^^This. You’ve made some well-reasoned changes. Now collect your feedback as it hapoens to all 3 of you and tweak accordingly.
You’re winning this game even if it doesn’t feel like that. Yet.
My wife and I are sort of in a similar situation.
She works from home and have a lot of flexibility in part of her work. (She has a lot of travel with no flexibility as well.)
At my current job, I teach part time on salary and part time for private lessons and if I miss any of my priviate lessons, we just lose that amount in income.
It used to feel the same way, that I couldn’t take any time off because of the lost income.
However, for self-employed people, you have to factor that in as part of the equation.
Yes, financially, you get less money if your husband can’t work all the hours that are possible, but that’s just what happens.
There are things where one of us needs to do something and while my wife often can cover when I’m working, there are other things it’s just better for me to do even if we lose some money.
For example, my son does sailing, and when there is a race on Saturday, I have to cancel classes, even though it results in less money. Part of having children participate at this level is that the parents need to be involved and it’s just better for me to handle it.
ETA: you are doing really well! You are a really thoughtful parent and things will work out.
Thanks. The truth is my husband carried a lot of the burden logistically which is why I offered to do more. He was missing too much work because he was almost entirely managing school stuff and medical appointments, plus he has all these other projects like trying to put together a will and so on. He’s also trying to change locations for his office and kind of get a group practice going eventually. He is absolutely swamped because of all the things going on.
My son’s behaviors really seem to be escalating. He did great at school yesterday but totally fell apart during social skills group. In the car afterward, he repeatedly unbuckled himself when I was fastening his seatbelt. Then on the way home he kept threatening to open the car door while we were doing 50mph down a very busy road. I have enabled the safety lock but it’s a lot, it’s really getting exhausting. He refused to go to school this morning. I managed to get him out the door eventually, but it was really frustrating.
My only idea about this is that his videos may be contributing. He’s been watching content sometimes that’s not really objectively problematic but it’s older kids goofing around and being kinda destructive. I think he lacks the ability to understand why this behavior is okay within the context of the video, but not okay in most situations. So we’re pausing videos for now until I get a handle on how to better monitor the content.
But if it’s just videos it doesn’t really explain the sudden escalation of behavior since he started school.
I know that he has ADHD but medication is generally not recommended for children that young, so we’re holding off on a diagnosis, but we may need to revisit that decision sooner rather than later. His impulsivity is almost certainly related to ADHD. He’s asked me how he can stop himself from doing things he knows are wrong. He says he can’t help himself, and I believe him, but I’m not sure what to do.
Oh I missed this when posted but I’m glad it sounds like you have a handle on how you’re going to move forward on the logistics and time management, uggggh. I have an incredibly flexible job and only work 3/4 time, and my husband also has an incredibly flexible job, and I don’t know how people without flexible jobs manage having kids, much less non-NT ones. And non-NT kids… it’s a lot to navigate, a lot of logistics, it’s really a full-time job. There were definitely years I felt that my full-time job was to handle kid stuff and my part-time hobby was working.
On the side of escalating behavior: actually I think it’s pretty common for kids’ behaviors to escalate when school starts because there are so many more demands placed on them, especially if one has the model of kid who really really tries to hold it together at school and then when school ends it’s like all that pent-up energy has to go somewhere. And if he’s “doing great” at school, that probably does go a long way towards explaining why his behavior is escalating once he gets out of school. Have you brought this up with the social skills group? They probably have a lot of experience with exactly this kind of thing.
My kid actually didn’t have this particular problem in kindergarten because she just would melt down wherever, she didn’t care (so while we saw a small uptick in behaviors because of the greater demands of school, it was greater at school than home), but in fifth grade, when she finally realized that she didn’t want to melt down in front of everyone at school, we saw a big uptick in behaviors once she got home.
I guess I don’t see why you’re holding off on an ADHD diagnosis. Wouldn’t it be better to go ahead and get a diagnosis and then discuss with the doctor the pros and cons of medication this young, or when would be appropriate? Getting a diagnosis doesn’t mean you have to get medication, but it could conceivably open up avenues for e.g. therapy and his IEP.
Speaking of which, as @echoreply mentioned, good to make sure the school is on top of their support of the IEP. Which is of course more logistical work for you.
Is there possibly an issue at school you could address? Maybe it’s just the stress of having to hold it together, as @raspberry_hunter suggests. But there might be some specific triggers, and maybe they are things that could be mitigated.
Yes, however I just got a text from the teacher that he had another bad day. I haven’t got the details yet.
I really think I’m going to have to try something like intermittent FMLA.
Family leave?
Yeah legally they have to give me time off if I need to care for a child with a disability. I’m not sure of the specifics. I’m hoping to discuss with HR today.
My other only idea is to schedule an IEP meeting with the teacher and Miles’ BCBA.
This is so hard, and the regressions can be so disheartening, not to mention just plain annoying. In my experience, there was often no obvious external reason for a change in behavior.
