Feb. 2, 2009 - Back To School Until Summer
The Christian school wanted Jonathan to be full time by the end of the second quarter. We are into the third quarter and I think we are at the point where he can attend full time now. He has had two pretty good weeks at home and school. He still rages some at home and gives the teacher some difficulty at school, but we certainly aren't going to expect perfection. He knows that he is likely to have to repeat third grade again next year if he continues to choose to not work. He also knows that I am willing to teach him what he needs to know to help him catch up, if he asks me to teach him. We have decided that his education is in his hands. We are not going to battle him. I provide him the time to do his school work. His play time gets seriously limited though by his choices to not take care of his responsibilities. Just one of those life lessons that he needs to learn.
This summer, he will be learning in some manner. School or work. He cannot handle hours upon hours of free play. With his RAD, that much freedom scares him. He is emotionally about 4 years old and sometimes about one. I keep him pretty close to me most of the time. This is what he needs to feel safe and we have seen him fall apart if he is allowed to be outside alone too long. It is so sad. But, he is making progress on his healing and that is what counts. We are getting there. He is trusting us more and more. He tells me things that Becca did that he never told me before. He is gradually learning to talk about his feelings.
So, for the time, being in school full time will be good. It will help me to gear up for the summer. We have had and are under a lot of stress. Our home is SO much better than it was. We are all functioning a lot better, but in order to keep things this way, we have to fight a battle. We have to insist that our daughter can't return home in the near future. Neither child is ready and we as parents can't handle both of them together in the condition they are both in. We are still learning how to handle Jonathan. We all need time.
Dec. 5, 2008 - "In God We Trust" - On American Currency - Vote For It To Stay On
My sister sent this to me in an e-mail today. I thought this was worth sharing on my blog and getting the word out.
Here's your chance to let the media know where the people stand on our
faith in God, as a nation. NBC is taking a poll on "In God We Trust" to
stay on our American currency. Please send this to every Christian you
know so they can vote on this important subject. Please do it right
away, before NBC takes this off the web page.
Poll is still open so you can vote. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10103521/
This is not sent for discussion, if you agree forward it, if you don't, delete it.
By me forwarding it, you know how I feel. I'll bet this will be a surprise to NBC.
Nov. 8, 2008 - Progress
My son is doing better socially at the Christian school. He is starting to make some friends and yet this scares him. He acts up at home when he is scared. He has had times at home of doing well too. He had a whole week without raging. He is talking out his feelings more, he is confessing his lies, hidding things and stealing to us more and more. This may sound crazy. You might think, why are we happy with this? Why are we happy with the confessions and not expecting him to stop the behavior? Ultimately, we hope for the behavior to stop. BUT, the confessions are signs that he is developing a conscience. Something that a child with RAD doesn't have. ANY sign of this is cause for praise with us. When he had his week without raging, it was ended when I told him that his sister "might" return to our state. He is terrified of her. We have actually taken a trip and brought her back. As far as he knows the trip was just time for Mommy and Daddy. And, we did take 4 extra days so we could have some time alone.
At home, I have come across something really interesting with him. He has a hard time with some of the things we do in the Saxon math. Counting by two's backwards and counting 1 to 19, just saying the odd numbers and then backwards frustrates him. He gets VERY angry. I have discovered that if I take him to the rocking chair in the living room and hold and rock him while he does this that he does MUCH better. He stays much calmer and he takes his time and processes it much better. This has given me the idea to think about what all can be done in the rocking chair or even see if it is the human contact that helps. I want to see if it is the motion or the touch that is impacting him. I am going to take more and more of our afternoon school time to the living room and try side by side on the couch and the rocking chair to experiment.
We just had his parent/teacher conference at school. First quarter is over. Amazingly, in one quarter of school, with teaching in two places, his spelling has gone up. It was grade level 2.2 at the beginning of the year. He tested as 3.7 at the end of the first quarter. A fantastic jump for one quarter of third grade!! I have decided that I can quit giving him spelling words at home. No need to double up anymore. I will just keep going over the phonograms and spelling rules with him. Then, we can focus in on other areas that are needing the work more.
Oct. 15, 2008 - School Evaluation
I went down to the special education department today to pick up the evaluation that was done on Jonathan. I was called a number of weeks ago to say it had been mailed out. Since it hadn't arrived, I decided it was time to check it out. It had just gone into the outgoing mail box - hmmm.
