Imagination

This is just too cute, Marni's latest blog post is about her son's developing imagination and includes an audio clip of him pretending to be on the phone with Superman.
As I said in a comment, the transcript alone is adorable, but the audio is too cute for words.

Today's Lesson from After School

You shouldn't call people's babies ugly.

Nuff said.

(DB is actually doing fine in after-school, and the coordinator is awesome with him. But he is a piece of work!

Dietary Issues and Autism

This post could also be titled: Rowing Out to Meet the Boat I Missed...

Last week was Autism Awareness Week at DietsinReview.com. I was honored that they asked me to write about my experiences with the GFCF diet, so even though we only did the "CF" part I was happy to oblige. (I don't think I've ever had that many links in one paragraph before!)

It was interesting to choose an angle to talk about, since the posts are limited to 350 words. Would I talk about how, once I shared with other moms at school the improvements I'd seen, 2 of them tried it, and several others said something like, "Oh, yeah, we tried that..." and trail off.

Or would I talk about the fact that of the two moms who tried it simultaneously with me, one found it easier that the other for several reasons: Her Asian background meant that a wider variety of GFCF foods were already in her child's diet, and she was a stay-at-home mom like me. For the other mom, a working mom of 3 kids under age 6, finding the foods and making substitutions was next to impossible.

Part of the diet's success for me was the amount of time I was able, and willing, to devote to preparing things that were not only CF but also would be something DuckyBoy would eat.

It was this past Christmas that we tried going off the diet. Now, he's in love with the grilled cheese sandwiches at the school cafeteria, and some days I find myself wondering what protein he ate on the CF diet now that I pack some combination of cheese sticks, cheese crackers, and Goldfish for his snacks or lunch almost every day.

Another topic I considered for my post was how different eating is from when I was a kid. There just weren't as many processed choices with whey or powdered milk snuck in. But there also weren't as many health food stores that carried alternatives to cow's milk and cheese -- and what available often wasn't so yummy. (I never did find a good vegan cheese. Tofutti cream cheese was as close as we got. Never did make that stuffed jalapenos recipe from their website...)


They even used my photo of Crabby Patties!
Made with dairy-free Tofutti cream cheese, of course.

I could have talked about how much better I felt while on the diet with DuckyBoy. It's all but impossible to avoid cheese now, and I'm back to loving pizza, but I put almond milk in my coffee and find I eat waaaay less cheese than I used to. The less I have, the less bloated and more light I feel.

To check out what I went with, read my guest post. And while you're there, check out the rest of the Diets in Review site. It's a neat idea -- a central place to check out info about all the many diets out there. I'm looking forward to watching the site grow, because for me an important part of evaluating a diet is the success (or lack of it) from people who've tried it.

Anger Management with PDD

On Friday, DuckyBoy got THREE Consequence Reports. Needless to say Husband and I were NOT happy.

First he tackled his cluster teacher when she got upset that he kept bonking into her while swinging his arms. (I'm gonna guess they were standing in line and, therefore, supposed to be standing relatively still.)

Then he punched her when she gave him a Consequence Report for tackling her!

This was all before noon. Then, after lunch at recess, he hit a classmate over the head with his lunchbox (thank goodness it was a soft one, not one of his metal ones; that's a story for another day) when she said "The girls won!" at pinball, because, he says, the gym teacher had said both sides won. Apparently there's some discrepancy there, but at any rate, there's no reason to hit someone over the head. For that, he's got to stay inside from recess TWO days next week and sit in the principal's office.

Argh!!!

Since I'm at school on Fridays, I heard about all this shortly after it happened and took him straight home at 3 o'clock; no After-School fun for him that day. He eventually did the first Consequence Report that night, and got better at doing the second and third. We let him do one each day, but next time he gets more than one they'll all have to be done at once -- he just takes too much advantage and we can't get any sense of when he'll be done. ("He can't hold us hostage!" Husband complained.)

I'm happy with the Consequence Reports system; DuckyBoy sure hates doing them. I just hope that helps get through to him, and we won't have to do too many more!

