Thoughts on becoming a SAHM

In My Humble Opinion
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Wow. Good luck, I hope it all goes well. I wonder if they have consultants who aren’t local and that’s why it is over the phone?

My kid also never reports any problems, lol. I think with her, part of it is that she has a very bad memory for emotions, and it’s everything or nothing with her. If she’s sad today she’s been sad her whole life, and if she’s happy she doesn’t remember ever having felt sad in the past.

Again, I am not saying your kid has anxiety at all (and he does seem rather different from my kid on the emotional axis), just sharing our experience – I had to get used to anxiety not meaning what I thought it should mean. She was fine with things like, idk, speaking in public. But anything that was unexpected or not according to the way she thought it should go or made her feel like she wasn’t doing things “right” (and many things are like that) would ratchet her up to where she was always a little ways away from a meltdown. I say she was often at 8/10 on those days (where 10/10 would trigger a meltdown), especially as opposed to my younger kid, who may have some social anxiety but generally lives his life as, like, a 3/10 (that kid has really superior emotional regulation). She also talked about being “bad” a lot (which I understand can be a sign of anxiety/depression), which just went away once she was on anti-anxiety medication, though now that she’s off of it again she does still complain about being “sad” when she’s stressed. (She’s also, as you may be able to tell, not very good at describing her own emotions.)

Anyway, the whole point of that was NOT to say your kid might have anxiety (though it’s always good to check on these things), it’s that our pediatrician and neuropsychologist and psychiatrist – though they were useful with other things – never picked up that she had this problem even though it was underlying a lot of her other issues, because it wasn’t really on their radar and with her it doesn’t present in a “typical” way but in a way that’s very much informed by her ASD and even her giftedness. So just know that it might continue to be a journey to figure out what’s best, but every piece of information helps :slight_smile:

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I found this very helpful to read: thank you.

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Oh, yeah, I see what you’re saying. With my son, he gets most upset when things don’t go as expected. This can often be misunderstood as just being difficult when he doesn’t get his way - and I’m not saying that doesn’t happen, but it runs deeper than that. As a humorous example, my husband once gave him a bonus second cookie when he had been expecting only one. He became preoccupied and distressed about the extra cookie to the point my husband had to take it back.

He has a compelling need to understand the world perfectly and to be able to predict everything, and you know, reality often does not comply. My husband was reading to him about Marvel comics and (hope I’m not getting this wrong, sorry Marvel fans) he told my son that Spider-Man is immune to Venom’s powers, and when he asked why, my son was not satisfied with the explanation, because it did not make any scientific sense. My husband had to explain that people inventing these stories don’t often think these things through scientifically. He really didn’t like that.

So there is that, which manifests as persistent questions and the need to understand, which can be very disruptive. The need to predict. And on top of that, he’s just become very combative in general about day to day things that are his regular responsibilities. I’m not sure what is driving that, but he seems to understand natural consequences. When he was whining and resisting sweeping under the table last night after he ate, Dad said, “I’m setting the timer for 15 minutes. Whatever time is left over after you sweep is time we have to play.” That got his butt moving pretty fast.

His resistance, at least whenever he’s home, is not exactly violent but comically passive. He’ll just lay down on the couch and refuse to move. But he seems to get much more combative at school. Sometimes I feel like they don’t get to see the wonderful side of him at all. The teacher survey said he rarely smiled. My kid? My sunshine kid who is enthusiastic about everything? And she said he seems to have little affection for others. Not my child at all. It makes me sad.

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Just got an earful from the teacher. He lost his shit over being asked to do a simple task, put his folder in his desk, she said he can’t handle the slightest amount of responsibility and asked us to give him more responsibilities and independent behaviors at home. She went on, at length, about how he’s not getting all of the instruction at school and disrupting other students’ learning.

I don’t even know what to say. I know it’s a problem, I’m trying to address it, I’m overwhelmed, I’m worried I’m going to have to homeschool my kid or something.

I think a lot needs to change at home but I also feel like I’m missing pieces of the solution. If there is one.

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Oh gosh.

