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.