Since I have been working with Jonathan and tried to figure out where I saw his areas of struggle, I was really curious to see what was on this report. I have been working on phonics and spelling rules, handwritting, sentence structure (where capitals belong, punctuation), other language skills and first grade math (we are 1/2 way through the math now). Science and Bible were more for enjoyment for him. I wasn't concerned about his reading and he reads the science book with me. We alternate paragraphs, which gives him practice in paying attention to where a paragraph starts and ends. The only real thing he is missing of value at school is the writing program. But, he is still working with me on just writing a sentence and getting it right.
This evaluation was quite interesting. He sure is spread all over the board in his ability. What a mix. This was one portion about what was noticed at his last school. "his behavior was inconsistent and marked by high degree of distractibility and difficulty with peer interactions. He has strong reading skills but struggles in math. J. appeared to be able to work more independently in the mornings." Then, "Impaired social interactions continue to be an issue, particularly in larger group settings in which J. is unable to ignore distractions and tends to follow the lead of peers that also struggle with appropriate social behavior." Yep - just the direction I fear my son going. We are hoping to guide and direct him with more appropriate thinking than that of his peers. We want to have more influence in his life to help form his views. He is incredibly vulnerable right now.
Educationally, was interesting too. "J. is a strong reader. His overall comprehension skills appear to be near the fifth grade level. His oral fluency is somewhat lower but still above grade level." He is just beginning third grade! They wanted to hold him back in kindergarten because he wasn't learning to read. I brought him to this Christian school to be tutored by a man here and then I worked with him over that summer. He CAN learn!!! "It is in the area of writing and math that he has the most difficulty with. His math computaional and reasoning skills are at approximately the end of first grade as is his overall writing skills."
One of the biggest challenges for him is that he wants to rush everything. He won't pay attention to me, because he is trying to figure it out ahead of me so we can be done with it. We end up taking longer this way. He also gets distracted by EVERY sound. And, it is just the two of us at home. So, any mild noise outside and he has to know what it is and is worrying about it. I spend a good amount of MY energy, trying to get him to relax and slow down and do it right the first time. He is a bundle of nervous energy. Nothing seems to help. Meds don't - unless it is enough to make him fall asleep as I am teaching him. Letting him burn the energy off doesn't - he comes in either mad because he now has to work (not getting his way) or all riled up from all the adrenaline flowing in his system (and unable to slow his body down). Poor kid, just can't self-regulate. If I try to rock and soothe him, he fights because that closeness scares him. He feels like he has to get away from me. I feel for him. Imagine what a classroom is like for him. He had a piano recital tonight. Every noise, made him turn to see what was happening. It made it hard for him to play - he did pretty well in spite of this.
Oct. 14, 2008 - School Changes
I changed Jonathan's program a bit this week. He has made more of an effort on his own to use good handwriting, so I am going to encourage this. I am cutting back on some of the langugage that we do, to allow time to work on using his handwriting in words rather than just practicing the letters. He was mad at me at first today, when I did this with him. But, when the day was done, (and he hadn't fought me as much as usual), he saw that school time ended MUCH earlier. Maybe this will encourage him to do the right things? With a RAD child, you never know. Success is a scary thing.
We had a meeting at the school today. He only attends in the mornings and is there on a "let's see if this works" basis. After almost getting kicked out of school and a few adjustments, he is doing better. The teacher and principal would like him to be there more. My husband and I are cautious about this because of his need to bond to me and his fears. He has made incredible progress in talking about how he feels since his sister has been out of the home. We don't want to inhibit his emotional healing.
Yet, for me, it would help me to not be so exhausted so have him in school more. I am very tired by the end of a day with working with him. He is a very angry little boy and I am working with and around this anger all afternoon. Trying to help him talk it out, make good choices, think about his choices, direct him into better thinking, etc. I have to make decisions on how safe he seems to be feeling so that I know how to handle the next few minutes, hour or the rest of the afternoon. Sometimes, it means we need to spend some time snuggling, sometimes it means he is too unsafe to go outside to play, sometimes I have to follow him to the bathroom and stand outside the door. Other times, I can let him be outside for 15 minutes, can send him to the bathroom, ask him to fold socks or he can handle snuggles and tickles. But, one of those could send him into a full-blown rage. Unpredictability, is the name of the game in living with a RAD. But, as a mom of a RAD, God is teaching me compassion, patience, love deeper than I ever knew, gentleness, service and who knows WHAT else.
