to do when your child is "special needs." I have to say, I am really hesitant on using that term when it comes to R. There are many parents and children who struggle so much more than we do. I don't want to compare myself or my daughter to them and claim the same amount of troubles. But, I find that with ADHD and anxiety, my daughter does in fact have special needs that are outside the scope of so-called "normal" children. And these needs present a very unique parenting conundrum.

I'll start with the ADHD problem first. ADHD is a chemical imbalance in the brain. My daughter cannot simply decide to override that imbalance than she can decide to develop telepathy. And Heaven help us all if she were able to accomplish that last one! One of the side-effects from this imbalance is a lack of impulse control. This means that when T is bothering R, R cannot take the time to stop, evaluate her emotions and what she wants to do, which is hit her sister, and think of the consequences before doing so. Instead, she goes from 0 to 60 in a split second, lashes out, and then realizes she did something wrong. She is always very apologetic afterwards. Even so, this behavior is not acceptable. It is not okay for T to get hurt because of R's lack of control. This behavior needs to stop. But how do you punish someone for something they cannot control, especially at this age? I have no doubt that as she gets older, she will gain more control, but at the ripe young age of 6, that time just has not come. 


Now, the anxiety. I know girls can be self-conscious about what they wear, but R takes this to the extremes. Example:  We are going to the beach. We have to walk a ways to get there. I have the kids put on their suits, and then shorts and a t-shirt over it. Hell breaks loose! She is so afraid that she looks bad that she won't let her dad or her sister even look at her. She hides from them. I have to show her in the mirror that it looks okay. I have to take a picture of her so she can see that. I have to go online and Google other people wearing this style. And she is an emotional wreck all through this. 

Another place it crops up is at karate. If there are new kids in her class, she won't go out on the mat. If there is a teacher's helper that she doesn't know, she won't go out in class. This is beyond normal shyness. This is paralysis. If someone she isn't close to speaks to her, she freezes up, turns to me, and won't look anywhere else. She won't respond most of the time. 

One face of anxiety is perfectionism. It needs to be done just right, and she is afraid of failure as a result. If she can't do something, it's a tragedy. If she does attempt something, and the feels, real or imagined, that she is being judged, made fun of, or gets embarrassed, it causes a meltdown.

On to the parenting dilemma. One aspect of anxiety is catastrophizing minor events. For example, she is in karate, and is working hard, and works up a thirst. She asks for a drink, the teacher says no, not yet. She bursts into tears. She then gets yelled at by the teacher for crying in class AGAIN. While I agree that she cannot cry every time she doesn't get what she wants, yelling at her and shaming her for a behavior she cannot control is not the answer. Figuring out how to handle this type of situation is difficult. I don't want to coddle her. I don't want her to learn that crying is the answer. But she's six year old child with the emotional maturity of a much younger child. How do I balance meeting her emotional needs with teaching her how to handle the situations? And even once I do show her how to handle them, I can't make her utilize those skills. Again, this will change in time, but for now, it's a tricky situation
 
Figuring all of this out has become especially painful for me. When she was 4 years old, after sitting next to Santa and telling him what she wanted for Christmas, she walked away and then burst into tears. I asked what was wrong, and she told me she didn't think Santa was coming to her house because she was such a bad kid.When my 6 year old throws herself in my arms, sobbing that she is a bad girl, she doesn't know why she acts this way, and "why is it so hard?!"  R also suffers from nightmares. She told me she thinks God sends her nightmares because she is such a bad kid. It breaks my heart.

Now, if you have read this far and are expecting eye-opening advice and how to solve these parenting pickles, well, you're going to be sorely disappointed. I will admit that I have a very selfish reason in writing this post. First, it's quite cathartic. Second, because her issues are all in her brain, and she looks like a perfectly normal child, even I can forget the struggle that she faces at a daily basis. It's hard for me to not have the "why can't you get this through your head?" thoughts. Writing this allows me to take a step back and remember what she is experiencing, and that I have to handle myself accordingly. 

So what do I do about it? For now, we've worked out a system where the first time she hits (never hard, thankfully) she is given a warning. If she hits, kicks, pushes, pokes, pulls hair, etc she will be sent to her room to clean it. If she does it again after that, she gets to clean the playroom. I really can't think of what else to do. Time-outs are a battle. Spanking has no effect except to make us both feel terrible inside, and it damages our relationship. Also, I've resorted to bribery. If she gets out on the mat without any issues, does what she is supposed to do in class with no crying, she gets iPad time on the way home. Bribery, positive reinforcements, incentives, whatever you want to call it, it seems to help.