The only upside to the report-writing is he has discovered that he likes being in his room. Shouldn't be surprising, I know, that a child likes to be in his own room. But this is new for DB. It was always like torture to be in his room without someone (hint: me) there to entertain and accompany him. But now, when the alternative was to be writing out a Consequence Report? He's discovered that he likes it. Even when the reports are done.

Another upside was that the Discipline Code made some sense, had some relevance. Every year NYC sends home this big-arse booklet with all the possible infractions a child can commit, in order of severity, according to grade level (K-5 are one section and middle/high school is another). K-5 has 5 levels of misdeed, and for each level there are listed the possible consequences, starting with level 'a," admonishment by school personnel, to "i," which is permanent suspension and reassignment to another school.

After reading the booklet the child and a parent are supposed to sign that it's been read and will be followed. The past 2 years, I've simply told DB that it means to follow the rules, and had him sign it. This year, I went through it and highlighted any type of thing he's done and the consequence. Then I read him those parts.

Physical aggression is Level 4, and being sent to the principal's office for recess is Level "e."

Since he really struggles to get the whole sympathy/empathy thing, it really helped to be able to show him where his behavior fell and to see that being sent to the principals office IS a big deal.

I hope it helps. Here I am, la di dah, writing poetry about trying to help him, and he's wailing on people all day long.

Doom-and-Gloom Husband thinks, of course, that the kid has a psychological problem and is manipulative and selfish and possibly ruined for life. (Not quite, but that's how he comes across. Oh, and did I mention, it's my fault?)

I think it's a developmental stage. A TODDLER developmental stage. Not that knowing that should change anything about our response, at home or school; I'm just (since he's my kid) fascinated to see this specific "delay" in his "PDD."

DuckyBoy seems so sophisticated, especially with his vocabulary and his mannerisms. More than one person has commented that he seems more like 70 than 7.

When in fact, part of him is still developmentally only around 3. Less than half his chronological age.

Aggression is a common toddler behavior that's often seen at around the same time as whining, crying and saying "I'll do it myself."

And as I think about it, DuckyBoy is doing all those things now -- having never really embraced them when he was a toddler.

In other words, I had to wait like 5 years for this. I had pretty much closed the book on him ever separating from me or declaring his independence. Yet, here it is.

It's hard to express how it makes me feel to think about this and remember the preschool teachers pushing me out the first day. I knew they didn't get it. Sure, he survived and did OK. But he wasn't anywhere near ready for that separation from me. Not like we could have waited for this, but it could have been handled differently.

And I'd like to think that looking at it this way,as a normal albeit delayed stage rather than a kink in his brain, will help us all to respond firmly, consistently, and appropriately.

I think that means guiding him toward understanding, rather than trying to reason and bargain with him. After all, bargaining with 3-year-olds really isn't recommended. Having clear rules and consequences is.

Once again, DB is lucky to be surrounded by the people he is.

A Little Bit of Teasing

DuckyBoy is doing great so far in second grade, and he loves the after-school program.

"Mommy, after-school makes school fun!" he said when I picked him up the first day.

The downside of 2 hours of less-structured time with his peers is the chance for situations he doesn't know how to deal with.

Yesterday, he mentioned being teased. It came up recently at the playground by our home, too -- and I just don't know what to tell him to say or do.

At the playground he had a Transformer toy and another kid wanted him to either let him see it or transform it to robot mode from vehicle mode, and DB didn't want to do either. I suppose I should have just made DB hand it over and been done with it. But we just got it, and I have more sympathy for wanting to keep your mitts on your own toy when it's new. (I've got my own "other kids break stuff" anxiety issues.)

So then the other kid was saying "Oh, you don't know how," and similar stuff. Not really trash-talking or bullying him, I think the boy just liked the toy too and wanted to see it change.

And, he wouldn't let it go. I held the toy for a while, but every time DB took it back one of 2 boys would buzz around him. So we finally left after only about 15 minutes.

As for what happened at school, DB he said someone was teasing him about being in love (to which I said, Well, other boys your age don't understand). I think he said it was the same boy who did some similarly, not-that-bad teasing of him last year. Then DB said his little girlfriend joined in, which I think is what really got him.

Now, I never know for sure with him,, right? She might have said something he misinterpreted at that point.

But anyway, I am at a loss for how to help him learn to deal with the other kids in this type of situation.