For my kid, my hypothesis was it was often the very classic duo of trying to get attention and pushing boundaries. Misbehave until mom, dad, or teacher stop what their doing and focus on me. I think much of that was stopped by a general pre-teen lack of interest in mom or dad’s attention.
Many of the issues at school are just things the school is going to have to figure out. What works there is likely to be different than at home or at ABA.
[I messed up my quoting on this, please be patient with me.]
I’m the grandmother of an 8 year old girl who is autistic, ADHD and highly gifted. I am the family in house support system 6 days and nights a week (sometimes 7), 40-45 hours a week, so I know this well-@raspberry hunter is sharing absolutely prime wisdom from their lived experience, please take it under advisement. I’m also the sister of someone with autism and the mother of another, so there is no need for you to learn this the hard way too.
If I were you, I’d pursue an ADHD evaluation as soon as you can. Your son has already told you what a confounding complication it is for him. Our grand daughter started on medication (which takes a far amount of tweaking) when she was 7. It doesn’t fix everything but at least she stopped getting expelled from afterschool programs and community activities like YMCA swim lessons and summer day camps. It took the edge off and the diagnosis meant that the school had to built ADHD accommodations into her IEP, which helped them see that her ‘behaviors’ weren’t voluntary and a choice she could easily reverse. She then spent a lot less time in a seclusion room out of the classroom learning environment and away from peers. We recently added an immediate release low dose pill given to her by the school nurse to carry her through dismissal time because the morning dose of sustained release Focalin tapered off before the school day was over. It’s going to be tricky for you because the main side effect has been it suppresses her appetite so she doesn’t really get hungry til late afternoon or early evening and you’re already managing restrictive eating.
Please consult with a child/adolescent psychiatrist about the ADHD medicating. This is not a situation for a mid-level practitioner like a PA or NP (and I say this as a nurse). A psychiatrist will have a much larger repertoire of medications that they are confident in prescribing and vastly more years of training.
My other advice is to get your son into whatever talented and gifted programming your school system offers. The school will want to “wait and see’ or “we usually don’t identify as gifted until after these behaviors stop’”. As if the kid has to earn learning at a differentiated and appropriate level before they receive it. They withhold what the kid needs until the kid behaves and deserves it, when a bored and frustrated kid can’t behave (even without ADHD and autism). The school are the grownups, they have to behave first.
So, I encourage you to pursue the ADHD diagnosis and incorporation into his IEP, plus consideration of meds at some point, with a child psychiatrist.
I also encourage you to pursue getting him designated as gifted and that programming built into his school day as well. He clearly is gifted and it will make a difference in reducing some triggers and school escalations and avoidance. And then of course, keep doing what you are doing to enrich his learning and exploration outside of school hours.
Lastly, and I’m reluctant to bring it up, but seriously limit both the time he spends with a screen and certainly strictly control what he sees. It’s designed to be a drug and kids get addicted. Do it now while you still can. It’s hard work doing this and it will be an ugly week or two when you strictly limit the screen time and content but it will help in the long term to decrease impulsivity and acting out.
Offered with not only years and decades of experience but also solidarity and hugs.
I was gonna ask is little Weasle in the G&T program.
I know very little about autism and ADHD. Follow those who know more advice. Get him diagnosed.
Meds will be the next thing to think about. I feel for you.
But lemme just impart a bit of wisdom about schools. I love schools, don’t get me wrong, they are swamped with issues. Your kid is a tiny speck on their radar. Classroom teacher has not just him but 20(?) more to contend with. They are your first line of defense for your child. Be on good terms with them. If you cannot, have him moved. You have to be his advocate at school. If he’s having problems in the classroom continously they will isolate him to an alternative school setting. You don’t want that. Especially since he needs work socially.
I have to say that social skills class bothers me. He has a very long day for someone just out of toddlerhood. I don’t know if I wouldn’t curtail that for a period of time til he’s settled in school better.
He’s required to go to school, unless you want to homeschool him(don’t reccomend) so you must get him settled. You’ll have to do this every new school term if he’s adverse to the situation. It’s daunting but you do get used to it and mark it down as a temporary settling in period. That will end. At some point every year.
Good on you for limiting his screen time.
Girl, you got your work cut out. Good luck.
Keep calm and carry on.
@BippityBoppityBoo ‘s whole post is gold, yes, all of this! (@BippityBoppityBoo , I’d also love to hear more about your journey with your granddaughter.)
But (since I already mentioned ADHD) I wanted to repeat this bit. I have known ever since you started talking about your sweet kiddo (and have mentioned a couple of times to you) that he would eventually hit a wall, as my child did – where school, particularly math, was boring and frustrating for her because she knew it all already. To be clear, I don’t think this necessarily explains all of what’s going on right now at this particular moment, but it might be a component, and it’s definitely going to be a component as he gets older.
