Things I Will Ask the Developmental/Behavioral Specialist

[marydell]

...when we take Charlie for an assessment in May

1. Can you really say that a child has poor fine-motor skills if he's able to take his mother's earbuds and plug them into a wall socket without electrocuting himself?

2. When he has a tantrum at day care in which he pulls off his diaper and pees on his pants, is this his way of signalling readiness to potty-train?

3. Since the "drowsy" class of anti-allergy drugs make him psycho, how will he be affected by the "psycho" class of anti-allergy drugs (particularly singulair)?  Will they cause him to enter a state of zenlike calm, or will he be exponentially psycho? 

4. How do you give a time-out to a kid who weighs 39 pounds and doesn't effing want to sit on your stupid effing stool, mommy raaargh raaargh raaargh 

5. Why does he screech and complain when I put a wee bit of vaseline on his rashy face, but if left alone with the container will proceed to coat his entire person in squishy petrolium by-product, particularly HIS HAIR OH COME ON WHY ALWAYS THE HAIR? 

6. Why are binkies so much more awesome than chewy tubes? Because chewy tubes are apparently utter ass, and will be thrown across the room at every opportunity.

7. When he is strung out on allergy medicines, he tries to angrily bite me during tantrums. When he is medicine-free and therefore mild-mannered and mostly tantrumless, he playfully tries to bite me in a friendly way.  What is up with that? Does he think he's a puppy?

8. When I remove myself from the hitting zone during a tantrum, I go behind a door and hold it mostly-closed with my foot while he reaches his hand through the opening, claws at the air, tries to push the door open, and makes ragey noises of biting while he tries to bite the door. Considering his speech delay, how difficult would it be to teach him to say "brrraaaainnns!" during these tantrums?

Comments

[kalmn]

i think i love you.

also, i say give him the psycho class of allergy meds riiiight before you drop him at daycare for the day.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

bwaaaaaaha ha ha ha ha ha

[redbird]

7. Based on local experience, he may think he's a cat.

[bravest-unsaid.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

8. I think you should start working on this now.

[naomikritzer]

/cosigned

[evilrooster.livejournal.com]

I used to maneuver my kids into saying "I'm not contrary!" when they were in the midst of toddler negativity. Didn't harm them at all, and gave me an out from escalating frustration.

So another vote yes.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

My older sibs did this exact thing with me! (because I am Mary, Mary, quite contrary) I had forgotten about that. That's pretty funny, once he gets more syllables I'll have to teach him that one.

I think I will teach him "brrrraiiinns," at least for non-tantrum use. He's already got "d'oh!" and the other day I found him saying "ooohhhhmmm" along with a meditating frog on Little Bear. Pop culture FTW!

[notodette.livejournal.com]

These are amazing.

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

ARGH at the allergy meds and FLAIL too. But... er... am I a terrible person because these make me die laughing?

[marydell.livejournal.com]

thanks, I find myself laughing even in the more extreme moments...so much better than the alternative.

And your meds-woes have led me to the current plan for helping Charlie--I have bog-standard reactions to almost all medication, in that if I have a bad reaction it's the most obvious and common one, so I hadn't really considered benadryl et al as a possible problem. But observing some of his behavioral problems I thought "what if he has Shweta-type reactions to things?" By which I mean, the clearly documented, but statistically uncommon side effect--"less than 2 percent of patients report X symptom." Thus far our tests seem to bear this out, so we have a path to figuring this whole thing out, with luck! So thanks for sharing your situation so openly; it's helped me to see some possibilities I would have continued to overlook otherwise.

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

Yay for sharing of information and helping one another :)

And if I can help a guy as cute as Charlie, double win!

[trinker.livejournal.com]

You might try a non-timeout based system if it's been ineffective. I'm about to try that, because M's either shrugging them off, or melting down completely, and neither is doing anything to curb the timeout-inducing behavior.

Or your could try to crate train him. ;P

You should *totally* teach him some appropriate zombie noises. I think pantryslut has been teaching hers to do something like that.

Chewy tubes are not foobies (fake boobies). OTOH, if he were M, he'd be alll over the chewy tube, because here, anything even vaguely tube shaped is EEEVIL AND MUST BE DESTROYED!

At least Charlie doesn't *eat* the Vaseline, or smear it on the walls...does he? (Oh, god, Vaseline in hair AIEE!)

Potty training him would be so much FUN! (well, for those of us reading these desperate missives. Thank you for making me feel less alone today.)

[marydell.livejournal.com]

We've been doing counting-to-three as a way of getting him to transition and comply with requests (with the consequence of reaching three being that I will do whatever it is for him, which of course is sheer woe for toddlers, or will carry him to where I want him to be). This works pretty well, but when he's being a jerk--hitting, screeching--he's already in meltdown, and timing him out seems to be useless. I'd be interested in hearing about any non-corporal methods you know of--mainly what I see is either time-outs or "just redirect them" which doesn't work with a kid who gets locked in on activities (including the activity of tantrumming, at times). We're happy with our decision not to spank but ye gods, it takes a long time to get a point across without that option. Fortunately the worst of the tantrums do seem to be tied to meds, so we may be able to get to a more reasonable place with the current adjustments.

You're totally right about the chewy tubes--they're satisfying for a kid who wants to chew, and unlike pacifiers they can't be bitten into pieces, but they are not soft and they look like weird bad-TV-SF spaceships. Not good foobies at all.

*hugs*

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I recommended Alfie Kohn's work to a friend, and I've also read a bit of Elizabeth Pantley on this. I think, on reading everything you've said about this, that yeah - Charlie's going through a typical "can't communicate my needs/get what I want" frustration meltdown, exacerbated by other irritants, and it's magnified by his being big for his age. A kid half his size throwing the same tantrum is a lot less frustrating.