Oct. 1, 2008 - Odds And Evens
My son has had a terrible time figuring out odd and even numbers. I have tried numerous ways to teach this to him. I have used methods beyond what the math book gave. Today, there was another lesson on it. I went a bit deeper again. HE GOT IT!!! I even tried to "trick him" which he loves. I started with one digit numbers and worked up to higher numbers. I threw in numbers such as, 756,967 and he knew it was odd. After dinner my husband tried a number like 365,000 and he knew it was even. YIPEE!!! One struggle area down.
Sep. 29, 2008 - Sleeping In Class - LOL
Homeschooling sure is a challenge for my little guy. He gets angry when he has to work on school or chores or just if he doesn't get his way. We took him to his psychiatrist on Thursday. I had added a drug that she had said would help him with his anger, that we used to use for sleep for him. He used to take 3 pills. She switched his sleep med because this med just wasn't doing it for him anymore. And believe me, we tried no meds for him for YEARS. We finally started giving into them when he was 5 1/2 and he came to us at 10 months. He is on 4 different meds. When we switched his ADHD meds last year and he was off all of them for a day or so - YIKES!!! His poor teacher!! We switched him to the Christian school for mornings this year. So, anyway, I started giving him 1/2 a pill in the morning so he wouldn't get kicked out of school. He was close to it. The psychiatrist wanted me to give him more during the day to control his anger. So, I gave him 1/2 with lunch today and he fell asleep on me while I was teaching him math. So, I took him to the couch for a nap. How can you teach a kid who is sleeping? lol These are tiny pills - I'm wondering if I can cut them into 1/4. Might be interesting.
Sep. 22, 2008 - Settling In
We have had an interesting start to our homeschool time. Jonathan has obviously had a lot of stress in school. When I would try to do flashcards with him to help him with the math he never got back in first grade (he is in third), he would almost go into a panic. I used a number of methods with him to calm him down. I took the pressure off him to know the math facts and "gave" him the answers for awhile. I let him know with a calm tone of voice that it was ok to not know them yet and that I was here to help him. He is much calmer now and is learning his doubles. He would even panic over addition facts that I was sure he could figure out very easily. He was totally dependant on using his fingers. I have been taking that away from him and he is learning that he can do it without them.
He struggles with writing. We are slowly progressing with this. I try to make sure that my subjects that require writing aren't all bunched together. With handwriting practice, I am just taking it slow. I found a blog with information on dysgraphia. Jonathan has most of the symptoms of this. We know of one of the programs that was recommended for this problem. We just aren't at a point of being able to do this right now.
He has certainly been his RAD self in our homeschooling. It has been a challenge and I have really been worn down a few times. Last week, I ended up taking a different approach to homeschooling. It was the school of learning to obey, work hard on chores and fill mom's energy tank back up. I gave him the task to try to please me rather than annoy me constantly. By Friday, he was asking to homeschool. But, alas, he still wasn't real fun in homeschooling today. On we march in the RAD world.
Sep. 9, 2008 - Insanity
My little guy is testing me. It is getting old. I am wearing down. I know that is where he wants me. I just sent him out for a recess so that I can regoup within myself. UGH!! He shouts at me if I correct him. He purposely does things the wrong way. I had him mini tramp awhile ago until he could tell me how to write the date correctly. lol Oh my, how he likes to push me. I am glad he goes to school in the mornings. I am just rambling.
Sep. 2, 2008 - Math Tricks
Jonathan has been homeschooling part-time. I have been amazed that he has sat so well for me. He is RAD, ADHD and FASD. He definitely has gaps in his learning. He reads at a fourth grade level but can't add his doubles (4+4 is too hard for him). I am seeing that he was taught tricks to do the work and has been relying on them. I want to get him past relying on these tricks that slow him down and help him to see that there are easier ways to do the math. I even caught him counting to add 9+1 today. He is in third grade. He is smart. I showed him the pattern with adding one and then threw a bunch of off the wall problems at him and he even got 153+1 real quickly. Why do schools teach these tricks to the kids? They handicap them.