Get him access to gifted and talented programming in whatever way you can. We live in an area where this is hard to access in the public school system (hopefully yours is different), and many people we know who have profoundly gifted kids, especially neurodiverse, have found that private school (note that many have generous financial aid) or charter school or homeschooling becomes the most viable option, at least for a time. (Homeschooling would, of course, add another wrinkle to your original post on staying at home. And could be tough for you for the same reason I didn’t go that route – figuring out socialization was not something I thought I could do well.) We went the private school route (there is a local gifted school which has some issues but was really great for our daughter) and have now transitioned her back to public school for high school – I won’t lie, she’s bored by her math class this year (stats) and struggling in world history (not her forte) and absolutely hates grades (her old school didn’t have them) but the high school is big enough and has enough that interests her that she is able to get by, which I think wouldn’t have been the case in elementary school.
Also research “twice-exceptionality” (2E) and whether any resources for that exist in your area.
I did also have to do this with my spectrum kid. Not so much controlling what she saw – she is such a rule-follower that all I had to do was give her some rules and she could handle that herself, with my occasional check-in – but I did have to seriously limit screen time because I could tell she would get more dysregulated after a certain point (and it didn’t take very much). And your post reminded me that this is about the age where I had to start doing that, good point.
I’m taking all of this in. I got the details of what happened in school today. Required the intervention of the social worker AND the principal had to remove him from class.
I have the green light for FMLA from HR. I haven’t decided to do that yet.
I’m definitely feeling he needs an evaluation for ADHD sooner rather than later.
Good luck! I’m glad you have the FMLA stuff in your pocket, ready to go if and when you are ready to do it. Hopefully it will make your decisions easier to make now that you know it’s an option.
My friend had a traumatic event happen to her earlier this year and got some time off with FMLA, and some pay as well. It was amazing for her mental and physical health to have that extra 40+ hours per week to work on her issues at hand. Sometimes navigating life while navigating the means for which you provide for that life is just impossible.
I’m glad you work at a place that can help you with this. Taking advantage of FMLA and being able to leave is something you’ve earned by your hard work of getting this job.
We’ve definitely looked into this and pickins are slim. My son is gifted for sure, he’s two units ahead in his math program and it’s been three weeks of school. He had to take an IQ test when he was evaluated for autism and we had to drag him through it, and even with all the chaos and resistance he still scored in the genius range for visual-spatial. His verbal score was average but he’s come a long way since then.
He did say to us he’s noticed he’s smarter than the other kids, so we had to talk about everyone having different strengths, etc.
He’s coming home soon and honestly I just want to hold him. I feel torn sometimes between being more strict and being more understanding but I can’t see how it’s ever a bad idea to extend compassion to your child.
Always hug him. Strict implies it’s a problem of discipline, that’s it’s because he won’t when it’s because his brain can’t. Never ration hugs and unconditional regard and acceptance: trust me, he gets more than enough of that being withheld conditionally at school
Compassion is always good. Being strict and being understanding don’t have to be mutually exclusive, either. He needs rules that are within his ability to follow, even if they aren’t the ones you (or the school) would ideally prefer.
Starting school is a difficult transition for any child, even more so for a neurodiverse one. Some of his problems might be temporary as he adjusts to the new environment and new demands, but you won’t know that for a while. How do you feel about the school and his teachers in general? Are they helpful and willing to work with you? If you/they can work out what aspects of school are triggering him, hopefully they can make adjustments to help.
And I agree about pushing to get him taught at the appropriate level for him. It’s going to be much harder for him to behave well if he’s bored and frustrated, and he deserves the chance to develop his talents as much as he can.
I did hug him but he’s been having a hard time tonight, too. He injured his Dad by shoving an ottoman at him. It has really hard corners that hurt like a bitch when you stub your toe. Then he slammed the door.
I don’t know if me being home more would fix this. But I’m swamped at work right now so it feels like the stress is coming from all directions.
Oh poor kid. He’s had a tough day.
Mom too, it seems.
If he’ll allow hug and talk reassuringly. Tell him it will get better.
I had another thought…have you ever went thru his school day with him? Most schools encourage it in Kindergarten and new students. Then maybe you can see the triggers. Just a thought.
So far I like them. I don’t think they totally get why my kid is freaking out, but they are strong communicators, they do respect that he has a disability and have already made some accommodations (like letting him eat at his own table separately from other kids.) So far it feels like a collaborative effort. I’m currently in a holding pattern while the school figures out where they want to go from here.
We have the BCBA (basically head therapist) involved now, and the school is signing releases for his therapist and vice-versa, so hopefully we can coordinate his care at school, home, and therapy.
I can see why social skills might be a bit much, but I don’t want to lose the guidance of the BCBA, he’s been working with the boy since 2023 and he totally gets my son. And I’m not sure we would have that support without services.
One possibility I thought about was cutting it short, doing one hour instead of two. Or just one night a week instead of two.