Now I want to know if any of you readers have experienced something similar. How do you handle these situations? What has worked? What's made it worse? Chime in!
 
 

Parenting Labels

Labels are a funny thing. It seems as if the world isn't content unless we are all safely categorized into our neat little compartments. We especially see this in politics. We need to be Democrat or Republican or Independent or Libertarian. We are either Conservative or Liberal. These are pretty straight forward, and most people easily identify with these particular labels.

Then there were the labels I didn't know existed. I discovered some during our homeschool adventure. What learning method do you use? Charlotte Mason? Calvert? Montessori? Unschooling? I get asked this all the time. I have no idea. So I use that other label that gets thrown in there:  Eclectic. That sounds right. I should be able to fit into the most general of those, right?

And, ah, the parenting labels. I don't seem to fit into any of these, either. I'm not a Crunchy Mama. While we did breastfeed, cloth diaper, baby-wear, co-sleep, make some of our own baby food, and we homeschool, we also vaccinate, buy our cleaners at the store instead of make them, and we use pull-ups. We aren't Organic-exclusive, except when I made baby food. We eat gluten and foods with red dye in them. So, we're not Crunchy, and we're not....Creamy?

I'm not a Helicopter mom. Much to the dismay of my husband, I let my kids fall down and get scrapes at the playground. I let them go explore in the woods. My rule of thumb is that I need to be able to see at least one body part at all times. Otherwise it's out of sight, out of mind and who knows what would happen then! I'm not a Free Range Mom. There is no way in hell in this day and age that my kid is going to wander the neighborhood unsupervised. Then again, R is only 6, so we really don't have to worry about it. But I will want to know where she's going, with who, and when she'll be back. I am also not a Tiger Mom. I won't even get into how terrible that whole thing sounds.

So, with all of these labels in my face, I'm going to make my own. Our family style is Weird. Everything we do is weird. We have weird bedtimes. Ever since my husband had to get a second job when R was born due to OT cutbacks, we go to bed late. Even now that he doesn't have that job, we still go to bed late, and we wake up late. People ask us how our kids are ever going to learn to be on a "regular" schedule. Well, I'm sure when the time comes that they have to wake up at a specific time, we'll figure it out. People change schedules all the time, I'm pretty sure we can handle that. And with our more nocturnal schedule, we get to experience a lot of neat things other families don't:  night hikes to look for owls, meteor showers, and late night dancing at festivals to name a few.

Another bit of weird:  R calls my husband by his first name. T is picking up on it. This will without fail stop people in their tracks. They look at us as if R demanded we get down on our hands and knees and worship her feet. Most people look at this as a sign of disrespect. Let me assure you, it's not. Affronted people look to me for the blame. Well, they get it from you. They hear what you always call him, they say. Not so, nosy neighbors! I usually call my husband "Daddy" in front of the girls. One rare day R heard me call him by his name, and she was delighted. She felt like she knew the biggest secret in the universe, and she was thrilled to share this secret with her daddy. For her, calling him by his name was not an issue of disrespect, but of love. She wanted him to be proud that she knew his name. Why didn't we correct her? I know my daughter well enough to know that she would feel ashamed if we told her not to do that and insist that she call him Daddy.  I refuse to make her ashamed of an act of love. So, she calls him by name. She also calls him Daddy. Weird.

I used to have a hard time with this labeling thing. I used to feel defensive. I felt that I was always explaining myself to people when they would give me their looks of incredulity at whatever parenting technique we were using at the time. But you know what? Our way works for us. That's what matters. We are happy, healthy, and we are thriving. If you Crunchy Mamas can say the same thing, then keep it up! Same for you Creamy, Helicopter, Free Range, Tiger, Hippy, Attachment, and whatever other labels you associate with. The key is raising happy, healthy kids in a safe environment. Don't ever feel defensive for doing what works for you!

The Great Medication Mix-Up

Gather around kiddies, it's story time. My previous posts have all been about deep, insightful life events. Not this time. Today I'm going to tell you all about my adventures with starting medications.

My doctor, after listening to me for what I'm sure is much longer than our allotted appointment time about the train wreck that is inside my head, has wisely prescribed me three medications. She said, "First, let's get this anxiety under control. I want you to start with this one." And she gives me a script for what I'll call C. "Now, take this A for your ADHD." Okie-dokie. "And this T will help you sleep at night" because I had mentioned that I have horrid insomnia and had been taking Melatonin.

