A very long day

The holiday season is definitely upon us...Will is struggling, Thanksgiving was hard...school has been particularly hard since. They report he has been VERY down on himself since then. He has had three incident reports at school where he has needed either a restraint or a seclusion in the quiet room. There is a new law that states when a child has three of these incidents an emergency IEP meeting must be called, so I am waiting and should hear about the date some time next week.

I have to admit that two of the incidents involve another child. This makes me very happy... Does that sound crazy? Let me explain- my son works well with children younger than him, he is so patient with them. He does well with adults, they can be patient with him. I also firmly believe that he feels safe falling apart with adults and knows everything will be ok if he has a melt down and becomes physically aggressive. He is now becoming involved with the other children his age. He is standing up for himself. He feels strong enough to stand up for what he believes is right (nothing earth shattering, I believe one incident was over the pronunciation of a name) which is huge. So I'm happy he is engaging with other kids his age. As strange as it sounds I feel like it is a big step forward that he has engaged to the point of aggression with kids his age. I don't like that he still uses aggression when overwhelmed, but like the rest of us....he is a work in progress.

Will has decided he no longer wants to participate in drama club. This saddens me because it is the first time he has chosen to participate in something, however we have talked and agreed to "take a egress" until after the new year and try again. I love the fact he WANTED to participate in something and he told me without my suggestion. I would hate to see him loose this opportunity, but I'd hate to push him into continuing something he is not ready for.....hmmmm it's quite the dilemma.

Sooo, it's not surprising that he was struggling today. It started with visiting his new cousin (she's 2 days old) after we had been there for almost an hour he stated he needed to leave and started crying on the way out. He didn't know why he was crying but agreed that he needed to go home and have a quiet day. Staff arrived at 3, he asked for a snack, didn't like his choices, became very argumentative and rude. He decided he was going to get himself more food no matter what I said. When I stood in front of the microwave he became physical trying to do whatever he could to get me out of the way while screaming. While he clearly wasn't TRYING to hurt me, he also wasn't trying not to. He was pulling my hair and hurting me throughout this time. He started pulling me away, I used it to my advantage and started actively pushing him toward the back door. He knew where I was going with this----ballpit on the porch!!!---- he dropped to the floor and grabbed my leg. This is when I employed a wonderful technique...I asked if he was eating my foot because it tasted like skittles. This stopped him, I went on saying I had heard from many that my feet did indeed taste like skittles. Now he was fully engaged in my silly talk. I asked what his feet tasted like and if I could taste them. He giggled and said I could. He then whipped off his sock as fast as he could and stuck his foot in my face. I will be honest and upfront with you... I HATE feet, I really, really do... I smelled his foot and told him it smelled like stinky cheese and I didn't want to taste stinky cheese. He laughed, got up and asked if we could go into the ballpit as a coping strategy.

We then had a couple more outbursts over doing a chore, over meds, over whatever....I don't really remember what set each one off. To make a long story short? It's been a very long day, but a great one..... What strategies work for you with your kiddos? Can you just blurt out something crazy like: " I like purple pepperoni because it tastes like grape."?