Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Mental Break or Massive Flake?

I have been having my own communication "disorder" this long, long winter. I dropped off from many many scenes, as well as from the blogosphere. I haven't quite emerged from the goo, but what the hell. Time to get back in the saddle of this particular bucking bronco. Because my sweet kids like to take turns having breakdowns, Olivia is doing amazing and Isaac is in the behavioral cesspool. Poor guy, I get the feeling he isn't enjoying life all of that much of late. His anxiety is pretty much code yellow at best, and the journey to code red is a mere hop away. Anything can set him off - a small schedule change, someone being negative to him, or even the usually enjoyable swimming lesson that we have been going to for 4 years now. So what happened? The only real change is that he started seeing a Cognitive Behaviorist back in December. The goal was to help him work on his anxiety and get him ready for more mainstream classes. And since then, his anxiety has rocketed to the point that we dropped his mainstream classes, he resists doing anything new even with prepping, he is anxious about doing anything from sleep overs with friends to swimming lessons, and I have had to collect him from school a half dozen times because he was being "unsafe" (his a teacher, hit another student, threw an item, or tried to leave school). I had to pick him up today at 10:00 AM. At one point today hew as so upset that they had to clear the classroom. By 10:00 AM. He had been at school for all of 80 minutes. His anxiety is of the "flare-up" variety. It flashes hot and bright, but burns out quickly. I was at the school by 10:10 AM, and he was calmly sitting in the class quiet space, asking me why I was there. It felt odd taking a calm and smiling child home for negative behavior. I think I need to reassess our approach. I will talk to the behaviorist of course, and I already picked up a prescription for Zoloft for him that is waiting on the top shelf of the kitchen, somewhat accusingly. Are you the answer, Zoloft, or just the start of more problems? Bastard. Stop staring at me. I guess the question I have now is are we doing the right thing? Are we babying him too much? Is it OK to tell him we expect more? Do we need a paradigm shift?