Now, here's where I royally screw up the most simplistic instructions. After much insurance pricing, prescription coupons, and other such nonsense, I pick up my pills. I decline the T since I had that awesome Melatonin at home. I knew my C had to be taken with food, so like a good little soldier I ate a light breakfast even though I HATE eating breakfast. I read the bottles very carefully so I make sure to take the right pill....and proceed to take the wrong pill.

Now what? Do I continue to take the pill I just took, and wait a few days like I was supposed to do before starting the second medication? Do I stop taking the A and just take the C? Choices, choices. For most people, this might be an easy decision. But not for me. Nooooo. I have to have an anxiety disorder, so for me this is like the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire million dollar question. So, I opt to Phone a Friend.

I decide to continue the day with A, and later I message my EMT friend who is super awesome and goes out of his way to help me out. I tell him what I was prescribed and what I had done so far, and the mess that I was in.  He expressed that he was surprised that I was given that sort of a combo as it could be quite dangerous. Speedballing is what it is called on the streets. Now, you might think Speedballing is a new Olympic Sport where you have sex on a toboggan while racing along at top neck speeds, but no, that's wrong, on so many levels. That's okay, though, that's what I thought at first, too. Don't beat yourself up. Apparently it's taking uppers and downers at the same time, and it has some nasty side effects.

So now I've got to call the pharmacy back and inquire about this. The combination of the two may cause me anxiety, the pharmacist said. If I experience this, I need to stop taking them. Pause for a moment, and let that sink in. My anxiety meds may cause me anxiety. How would I know if this is new anxiety or pre-existing anxiety? I'm getting anxiety trying to figure it out....or is it the medication?! Also, may cause hallucinations, which I think would be a-MA-zing! Talk about adding something interesting to the day of a stay-at-home mom that doesn't include Vaseline or a Sharpie marker.

But the pharmacist did say that the doses were low enough that there wasn't a huge risk and that I shouldn't have to wait to start taking them together. Great! Problem solved....or so I think. Sunday I take them both together. ADHD still super active, but I'm much happier, calmer. Still have anxiety, but I feel better about it, if that makes sense. 

All is well, until it's not. Sunday night, no sleep. I took 2 Melatonin's, to no avail. Got up for a 3rd. Nothing. My thoughts were racing. At one point, I believed that my thoughts were going so fast that for sure my heart had to be going just as fast. I wondered if I was going to have a heart-attack from fast thoughts. I considered checking my pulse, but didn't really feel like it. One hour of sleep all night. I call up the pharmacist and beg to get the T meds that I declined a few days earlier.

Monday evening at my daughter's karate class, I get to talking to another mom who has ADHD. She was really friendly, and we spoke about it at length. Before long the topic of meds came up. I told her what I was on, and she said she took the C pills, too. I asked her if they gave her insomnia, and she said the C pills don't, but her anxiety meds used to.

Wait....hold the phone.  Aren't C pills for anxiety? Nope, those are for depression, and she pulls the drug facts up on her smart phone to show me. Sure enough. I've been taking depression meds. But I'm not depressed! This explains my really, really great mood, even after 1 hour of sleep, but what's it going to do for my anxiety?! Now I have anxiety. I call up the pharmacist...again....and inquire. Thankfully I'm told C is an unwritten med used for anxiety. It's often used because it's non-addictive. Now I love my doctor. She knows my family has addiction issues and is looking out for me! So sweet. And making me happier along the way. How awesome is that!

After karate, we swing by the pharmacy to pick up my sleeping pills. I read the label:  "T is used in the treatment of anxiety and chronic pain." Okay, now this is just getting ridiculous. I'm taking C which is for depression, but I'm using it for anxiety. T is actually for anxiety, but I'm using it to sleep. And Melatonin, the pill that is supposed to make me sleep, doesn't work.

At this point, I give up. It's only been a few days, and they're all supposed to take a week or so to fully kick in. I'm happier and calmer during the day, which is a plus, so I'm just going to go with the flow. Thankfully, the T did help me sleep. And I'm quite disappointed to report, I have had no hallucinations as of yet!

The Struggle is Real

Having a child with anxiety is like working for the Secret Service. I am always on the lookout for possible triggers. To those of you who wonder what a 6 year old could possibly have anxiety about, the answer is everything. Everything that you, as a grown adult, deal with on an everyday basis with such ease, she struggles with. She worries about who she's going to marry, who she's going to live with when we die, what people think when they see her, if she looks good enough, if whatever plans we have that day will work out. But most of you can shove those thoughts and feelings to the back of your mind, or work through them. She can barely contain them.

