Hx #2: my son
Not long after his 4th birthday we all moved in together. We moved far away from his family and mine for that matter, but we were together. After a week of settling into our home it was back to work for us and the start of pre-school for him. Now until this time he had grandma and relied on her for everything. Pre-school is quite different from that. He was thrown right into having to fend for himself. A lot of major changes took place at once and were hard for his young mind to process. But I just knew that the distance, change in environment and living situation wound be better for him in the long run. He needed to be far away from the abnormal in order to start living normally.
Well there were plenty of fights at school. Plenty of rebellion at home. Lots of punishment. He just hated corner time. But as much as he hated corner time it never seemed to sink in that he had to go in the corner if he didn't do what was expected of him. My famous sayings "the rules haven't changed" and "excuse me!". The last problem which changed greatly but never seemed to follow through was dad (and still doesn't, not all the time anyway). I'd just have to work around that.
Once I realized that he was a troubled little boy I tried to get his father to take him for counseling. He needed help to deal with his mother just abandoning him. In his mind he was a bad boy, why else wouldn't his mommy want him. He never budged on it, there was nothing wrong with the boy that his love couldn't mend. Well after 9 months of us living together and things seeming to go from bad to worse. Dad finally said ok. He had to or his son was going to end up getting kicked out of pre-school. By this time he had turned 5 years old.
That is when we met Sabrina (his psychotherapist). What a wonderful enlightening experience that was. Here we were racking our brains over what we could do to get him to behave, make him better ect... It was awful what we were dealing with. Sabrina helped us to see what he was doing, what we were doing. First of all we weren't doing anything wrong. That was the problem. He was so used to living abnormally that he didn't know how to function normally. Us living a normal life in a stable home was abnormal to him and he was rebelling against it. The rebellion gets worse before it gets better and he was right on track. We just had to keep up the good work and hang in there. She said that children crave boundaries, they help them feel secure. The only problem was not being consistant. Dad knows the 1, 2, 3 technique, but he never followed through with it. This technique had turned into a game for the boy. She helped him fix it to work again. I am all for discipline when it is necessary but hey this wasn't even my child. How could I tell him what to do. She taught me how to use the technique too. But I also had set my boundaries with him when I first met him and like I said the rules never changed. I wouldn't put up with much crap.
The second problem was what his mother had done to him. Or should I say not done. Sabrina informed us that this 5 year old boy had the emotional and social level of a 3 year old. That is why he wasn't interacting well with the kids at the pre-school. This is knowledge that infants start to get from there interactions with there mothers. The mothers facial expressions, baby babble, play ect... At 5 years old he couldn't even tell Sabrina what a smiley face meant when she showed him one, or a frowny face. He couldn't pick up any emotion by looking at it.
So we worked with him. We still have a face chart on the refrigerator door for him to pick his emotions with. He doesn't use it like he used to. He now verbalizes what he is feeling. We helped him to be able to do that. As for the social part we had to socialize him. Dad just hated taking him shopping or to a restaurant because he acted like such an animal. He didn't know how else to act. We had to take him with us where ever we went and demonstrate and then reinforce good behavior.
You can ask just about anyone and they will tell you he has come a long way and is much better for it.
But that is not where it all ends. Next he will start school and that becomes a new challenge for us. And just after we got all this other figured out too.
Well there were plenty of fights at school. Plenty of rebellion at home. Lots of punishment. He just hated corner time. But as much as he hated corner time it never seemed to sink in that he had to go in the corner if he didn't do what was expected of him. My famous sayings "the rules haven't changed" and "excuse me!". The last problem which changed greatly but never seemed to follow through was dad (and still doesn't, not all the time anyway). I'd just have to work around that.
Once I realized that he was a troubled little boy I tried to get his father to take him for counseling. He needed help to deal with his mother just abandoning him. In his mind he was a bad boy, why else wouldn't his mommy want him. He never budged on it, there was nothing wrong with the boy that his love couldn't mend. Well after 9 months of us living together and things seeming to go from bad to worse. Dad finally said ok. He had to or his son was going to end up getting kicked out of pre-school. By this time he had turned 5 years old.
That is when we met Sabrina (his psychotherapist). What a wonderful enlightening experience that was. Here we were racking our brains over what we could do to get him to behave, make him better ect... It was awful what we were dealing with. Sabrina helped us to see what he was doing, what we were doing. First of all we weren't doing anything wrong. That was the problem. He was so used to living abnormally that he didn't know how to function normally. Us living a normal life in a stable home was abnormal to him and he was rebelling against it. The rebellion gets worse before it gets better and he was right on track. We just had to keep up the good work and hang in there. She said that children crave boundaries, they help them feel secure. The only problem was not being consistant. Dad knows the 1, 2, 3 technique, but he never followed through with it. This technique had turned into a game for the boy. She helped him fix it to work again. I am all for discipline when it is necessary but hey this wasn't even my child. How could I tell him what to do. She taught me how to use the technique too. But I also had set my boundaries with him when I first met him and like I said the rules never changed. I wouldn't put up with much crap.
The second problem was what his mother had done to him. Or should I say not done. Sabrina informed us that this 5 year old boy had the emotional and social level of a 3 year old. That is why he wasn't interacting well with the kids at the pre-school. This is knowledge that infants start to get from there interactions with there mothers. The mothers facial expressions, baby babble, play ect... At 5 years old he couldn't even tell Sabrina what a smiley face meant when she showed him one, or a frowny face. He couldn't pick up any emotion by looking at it.
So we worked with him. We still have a face chart on the refrigerator door for him to pick his emotions with. He doesn't use it like he used to. He now verbalizes what he is feeling. We helped him to be able to do that. As for the social part we had to socialize him. Dad just hated taking him shopping or to a restaurant because he acted like such an animal. He didn't know how else to act. We had to take him with us where ever we went and demonstrate and then reinforce good behavior.
You can ask just about anyone and they will tell you he has come a long way and is much better for it.
But that is not where it all ends. Next he will start school and that becomes a new challenge for us. And just after we got all this other figured out too.
posted by almst crzy at 10:24 AM
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