I don’t think this teacher has a good understanding of special needs kids. (My kid was also disrupting other students’ learning, and her school was fairly blunt about telling me that, which I appreciated then and appreciate more now that I’ve been with a school that wasn’t blunt and that was a problem – but they did NOT say she couldn’t handle the slightest amount of responsibility, and they understood I was trying my best and that giving her more responsibilities would not HELP. And quite frankly if he is sweeping the floor after dinner I guarantee you that’s more responsibility than half his class has.)

I don’t know if this might change if he had an IEP, but I think he needs a team at the school that supports him and understands him and I don’t know what the best way is to do that.

To be honest, our kid never did public school (until high school) because we didn’t think she could handle it. Public school is very loud and noisy and chaotic and she got dysregulated very easily in those days. (Still is chaotic, but now she can handle it.) If the tiny private school she eventually ended at had not worked out we would have homeschooled.

A friend has a child who is spectrum PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance or Pervasive Demand for Autonomy, depending on who you ask) and there are some commonalities; I wonder if your neuropsych team is going to come back with that.

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I think they are going to come back with a diagnosis of severe ADHD and moderate ODD (oppositional defiant disorder.) I’m not sure of the differences clinically between PDA and ODD.

Just Googling ODD, it’s clear this will be more and more therapy. It’s going to be so much work. I really don’t know how I am going to manage this with a full time job.

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Lots of non-creepy internet hugs and sympathy. This is so hard. I’ll be thinking about you next week. I hope you can get more support. I suppose it’s not super helpful to theorize in advance of the data so I won’t, but ugh, I hope that there is a feasible solution.

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My husband and I talked into the wee hours last night. I’ll elaborate later, but one takeaway is we don’t want him to be diagnosed with ODD without these issues even being addressed, because it will potentially hurt him, and we haven’t even tried anything with a reasonable chance of working yet. I’m skeptical of ODD as a valid diagnosis. My husband calls it the “Shut the fuck up and do what I tell you” disorder, that’s usually slapped on kids who are neurodiverse whose needs aren’t being met.

Yeah it’s fortune telling. I have no idea what they’ll do. But they were clearly screening for it in the surveys.

I suspect this kid is going to need a para, at least temporarily so we can get the kid and the teacher out of crisis. Then we focus on building up these skills. Because my son is in over his head.

One thing we need them to understand is that just because he’s super smart and hyper verbal doesn’t mean he is “mildly” autistic. I’ve known he’s always going to have this problem where people aren’t going to believe the extent of the social deficits. Even at his ABA place the new techs would express skepticism about whether he needed to be there. And the BCBA would tell them, “Just spend a week with him.” And then they would be like, “Oh.”

I’m not happy that the teacher seemed to be blaming our lack of discipline or whatever, but she’s stressed as hell. My point is she sees him and thinks, “he should be able to handle this” because she doesn’t really understand the extent of his autism issues.

Hope that makes sense.

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This, exactly this. Keep remembering this. I raised one kid like this, am the younger sister of one and now am helping raise a grand child much like your son (she’s 8 now). My 4 yo grand son is displaying similar signs as well. ADHD, giftedness and ASD are all varieties of neurodivergence.

ODD is labeling the child with a pathological form of mental illness/personality which is a whole different from of ‘blame the victim because we don’t what to do’. Once you get a psychiatric label you’re seen only as an illness to be fixed, cured or more likely shunted away, accompanied by very low expectations.

Which is a her problem, not a problem for you. Her supervisors need to provide her with the strategies and collegial support to create success for your son in her classroom, driven by his strengths, not her weaknesses. They are the grownups, they are supposed to know what to do.

if he’s not in public school yet it’s too early for an IEP but if I were you I’d start making sure that’s in place for him as soon as possible. IEPs are the strongest legal protections you will have to get him a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment. Make sure his giftedness is well incorporated into that educational plan or it is doomed to fail, trust me. His school day has to have gifted differentiation delivered every single day. He needs to spend time with gifted peers daily, other gifted kids with and without other disabilities. Otherwise the ‘acting out’ will ramp up, not down.

The first thing you need to wrap your mind around is giving up on the school staff liking you, care only that they fear you. Fear in the sense that they know that you know what your son’s federally protected educational rights are and you will not shut up or go away until his rights to an education are respected.

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He does have an IEP for autism. Everything was going so well going into kindergarten he was set up with minimal supports - a little bit of social skills group, a little speech, not much else. They let him eat at a different table. None of us, including his special Ed teachers who were at the transition meeting, saw this coming. They were saying he probably wouldn’t even need an IEP by second grade.