We watch what we say so that R doesn't take it the wrong way. Heaven help us all if I have to take both R and T into a public bathroom together! We all have to turn around, despite the fact that she is a nudist at home. Even her clothing has to be just right so as to not set her off. One day we had her put her bathing suit on under her clothes, and by golly, you would have thought we tarred and feathered her by her reaction! I had to lift her up to show her in the mirror that she looked normal. I had to Google images of other girls wearing clothes over their suits to show her it was acceptable. And for a half hour she screamed and cried and wouldn't let her daddy or sister look at her. It took her this long to accept that maybe she looked normal and that she would grudgingly go along with it.

Last weekend we went to see fireworks with family. And folks, it was something. I'm not even talking about the double rainbow that appeared, or the stunning fireworks that rained shrapnel down onto the crowd. I'm talking about my experience with R. It was an emotional roller-coaster. The first thing that happened is R wanted to play with a couple of girls from blankets near us. Right away I could see a problem. R was super nervous about approaching them, and there was one of those girls. I can't fathom how these girls exist at such a young age already. They are the ones that take joy in being cruel, in forming clicks and keeping just one person out of it in a very obvious manner. And to my joyful surprise, R either didn't notice this Mean Girl behavior, or just ignored it. Personally, I wanted to trip the kid. Nonetheless, crisis adverted.

Shortly after, R made friends with this wonderful, unique, entertaining girl from the blanket behind us. They got along well, and hung out until right before the show started.  R's cousin who is the same age joined us, and the three of them played together nicely. Right before the fireworks, we noticed R had wandered over to her new friend's blanket and photobombed their family photo! I laughed! What an amazing, wonderful, spirited, joyful child I have! I was so happy to see her over her shyness and participating in new experiences. My hubby laughed too, for much of the same reasons. R laughed, too, until she didn't.

And friends, this is the hard part of our life. This is when my heartbreaks for her. A switch flipped in her, in a nanosecond, where she perceived that we were laughing AT her. She instantly felt embarrassed. She jumped at me screeching "Why are you embarrassing me?!" and dug her nails into each side of my neck, repeating this with tears streaming down her tiny little face. At the point, I had to think and react quickly. My next move would make or break the night. Of course, my first instinct is to punt this tiny, painful pest away from me. It hurt! But I knew what she was going through. I knew very well that her emotions were out of control, and that she was having a knee-jerk reaction to the overwhelming amount of feelings that were bubbling up inside of her without an outlet.

Let me be clear. Physical violence is not acceptable in our house. We do not allow this behavior. That being said, that isn't what was happening here. And I knew that with every fiber of my being, because not two weeks earlier, I was in the same boat. I didn't latch onto anyone like a leech, but I had an anxiety attack and felt like a volcano with no safe way to let off my steam. She was not having a temper tantrum and attacking me. She was having an emotional overload with no outlet. My daughter is fiercely loyal to me, and has never done this before.

So, after I detached her from my neck, I knew I had to get through to her. I cupped her cheek and told her I needed her to hear me. And then I talked her down. It's hard to see someone so small, so young, feeling these emotions that are so intense and premature for her age! She shouldn't be so hyper-self-aware at her age. It breaks my heart for her. I reassured her that we would never laugh AT her in such a cruel manner. I told her how awesome both mommy and daddy think she is. I told her that we loved her. I had to point by point break down her perceptions of what happened with what we were really doing.

And the whole time I was doing this, I had to fight through my own feelings of hurt. Not only did my neck hurt, but my heart hurt. I hurt for a little girl that feels too much, too soon. I hurt knowing that my child tried to hurt me. Even knowing the cause, that she wasn't in control of herself, didn't help me all the way. I hurt thinking about what the future would bring if we can't find a way to help her channel her emotions. It hurt when I told her that she had hurt me, and all I got was a muttered sorry because she couldn't concentrate on me due to the chaos around her. I hurt so bad, and had to set this all aside and present a calm facade so that she could calm down.

For the rest of the night, she chose to stay by my side. She politely declined her cousin's invitation to come share the chair with her. This blew my mind as R would usually rather be with a friend than her boring old parents. She laid her head down in my lap and hugged her bunny and was content to just be with me, emotionally spent after a long evening. That was her heart's apology, I feel. What she couldn't say in words, she showed me in actions. She even held my hand when we weren't even crossing a street!

R isn't a bad kid. She's a loving, loyal child who struggles daily with problems she has little control over. I can't imagine what other parents thought when they witnessed last night's events, but I would hope that they didn't judge. I would hope that they could see through the surface to the hurt and uncertainty that fills my poor girl. And on the other side, when you see my kid being happy and vivacious, I'm thrilled you see that side of her. But if I confide in you that there's something more going on, please don't write it off because you are only seeing the one side of her. She's a deep kid, and I love her to her depths.

