Behavior ISSUES

Nate is making us feel like crappy parents. We have NO IDEA what to do with this child.

Before the holidays, I decided to look into a behavioral therapist for Nate, for two reasons: 1. to stop the screaming, and 2. to help us figure out how to potty train him. We started seeing Miss Darcy, and she is very sweet and is really getting to know Nate to address our issues.

In the meantime, Nate has experienced a lot of changes. We now have a new babysitter. We knew this would be a huge adjustment for both kids, but it was unavoidable. The new sitter, Bekah, watches the kids out of her home instead of ours. She is wonderful, and both of the kids adore her. Our schedule used to be that Blake was home in the mornings and I was home in the evenings, but suddenly (like the same day the kids started at the new sitter), Blake's boss told him his schedule had to change to 8-5. After a very stressful week, Memaw and GrandBob coming for a couple of days to help out, and much discussion, our schedule is starting to regulate again. Now I drop the kids off at Bekah's at 9:30 am, she takes Nate to school at 12:30, then Blake picks up Nate from school and Georgia from the sitter. On Fridays, Blake is off work and will (this starts this week) take Nate to both OT and PT back to back. We have one other therapy (behavioral therapy) that we still have to find a permanent time for. But you can see that this has been a huge transition for all of us, and Nate has a VERY difficult time with all transitions.

If I could describe Nate with one word right now, it would be "resistant." He has always been a very resistant child--since the time he was a newborn--but he goes through stages when it is so much worse. We attribute much of this to his sensory issues, but the reason for it doesn't help much when we're trying to figure out how to stop it.

For example. Two Sundays ago, I went in Nate's room when he first woke up, and as always, he asked what day it was and what we were doing that day. I told him we were going to go to church--"I love church!!!--then we were going to a birthday party--"Gasp! A birthday party? Will there be cake?"--and then Bible Study--"I LOVE Bible Study!" We were all set to have a great day. When it was time to get in the car for church, he changed his tune. "I don't like church. I don't want to go to church" all the way there. When it was time to leave church, he cried, "I don't want to leave church! I love church!" and I had to drag him crying out the door. Next it was "I don't like birthday parties! I don't want to go!" followed by "I don't want to go home! I want to stay at the birthday party!" As you might guess, he whined the whole way to Bible study and then had so much fun that I had to literally drag him out the door screaming when it was time to leave. Whew! That is an exhausting day. Seriously, nothing is easy with him. We have to fight over everything from brushing his teeth to getting in the car.

I have decided that this resistance is our biggest hurdle right now to potty training. He is totally resistant to sitting on the potty. The week before Christmas, we actually had a lot of success with potty training. I played a game with him that every time he sat on the potty *without whining* he would get a letter on his chart, and at the end of the day, he would get whatever treat we had spelled out. By the end of the week, I was giving him "bonus challenges" (he totally loved that) to try to stay dry for a certain amount of time, and he actually DID IT! I really think it's possible that he might be able to do this. He just WON'T! After that week, he just decided he was over it. After discussing it with Miss Darcy, we decided to take a break from potty training for now and to work in therapy on decreasing his resistance to all things, hoping that will decrease his resistance to the potty. Who knows--maybe I'll potty train both kids this summer.

But the behavior issues are now showing up at school too. They have this green-yellow-red system. Last year, he came home on green every day, which meant he was well behaved at school. Last fall, we had a couple of days where he came home on yellow, which meant he had to be warned about a behavior. Well, last week, Nate came home on red TWICE. One day he was making an annoying noise during a movie, and after asking him repeatedly to stop, Nate refused to stop. The next day, he refused to put on his backpack and walk down the hallway. So when Blake came to the pick up line to get Nate, he had to get Georgia out of the car and walk down to the classroom to make Nate put on his backpack and walk down the dang hallway to go home. We have had numerous talks about this and have given consequences, so imagine my surprise when today I found out he came home on red again. He first refused to go to the bathroom to get changed (he pooped in his pull up!) and then they asked him to stop banging his markers on the table and he refused. Sigh.

The rule is that if he comes home on anything other than green, he cannot play with trains or blocks (his two favorite things to play) for the rest of the evening. He gets very upset about this, so that means it's working, right? :) Then he would not listen to me tonight when I was trying to get him ready for bed, so he had to go to bed without his beloved story time. He was so upset and was giving me every reason in the world that he couldn't sleep. From all the way downstairs I heard him yelling, "My pillow is wet!!!!" I said, "Well stop crying!" (hehe) So I flipped his pillow over, but then he complained it was cold. He told me he wanted my pillow, and that I could sleep with no pillow. I assured him his pillow was fine, and he said, "No! My pillow is cold and wet and has worms in it!" What? :)

So tonight Blake and I are going to make a rule chart that shows what the consequences are for disobeying. This is hard.