Aug. 27, 2008 - Part-time Homeschooling
On the advice of Nancy Thomas, I am homeschooling Jonathan in the afternoons. She advised experiencial. So far, I am doing traditional things with him so I can see where he is lacking. He is attending the local christian school in the mornings. It has been interesting to see how he has handled what I have done with him the last two days. So far, he has done really well with our time. When he gets frustrated, I remind him that that is why he is home with me in the afternoons. So, mommy can help him with the areas he has a hard time with. I tell him that I am confident that he will do well with some help.
I start our time with us reading Proverbs. We take turns reading. I just let whatever discussion happens naturally, happen. Either one of us can start it. Then we do a bit of phonics/handwriting/spelling, math, language and then we finish with a Bible story on the flannel board. Pretty simplistic for a third grader. He has missed so many basics in the public school. Yet, he reads at a fourth grade level. He can't add the doubles - 4+4 is too hard for him without finger. He still puts capital letters in the middle of sentences. He forgets periods at the end of sentences. Right now, I am doing a bunch of first grade things with him, just to see what he seems to have missed. Then, I can move on and figure out how to help my son.
How to make it experiential, I haven't figured out yet. But, I just want to know what I am looking at first.
Jul. 4, 2008 - Advice Given After Intensive
We just ended an intensive with Nancy Thomas to help our family to heal. Our children have RAD and Becca has been hurting Jonathan. Becca doesn't want to stopand wants to hurt us too. We were told she should not return home with us. We have made sure that will now happen. My husband is taking her to Arizona now. He will return to Nancy's ranch tomorrow to pick Jonathan up and drive home with him. I need to fly home tomorrow because our oldest daughters' boyfriend is arriving so we can meet him.
Nancy felt that I needed time to heal and should not homeschool full-time. She also saw that full-time school for Jonathan would be overwhelming. We are going to move him to the Christian school just in the mornings. I will pick him us just before lunch and homeschool him in the afternoon. She suggested experiential learning for him. I do know that he needs to learn his math facts. He has struggled with this because if his inability to pay attention.
We will build things, cook and just do things together. My boy needs time to heal and trust and feel safe. He has already come so far. He had a chance to get a lot of anger out while we were there. He was able to confront his sister with what she did to him. He was able to tell the truth and say how he felt about Becca and see that Daddy and Mommy still loved him.
We let Becca know that we still love her too. We are grieving the loss of time with her. But, we have to keep Jonathan safe and she needs to work on her life. She has just been manipulating the whole family. What a lot of pain a 10 year old child can cause. What a lot of pain a 10 year old girl has in her life. We do not know what was done to her to cause all of this. She was only 2 when she came to us, but someone has really hurt her. We want her to get the help she needs so she can heal and return to us in a healthy enough way to be part of the family. We love that girl!!! She is still my baby girl. Always will be!!!
Jun. 10, 2008 - Oh My The Mess
I have pulled out all the homeschool work from last year, when we were trying to homeschool. My living room looks like a cyclone hit it as I have sorted things into piles. I need to regroup for the summer. I think Jonathan will cooperate with me. I don't think Becca will. My plan is to make a box for each kid, so that I can just sit and supervise the uncoopertive child, while I work with the coopertive child. I think Becca is going to spend a lot of time "thinking" this summer. She is NOT doing well at all and may end up in residential treatment because of her behaviors. We had the police at our house twice last week because of her. She is one tough cookie.
May. 25, 2008 - Summer Homeschool/?One Home Next Year
As the rest of you finish up your year, I am preparing to start summer school with my two. They are not able to handle the freedom of a summer without plans and structure. No school is disasterous for them. I am thinking about how to meet their needs and yet add some fun in for them. I know the areas they are weak in.
Becca moved to the Christian school this year and was demoted from 4th grade public to 3rd grade. Even with this, she still struggles in her reading comprehension. We will do LOTS of reading this summer. Jonathan reads at the same level as Becca and I have 3 copies of many books. I want to sit and just have each of us take turns reading a paragraph and enjoy books together. Jonathan does not comprehend paragraphs, so this will help him.