The main thing that's worked (and I fail to use it consistently) is to completely distract M - not by offering a toy, but utterly startling him out of his wail. One of the regular games we play (invented by M and A on their own, actually) is the "blow at the cheek" game. It makes them giggle like mad when they're calm. When they're wound up and screaming, sometimes (more often than not, but it's not 100%) it breaks them out of the screaming mode. Shushing works a lot, too - the more mama sounds like a leaking air mattress, the better.

I try *really* hard not to get as wound up as they are, and to offer calming energy. (Oh, this is hard when it's only their helplessness and cuteness that's keeping me from doing something vile to them, because they're so flippin' maddening.)

As far as the foobie/chewy tube thing. It'll get you glared at, but have you considered offering Charlie a chew toy designed for a small dog? They're generally sturdier than the baby version, and I *think/hope* these days they're made with plastic safe for vertebrate contact.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Oh, and thank you so much for that *hug*.

I hadn't realized that one could be simultaneously utterly touched out (by children) and in desperate need of gentle comforting touch until I started parenting alone.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Aw, yeah, that sounds tough. Kid touch is so much not the same thing as peer touch. It's actually easier for me than peer touch but I'm not normal :) and I'm also not parenting two at once! I'm sorry you're not getting more of what you need.

*more hugs*

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Baby hugs are wonderful.

I carry my stress first and foremost on my body. I haven't had a decent massage in most of a year. I make do with hot baths here, but I haven't been able to sit in a bathtub for very long, thanks to a little with age-appropriate mommy separation anxiety plus a new bath-phobia.

*sigh*

(Thank you.)

[pameladean]

The progression here is really masterful.

P.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

1. That's impressive!

2. Seriously, while he may not have MEANT it that way, it does show awareness of the body signals and muscle control and stuff, so you might as well introduce the idea.

3. I hope they can answer that for you and you don't have to find out the hard way.

4. DUCT TAPE.

5. Well, if it's too hard to wash out, you could always take advantage of its properties and give him tiny Liberty spikes. Punk rock baby!

6. I might be able to answer this if I knew what a chewy tube was. Mine never even liked binkies.

7. Mouth is substituting for missing hand?

8. DO IT.

[evilrooster.livejournal.com]

Laughed aloud at this. Particularly the second one.

[gryphynshadow.livejournal.com]

(lol)

let him smear himself in vaseline, esp. when he has an itchy/owie. it'll give him some sense of being able to control the itchy/owie/fucking thing on his face and make it better.

I always say, if they bite me, I get to bite back. works on cats, dogs and kids. :P Or, the age old dog trainer trick of, bite me, and next time I'll put my hand in range. then I'll shove said hand as far down your throat as I can get it, wriggling, so as to cause you to gag. promise, it really does work. You do get bit on the hand for it, but only once (or in tough cases, twice. for the second time, if you get your hand in the back of the jaw, you can brace the mouth open with your knuckles and gag them at the same time.) once you trigger the gag reflex, the lizard brain assumes your hand is making them vomit, therefore they should not eat your hand.

I think you should definitely teach him to say 'braaaaaaaains'. :D and then record it. and post it on the internets. and when he starts to date, show it to his would be date. :) :) :)

[marydell.livejournal.com]

We don't do physical discipline, other than relocating & harm prevention, which makes everything take a loooot longer. When he's playing, fortunately, saying "no bites! no bites" gets him to knock it off, since he seems to just be doing it for show. When he's not playing, we go into zombie mode. Braaaains. I should totally video that, you're right!

[cpolk.livejournal.com]

I laughed and laughed. *thumbsup*

that's a heck of a short human you've got there.

[wirewalking.livejournal.com]

#1 sounds like mine. At ten months he was operating RC cars designed for 6yos (turning on the tiny switch and using the controller) but show him a shape sorter or a stacking toy or ANYTHING ELSE they use to quantify fine motor with and he'd give you this longsuffering look, as if to say BUT THAT'S FOR BAAAABIES.

#8: Hell yeah. I've got mine (at 3) saying BERSERKER in a metal voice, like in Clerks.

[mariness.livejournal.com]

I have no kids and know nothing about them, but this was hilarious.

About number 7 - my friend's three year old said she was a cat and that's what cats do. So. Um. There you have it! I suspect the three year old knows more about this than I do :) She did grow out of this.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I have no advice, alas. Lots of giggles, though. :)

*puts magical arnica on your bites*

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

I hope you get a developmental psychologist geeky enough to appreciate your questions!

We do time-out in a high chair or crib. Which I saw you do the other day, actually, but we put him in one of those locations even if it's not where he started out. Two-year-olds don't have the frontal lobe capacity to cooperate in their own discipline. But they sure do hate losing parental attention.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a friend started her toddler out in the timeout spot and then proceeded to ignore him for the length of the timeout. The withdrawal of attention seemed to give him enough time to keep acting out but maybe wind down a bit. Or at least that was the theory.

And yes, you must teach him BRAINS (or GRAINS, after a while & if you're vegetarian).

[raqs.livejournal.com]

For #2 sounds like the answer is "yeah!"

And I agree with rashnik above - when you say that he bites even when happy, it sounds to me like it's a grabby maneuver that's taking the place of some two-handed activity. Plus of course it gets him a reaction from you.

I am evil and a big sister (many more times over) not a parent, but I'll tell you, I'd paint my arm with tabasco and that kid wouldn't keep gnawing on ME.

Though my older-est brother fondly remembers the time he drank half a bottle of tabasco on the theory that it was going to get BETTER. Kids aren't always super-bright.

[jry.livejournal.com]

#8 entitles you to one (1) free internets.