Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Martin is really wonderful. Before falling asleep, he tells me that he plans to dream about boats. He pretends to enter a chrysalis and emerges as a butterfly. He reads books about the first ladies to his little sister. He tried a piece of lettuce last week.
But then he is awful. Instantly awful. As far as I can tell, he becomes awful the moment I say the word “no.” I’ve been hit, kicked, and screamed at. His teacher has also had to deal with hitting and kicking. He just turns on a dime and your left there, suddenly, being accosted by a 6-year-old.
During the summer, we took a break from the behavior counselor that Martin was seeing. And when we returned home, we thought we might focus our concerns on Martin’s eating issues by spending some time with a therapist who helps kids become more open to food. But I think we’ll be heading back to behavior counselor. It’s good that we can do that, but it’s one more appointment to add to our week. It’s one more thing to ask Martin to do instead of chilling at home reading president books and eating graham crackers.
Despite the fact that this new appointment will stress out our schedules and keep Martin more busy than we’d like, we simply have to do it. He’s clearly struggling – and failing – to keep it together when he feels challenged. So we start next week and hope for more Jekyll than Hyde.
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I blog because having a special needs child can be lonely. People don't want to pry. They focus on the positives. In this way, people are nice. But life with Martin includes very difficult moments. And I'm a little tired of keeping them within the family.
“But then he is awful. Instantly awful. As far as I can tell, he becomes awful the moment I say the word “no.” I’ve been hit, kicked, and screamed at. His teacher has also had to deal with hitting and kicking. He just turns on a dime and your left there, suddenly, being accosted by a 6-year-old.”
That is scary!
At the same time, you say that you’ve been hit and his teacher also has to deal with it. You didn’t specify whether the teacher has to deal with being hit or with him hitting classmates. That gives me hope that he *doesn’t* hit classmates, and now the trick is to get him to stop hitting adults too. If this is true (I hope so!) then can you build on his already not hitting other vulnerable children to get him to stop hitting other innocent* people too?
* I specify innocent because hitting *back*, when the person you hit already hit you or someone else and you’re hitting in defense, is good and it’s worthwhile to teach people how to hit back effectively