Many of us can relate to the rituals of OCD, we understand when someone does something such as wash their hands over and over again, or sorts objects by color and shape, going in and out of door so many times, but we do not understand how OCD in a small child can actually appear as behavioral issues. When we see a child throwing themselves, especially at the age of 6 or older down on the ground or floor in a raging fit, being defiant or disrespectful to adults, or even being rude we call them brats, out of control, label them with ADHD, and blame the parents. As it was explained to me by our Psychologist, because the young child is not able to understand or process the ideas and feelings of OCD they really do not know how to react, so yes many times it will appear in behavioral issues. I found this great article which helped me to understand what the Psychologist was explaining to me.
This is the road we have been down for the past couple of years, at first it seemed like an age appropriate fit here or there, but over time it became a cycle of out of control rage, melt downs, and defiance. We could see Sunshine’s desire to avoid situations that caused these tantrums, but at other times her desire to participate or be a part of everything was so great that she would end up in a total mess. We didn’t understand how she could want to go do something so bad, only to come home in such a rage.
School has even been a disaster for her. She has made it 2 days and now wants to avoid the school. Her first day she went off with such excitement and ready to discover new friends. Once there though she became very obsessed with the security screen in the corner of the room that flashed different areas of the school grounds, to the flushing of the toilet. Only being 6 she didn’t really know how to process all this stimuli so she lost her focus, couldn’t follow the rules, didn’t want to return to class after recess. On the second day, which from my understanding the morning went much better, but early afternoon they had a walk through fire drill in preparation for the real fire drill the next day. She obsessed over the idea that they were going to turn the fire alarm on. She absolutely refused to return back into the classroom, and climbed up to the top of the play ground equipment and sat there with a red ball in her arms. I got a call and had to go to the school to see if I could help calm her down. I truly thought she was calm and would return to her class so I cam home. Upon my arrival to pick her up, I was told that Sunshine really never did return to the classroom, she took 2 recesses, then needed a band aid from the school nurse, then her final stop was to have a nice friendly chat with the Principal. We had already chose to keep her home the day of the real fire drill.
Not only was the school seeing such extreme behaviors we were seeing horrible behaviors here at home. Sunshine was coloring and painting all her pictures in black, she was defying everything we asked of her, crying, whining, and even throwing tantrums. I was able to communicate with the teacher via email and got a schedule for what they would be working on for September. We were pretty surprised to find that every Friday throughout the month would comprise of a drill, from the fire drill, to an earthquake drill, then ending in a lock down drill. We looked at each other and realized if Sunshine had to endure all these drills along with all the other things that was upsetting her she might not ever enter a building again. The lock down drill really was the one that sent reality home for us that maybe she wasn’t ready for school, since as is she is so afraid of Papa getting locked in jail that she has to get up and see him off to work every morning, (this is due to where he works and not due to him being a bad person.) The teacher also sent me the monthly learning goals, which seemed very low and left me to wonder if the teacher actually realized she was teaching first grade and not kindergarten.
We finally made the decision to get back on track, homeschool Sunshine, and get her therapy going. Maybe someday she will be ready to go to the public school, and maybe she never will. That at this point really doesn’t matter since what truly matters is getting her the assistance she needs to have a quality life, and of course we desire to give her a quality education. Once the decision was made Sunshine was over joyed, the behaviors faded away, she sat for an hour and painted a beautiful picture with all bright happy colors. She is sporting a smile and looking forward to returning to our school books.
We start her therapy this Thursday and we are looking forward to learning as much as we can. Here is a peak into the psychologists office where she will be going. At the bottom of the page you will find some very fun and interesting facts about parenting, children in general, and mental health issues. You can also get a look at Sunshine’s therapist here, I chose this person based upon his experience, recommendations, and after my first meeting with him, I believe we really do have someone who will get Sunshine and know how to help her.
Two things that stood out to me about the school from what you wrote:
ReplyDelete1. why is there a feed of the security camera going in the classroom? That would be distracting to almost every child, let alone ones suffering from special needs.
2. why does the video feed show a toilet flushing? That implies they could be taking a video feed of your child going to the bathroom. THAT is truly disturbing.
Poor Sunshine - I cannot even begin to imagine what's going on inside her mind. Is she still taking anti-anxiety meds - could it be some sort of a side effect or withdrawal from them?
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