Sometimes ignoring it or walking away isn't possible.

And sometimes it's not so severe that an adult's intervention is required. (Also, I don't want him to rely on that for every little thing. Right now it's his default: "Mommy, come talk to him.")

There's not that much on the web for little kids; a couple of sites offer some tips, but I'd love to have more tools for little kids like DuckyBoy.

I don't expect the school to solve it, or make all the teasing stop (there is an anti-bullying policy, but the instance so far hardly seems to qualify --at least as far as it was described to me), but I do hope together we can give DB some coping skills.

Pervasive Developmental Delay in Real Life

When I worked at American Baby, we loved and relied on the month-by-month What to Expect books. What to Expect the Toddler Years puts this behavior in Month 29. Of course they clarify that every child develops differently, and 29 months is likely on the early side of when a typical child would say "I want to do it myself!" in reference to something like putting on his own shirt or pants.

29 months is not-quite-3.

My son finally said it for the first time at not-quite-7. (He turned 7 a week ago today.)

What matters most to me is that he said and felt it.

But it's hard to function in society as a mom and as a young kid when you're that far off from where everyone else is.

It's not so much that he's behind, per se, as that he's somewhere so different than where the others are.

His peers were still into Barney when he was into The Magic School Bus. That's a mental issue and is seen as advanced, not delayed.

But this is an emotional issue, and he's seen as lagging behind.

I can't tell you how thrilled I was to hear, "I want to do it myself!"

You may have even heard my sigh of relief. It's been a long haul.

And fortunately, DuckyBoy's little girlfriends love him for where he's at!

A Super Start

I'm delighted that DB came home saying his first day was "perfect..." except for one incident. His girlfriend sits next to him, his lunch was delicious, and his teachers are "really nice."

The incident was small but marks a big and positive shift in how it was handled at school and consequently how we handled it at home as well.

He was calling out answers instead of raising his hand, and so they called on him as much as they could when he did raise his hand to reinforce that (good to know!) and then, since he is himself, then when they did not call on him he had a minor tantrum, which they ignored until he started to scrape his desk around, which I can understand was annoying and distracting to everyone else. And, wonderfully, I have this info right from his teachers (via email), how awesome is that!

And so, he did not get a morning sticker, and he got a consequence sheet sent home -- day 1! I'm so glad they're conveying the seriousness of the rules right away. (The rule he broke was "being kind to others" -- the noise hurt their ears.)

It really helped us start the year right, too -- though it made for a painful evening. DB's consequence was worse than anything we could have taken away: he had to write why the incident happened, how it impacted people, and what he could do differently next time.

He did pretty good talking over the answers with me, but got very agitated and distracted when it came time to write. Now, mind you -- I wrote down what he said, and all he had to do was copy it. Maybe that was too dull? But I know he has trouble focusing on what he wants to say, too. Fine line. I think he'd have been too distracted to even remember what he wanted to say. He also gets distracted when he can't spell a word. This way I hoped I was taking all that away.

I was trying the tactic of going in and out of his room to give him time to do it on his own, because I know I distract him. But he wasn't getting anywhere with or without me, and finally he whined one too many times and his father laid down the law: Don't come out until it's done.

He needed help 2 more times, got over halfway done with the first of the 3 questions, and then I think just gave up. He did stay in his room, though!

So, I finished making dinner, Husband and I ate, and then I tried one more approach: magic Chiclets. They help people write. But you have to start writing first and be sitting with pencil in hand when you eat them.

It kept part of his mind just occupied enough with the novelty that he made it most of the way through, about 2 words per piece of gum. (He chews till the crunch is gone, then spits it out.) Then I found some magic Smarties that got him the rest of the way.

This is the first time there's been something that had to go back to school that we could focus on with this type of seriousness.

It was great!

Now, I'm not entirely sure he's telling the complete truth about why he was upset; he claims he was raising his hand because he had to go to the bathroom. But rather than second-guess him, I took him at his word and that's how he wrote it. I'll email the teachers to see if we need to talk with him about "revisionist history." That's another matter entirely. Here at home he definitely does try to spin things so he looks better, though I can't remember him fabricating an outright lie. It'll be a shocker for him, but a good lesson, if we all catch him in the act.