That’s part of the issue. The supports currently in place are not sufficient. They were based on an overly optimistic idea of what he would be able to handle. And honestly, I believed their assessment, because sometimes even I forget those struggles hidden by his intelligence. It’s a compelling illusion.

Thank you, I needed to hear that. All of that.

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I spent the day trying to come up with ways to fix this by implementing changes at home. I got some ideas, but we’re still in the brainstorming phase.

Teacher seemed pretty pissed off today. Got another Grow note because he was screaming and refusing to do any work, even with the support of a para.

He came home, followed all instructions perfectly, even cleaned up his crayons and swept under the kitchen table without resistance. Model behavior the entire evening.

I just don’t get it.

(We have a meeting with the school scheduled the 17th and our BCBA will be present. I’m most looking forward to MY meeting on the 7th - with a therapist. It’s really hard not to feel discouraged and I think the support will help.)

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Oof. All the good thoughts going your way.

It actually makes perfect sense to me, but not in a way where I have any good advice. Poor kiddo is in this atmosphere at school that for some reason is not working for him and he can’t manage his emotions. He knows it’s not desired behavior, he just can’t help himself for whatever reason. When he comes home he’s so eager to be in a dynamic where he can make it work that he’s on model behavior. It’s sort of the opposite of the dynamic you see more often, where the kid is a perfect angel at school and then comes home from school and is a meltdown chaos hub. (We got this in 5th grade when our kid finally understood that she cared about what the other kids in her class thought.)

I do wonder if there’s something specific that’s not working at school for him, whether it’s the chaos of the other kids or the demands of the work or his teacher or something else. It’s so hard because they don’t really have that insight into their own emotions and mechanics at that age that would help to figure out what’s going on. (I mean… my teenager still doesn’t have that really, but at least she can articulate what she does and doesn’t like!)

Is it possible to unobtrusively record him following instructions and doing chores to demonstrate that it’s something he can do at home? I don’t know, maybe that makes more problems than it solves, I’m clearly still hung up on the teacher, ugh.

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I don’t think he even remembers. He often acts genuinely surprised when I open his folder and there’s a Grow Note. It’s hard to get information out of him.

We did talk today about autism and ADHD. He was adding a bunch of things to it to try to make the rarest configuration (“If I am autistic and ADHD and have five Beeps and there are so many [first name of father] in my family, is that really rare?”) He asked me if me and Dad were autistic, I told him we didn’t know, but I told him I do have ADHD, and they are differences in the brain that are a part (but not all) of who you are, and that we just have to try to get along with our unique brains. He asked what kind of challenges might come with this, and so I tried to use that to explore the challenges he is having now. I suspect this is an ongoing conversation.

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It almost sounds like there might be some difficulty with the teacher. Maybe I’m interpreting things wrong, but after half the school year the teacher doesn’t seem to have realistic expectations about your kid, and has maybe run out of strategies of how to work with him.

Some of my kid’s teachers were really amazing, and really got my kid. There were still problems, sometimes lots of problems, but the teacher understood what was happening, and would try something, and then shift to something else when that didn’t work. There were other teachers who tried a bit, but then shifted to a “whatever it takes to get through the day” mode. Sure, that reduced the fights between my kid and the teacher, but it also taught my kid that they could win by resisting, which was a very bad lesson to reinforce.

I had many calls from the school, where I always had to spend the first 20 minutes calming down the principal. She would frequently get into “I don’t know if this kid can succeed at this school.” I never had to pull out the “tough, you’re a public school, deal with it,” but I got close. It was incredibly stressful being the one who got to manage everyone’s emotions.

There were also some amazing teachers. My kid’s kindergarten teacher later specifically requested my kid to be in her 4th grade class (which she was teaching by then). The biggest turnaround was a special ed teacher that was there for 2nd and 3rd grade. Her classroom management abilities over Zoom were astounding to watch.

Anyway, the point of this is all to say, you know your kid needs something from the school he is not getting. It’s not a failing on your kid’s part, or your part. I really hope there is some adult at the school who can see in your kid what you see, and take the time to help him get along in a school environment.