The Many Faces of ADHD

One of the most well known, and misunderstood, side effects of ADHD is the lack of focus. First of all, let me clarify that up for all of you "focused" types. We are not unfocused, we are merely focused on a myriad of things at once, and this can lead to interesting experiences, both comical and unfortunate.

They say that one of the best ways to keep focus is to develop a routine. Do things in the same order every time. For those of you focused people, this makes things easier, but it's not a necessity. Let me walk you through what happens to one of us focus-impaired if we don't follow a routine:

I'm taking a shower. I get in and start thinking about what I need to do that day, and what I did yesterday, whether or not that bathtub crayon will come off with regular tub cleaner, or if I need to buy heavy duty cleaner that will not only strip the crayon off but most likely dissolve bone should the need arise. I lather up my right leg, and start shaving away. Shoot! I wanted to shampoo my hair and then let the conditioner sit while I shaved my legs, like I usually do. Oh well. I'll just do that after this leg. Back to my imaginary conversation (most likely it's the one where I wished I had said something witty to someone, and failed. Now I'm getting it right). Leg is shaved. Hair is shampooed. Hair is conditioned. Shaved the armpits. Lathered and rinsed with Caress (because before you dress, Caress). Great shower!  Mental to do list is complete, and I'm sparkly clean, and I have redeemed myself with quick comebacks. Toweling off....why does my left leg look like a Yeti? Did I shave my right one twice? Have I developed super human follicle powers? Will they want to conduct experiments on me?! Will they want to probe me?  Ha! No. I just did things out of order, and that's what happens. Time for shower part deux.  I wish I could say this is the first time it's taken multiple showers to complete the job, but no. I've forgotten to rinse conditioner, and have even come out covered in bubbles, because I am focusing on too many things at once.

That's how it effects me. I have inattentive ADHD, more than the hyper kind. My daughter, however, is full of the hyper kind, as well as inattentive. Her struggle is much more real, for lack of a better word. I can't tell you how many conversations have been interrupted by the clichéd, "Oh, look! A squirrel!" She's too young to know how stereotypical that is, and so hubby and I laugh and laugh each time.

But it goes beyond that. You see, we enrolled her in karate. While this has been great for her, it is also comically cruel. "R! Focus! R, stop touching him! R, pay attention! R! Hold still! R, stop watching the other class!" You can usually hear all of those being said to her within a 10 minute time span. Sometimes it's really hard to hear. My heart breaks for her. I'm tired of hearing her getting yelled at for something she can't help. Luckily she it hasn't seemed to effect her self-esteem....yet.

Other times, it's gold. Picture this: My tiny waif of a girl is all suited up to spar. She's got on her huge sparring gloves and boots, and her hat that squishes her cheeks up like a chipmunk's. So adorable. She's fighting a larger boy and doing a pretty great job of holding her own. That is until she notices that the class next to her is practicing blocks by pretending to sword fight. She stops in the middle of her fight, turns around, and is entranced by their class. BAM! A punch right to the back of her head. She is incredulous! Why in the world would anybody punch her in the head?! What are they thinking?? It's not as if....oh wait. Yes. Realization dawns. She was in the middle of a fight. Just to see the expressions flash across her face like that was comical. I'm sure I wouldn't feel the same if she weren't wearing protective gear, but hey, we need to laugh at ourselves when we can.

And then there are times I want to cheer for her ADHD superpowers! I can't tell you how many times she's been focused on everything around her to the point where it looks like she's not paying attention to anything, or it looks like she's just gabbing with her friends. But, boy, her little mind takes it all in. "R! Are you paying attention? What did I just say?" asks the smug teacher who thinks he has her caught. And word for word, my little repeats his last sentence. HA! Or she'll stop in the middle of a complicated hand sequence to watch the fly buzzing around above her. When it's gone, she'll pick right back up where she left off as if nothing happened. She's amazing.

You may think you know what ADHD is. You may think it's that problem kid that just won't listen. It's the kid on the street that's always in trouble. It's the child at the playground that is all over the place. It's the guy in the office that just checks out mentally. Yeah, that's us. But there's so much more to it. We are all over the place, and we are accomplishing so much at the same time. We are going over out To-Do lists, checking it twice, winning a debate, figuring out how that thingy over there works, watching those people over there do that thing they're doing, planning the week's meals, remembering a lesson we learned a few days ago, and remembering where we left our car keys....all while you are staring at us wondering what's wrong with us.