I will do math and language with each child. Jonathan needs extra help in language and spelling. Becca tested at the 6th grade level with spelling, so any spelling will be just to keep her sharp. That is all I have concluded on the subjects to teach. I haven't looked beyond that. Last summer, we did a lot of science and the kids had a ton of fun with that . I want to look at what we have and find more to make things fun.
Another idea I have is to have a chart of "classroom" that we graph each day with goals to reach. I haven't worked this all out. But, I am thinking that if we reach our goals on behavior, we will have "fun" days. Something like: Music Mondays, Field Trip Fridays, etc. I am trying to think of ideas here to give them something to work for. This kind of goes against the theory of their therapy, but I want to give it a go anyway. RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) kids tend to sabotage anything fun that is coming up. They have a hard time with enjoying a mom. They want to hate moms and see moms as bad. I am hoping that we have made some progress this year. I will know VERY quickly as I try this. They will let my know, by their actions if they are ready to handle this.
I strongly suspect that I will have one child home for next year. Jonathan is not doing well in the public school. He has missed too many concepts along the way and needs a more individualized program. I was totally thinking it needed to be him that needed to be home. God may be directing me in another direction. Now, it is looking to me like he wants Becca home and Jonathan in the Christian school. I am waiting and listening - sometimes it is confusing to know if I am hearing His voice or reacting to something in me. I want to give it time, for things to be clear, rather than to act on my first thoughts. I think I have most of what I need for either child, at least to start the year, so I am not sweating that too much.
Apr. 17, 2008 - Can They Listen?
My little boy spent a morning in the time out room for stealing more than once. My children have issues with this. He goes back into the classroom and steals a big chocolate kiss, puts it in his desk, cuts pieces off with scissors, leans down to eat the pieces until it is almost gone, gets caught and goes back to the time out room. I get called in for a meeting with the principal and school counselor - they don't think their normal methods of discipline are working with my son. NOPE! He is RAD. Over spring break our family went to Camp Attach in Florida. We all got an education in a new and better way to live. Mom and Dad like the new way much better and we are figuring out how to get it functional in our home. The kids are starting to figure out that things will not be the same anymore and they may as well accept the changes. We took the new plan down to the school to see if they would be willing to work with it. My son needs consistency everywhere. He feels insecure if his world and rules change on him. Poor kid has been through too much already in his life.
Mar. 6, 2008 - Burnout
I have spent the last 6 days in a motel, 2 hours away from home. For 5 days, I was in a fog. Unable to think, process, read, understand. I stayed in the motel room most of the time and didn't really do a whole lot. I had all these things I was going to do here. Go to the hot tub everyday - haven't gone once. Tan in the tanning bed - only been once. Exercise - none. Read my Bible and some Christian books to help me with my walk most of the day - VERY little - got stuck on one concept and gave up. Was going to rest, sleep and relax as much as I needed to - DID that. 5 days after being here, the fog lifted. All of a sudden, I was able to grasp the concept. I started jotting things down to remember in the morning. I wrote lists of lists that I needed to make. I need to make plans on how to keep my kids from wearing me down this much again. They are unbonded kids. Jonathan is making progress, Becca is fighting is really hard. Another reason I wanted to get myself out of this hole I was in? At the end of this month, we will fly to Florida and our family (the 4 of us - not the older kids) will attend a Nancy Thomas RAD camp. I really wanted to be ready and able to work with my kids when we get there. This camp should give us a good jump start with our kids on the attachment. They work with the whole family teaching the parents how to parent these difficult kids and teaching these difficult kids that they are not in charge of the world. I am really looking forward to this. But, I was at a point of being unable to love on my kids and I needed to get past this point. I was just totally burned out and needed time to rest. I will go home on Saturday. I am going to let my kids know I love them. And I am going to let them know that I will not let them rule the roost. I am ready to stand up to them in a loving way, instead of with exhausted eyes. They love the look of defeat in me. They feel so powerful. They need to know that they have a powerful MOM. One thing I am seeing as I go through this whole process with my kids, is how much I have to learn about God through my children. My God is strong enough and loving enough to not back down when I need some discipline. He is also smart enough to catch me at my manipulation and loving enough to call me on it. But His eyes toward me aren't tired, angry eyes. They are loving eyes. My kids need me to be strong and loving for them. When they tell me they hate me, they need me to have loving eyes as I give them a hug. When they rage and spit at me, I need to be able to smile at them even when I cry tears of sadness for all the pain in their hearts. I long to have my kids home all day where we can really work on getting this bonding process taken care of. I pray that someday we can do this again in at least some form. I sense that they need more time with me. BUT, I also know that NOW is not the time. God has a lot to teach my family right now and I pray that we will all be open to learning what He has for us.