The upside is that there is absolutely nothing academic that matters at this point. You’re kid will learn to read and write (does he already know how?), and he’ll learn math (I know the answer to this one). Maybe he ends up being behind some of the other kids, but that doesn’t matter at all.

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Yes, I think that’s where we’re at. In the beginning she was super optimistic and had plans and then it didn’t work and then she tried another thing that didn’t work and then she stopped talking about new plans and we just get these notes. She seems angry. The last note said he screamed and refused to do any work, “even with a para.” It’s not my kid’s para, so I’m not sure why she thought it should have had a better outcome. There’s a real accusatory vibe I get sometimes. Which is how she asked me to give him more responsibility and independent behaviors at home.

He already has responsibilities and independent behaviors at home. He resists them, but the consequences are sufficient to eventually get him moving. He does not scream. He lies down on the couch and gets floppy. So my thinking is to work on getting him doing the responsibilities he already has with less resistance before we even think about adding more.

I do have ADHD, which means my parenting is probably at least a little bit inconsistent, so I’m looking at that. I’m looking at his screen time. My husband and I are both on the same page about responding to his more problematic behaviors, and so far the changes seem to be helping. One thing that the BCBA gave us was “first x, then y.” Wow that is working like gangbusters. It really seems to register with him to keep it short as opposed to some long explanation of expectations and consequences.

“First teeth brushing, then we’ll talk.”
“First clear the table, then we play.”

It works really well!

So we are doing changes at home, and I don’t know if it will help at school but I really want to focus on keeping things calm and positive at home regardless of what’s happening at school.

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That sounds so much like the principal I had to deal with. She wasn’t really bad (though there is one ridiculous story I can share if anyone cares), but she always came at me with that kind of “you need to figure out how to get your kid to stay in the classroom” energy.

If your kid is anything like mine, a new adult means starting back at level 0 with all of the different strategies my kid is going to use to avoid work. A para for the day was less than useless. Just prior to shutting down for COVID my kid got a their own para, and after 3 or 4 weeks it was starting to help…and then nobody went back to school until November…

I do have to give the principal credit, she did go to the district to get money for the para. (Possibly because I didn’t play with her bullshit.)

Naive me with infant and toddler ASD kid thought things would be so much better when my kid understood if…then…else statements! At kindergarten age “first x” was an opening to negotiate, “no, first y, then I’ll do x.”

At 12 it works much better. We learned that my kid does not keep promises, so never give the reward before the action. My kid learned that we do keep promises, so it was safe to brush your teeth and know you’ll get extra screen time.

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Oh, and yes, he reads very well. Pretty much everything.

He can write but not as well, I’d say he’s average.

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Yeah, I don’t think you need to add more responsibilities at this point (unless you and your husband decide that it is the right choice, of course). The teacher is out of line on this one.

The thing is… there ARE kids in the world whose parents don’t make them do anything and who get a sort of helpless and/or entitled viewpoint because of it. And yes, many of those kids are special needs, and the parents can’t or won’t put in the careful work that you’re obviously doing to figure out what your child can handle and what he can’t, and challenge him to grow but not set him up to fail. (And no matter how much work one puts in, sometimes one will get it wrong, and that’s okay too, as long as one keeps going forward and the relationship with the kid remains good.) But she’s just assuming you’re one of those parents and that’s just not okay. I’m still really angry on your behalf with that comment from the teacher.

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We’re definitely both putting in effort to change some things and it does seem to be helping. Not getting caught up in the constant back and forth. But we’re not those parents who constantly give in to our kid’s demands. If we say no, we stick to it, even if it becomes a whole thing. Where we need work is preventing it from becoming a whole thing.

Case in point. We are reducing screen time. We told my son if he had good listening during his haircut, he could have screens after. He wanted screens now and was carrying on about it in the car. And where usually my husband would engage in a constant back and forth, he just said, “If you have good listening during your haircut, you can have screens after. That’s the deal.” And refused to engage him further. And my son gave up after about a minute and forgot all about it.

I think I need to be better about immediately praising good behavior, too.

So it’s like, there are things we can do, but it wasn’t exactly a free-for-all. I just have a very stubborn kid.

Yes I would say I’m annoyed with the teacher’s implication but I’m not really mad. If they don’t start putting proper supports in place, though, then I’m gonna be mad.

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What does “a good listening” mean?