Feb. 22, 2008 - Neat Time With Jonathan
I took Jonathan to speech therapy today. We had the neatest conversation about how God prunes the brances out of our hearts. He brought the subject up and I can't even remember how but it was in reference to how it hurts to go through the hard things in his life. He is only 8 but with more of the emotional capacity of a 4 year old most of the time. He struggles in school with making friends - he is rather an annoyance (with his ADHD). It also hard for him to grasp concepts because there are so many distractions for him. He asks me once in awhile to homeschool him. I am thinking about it for next school year. Today was so sweet though, we had this great conversation that reminded me of talks with my oldest son (who is 23) and then this little guy tells me, "we're having a good time." I asked him what he meant and he said that we were having a good time together - no conflict. I said that he was right. He asked me, "am I being fun to be with Mom?" Yes, he was. "Am I being respectful?" Yes, he was. The only one he didn't mention was being responsible - these are the three things listed for my kids, that I got from Nancy Thomas for attachment disorder kids. Then he says, "so I'm healing my heart?" Poor kid! He had been working so hard at it and then was falling for a few weeks and now he is getting back on track again. Imagine being 8 years old with that big of a burden. Not a carefree life like I remember having. My life as a child wasn't easy either, but I didn't have to think about whether I was working on healing my heart or not. I didn't have to make that big of choices at that age. My choices were more of: will I tattle on my sisters, kick my sister, tell a lie, fight with my sisters, etc. I had pain that still affects me today - but maybe that is the difference? I am helping my kids while they are kids to work through it. I want them to start adulthood better off than I was. But it is still a lot for a kid. But, my kids won't make it through the teens without trouble without help - so better now, than to wait.
Jan. 30, 2008 - My Boy is Healing
My Boy has made great strides toward healing his heart but he has been having lots of trouble at school lately. I am not sure what the difficulty is. He doesn't want to talk about it, I suspect it has to do with making friends. I am starting to consider pulling him home next year. He has always had too much fight in him, but has done much better when he is alone with me since the newest medicine was added. I really feel that some time with one on one attention with be beneficial for him. I will give it a little bit of a try when I have him home alone and see how it goes. I don't want to make a decision yet but I still long to help both of my kids through some of the areas of struggle that they have.
Jan. 7, 2008 - Schools Are Settled For Now
I am feeling some relief. My kids will both be in separate schools. We have talked to the staff where our children went part-time and they understand why we don't feel that both children can attend full-time in the same school. Our daughter will go to the Christian school full-time where our older children went. My heart is still with homeschool but we are just not there right now. We have so much healing that needs to happen in our family and it isn't happening with the kids home so much. We still haven' t recovered from the chaos they created in Sept. I can't get caught up on the house and can't find Jonathans' snowpants, hat or gloves. I have spent about an hour this morning searching for them. I am tired of living like this. I want time to get this place in order and get my brain function back from living with RAD kids. At some point, I hope I can bring one or both back home so that I can provide the one on one they need to flourish. I am just accepting that now is not the time.
Dec. 14, 2007 - Back to School
I just really do need time to finish recovering from the insanity of having these children in our home for the last 7 years. We are finally seeing why we have felt like we are going so crazy all this time. The kids will both be in school full-time (except for pull outs for therapies) on Jan. 8th. I do still hope to do bits and pieces of things with them as I and they are emotioanally able to help them with the areas they struggle in. I have decided to focus on creating a home atmosphere that is enjoyable for my husband and I. We are the caretakers here and we need to be taken care of too. I plan to start with our bedroom. Our oldest daughter is home from college and her Christmas gift to us will be to help redecorate our bedroom. She will do a bit of sewing, windows, we will paint the walls, etc. Our room will be the first room of retreat and peace, lack of clutter and neatness to be created. I have just finally realized that the kids can't thrive if the parents aren't thriving.
<- Last Page • Next Page ->
