Saturday, February 9, 2013

Behavior

My daughter is in early intervention preschool, you have to qualify in two areas. Hers are speech and behavior, they have never ever had a behavioral problem at school, which means I'm pretty much on my own. Sure the teachers give suggestions for us at home, but they don't help, because none of them are new to me. We have tried it all. She has been quite sad since Christmas, and to me when you step back and look, that is the thing that is worst part, she is not a happy child. Never has been, sure she has bouts of being happy, but its not the norm. I guess I'm finally recovered from pregnancy and delivery, because I'm really trying to help her right now instead of just endure her. She has a sensory disorder, that really gives her a hard time. I've now realized jumping is extremely successful for her. It really jazzes her up. The sensory disorder causes her body to sort of get stalled in neutral, and jumping helps. Sometimes she is just too stalled to get jumping so I hold her upside down. She loves it so I've started to do it more. She becomes a happy child, until she needs the next rev up. I wish I would have known this years ago. I've also recently noticed refined sugars definitely make her sensory processing worse, but it's hard she LOVES candy. Luckily she is like anyone and if she is fed good healthy food, then she is far less likely to ask and whine for candy. That takes planning on my part something I've been lacking lately. Take froot loops, she loves them for breakfast but I've recently figured out they make her body twice as sleepy. She is not sleepy her body is. But it takes lot of planning to get healthy food in her, her type sensory disorder makes her an extremely picky eater. As far as i can tell the only healthy protein she eats is eggs. What is about our bodies that always want to choose what is wrong for us? Take my oldest for example he is obsessed with computer games. I have no problems with computers or other such devices but my son is incapable of doing anything until he gets his hour of screen time. He often wants to cry when it's over. Yet when he is banned because he is being punished he is the happiest kid always busy. Now that spring is coming, I think I'm only going to give him and hour three times a week. Tues,thurs, sat. Plus his sister desperately wants to play with him. He has great fun with her as long as the looming obsession of computer time isn't hanging over his head. Honestly our house is screen overload, I'm only talking computer games, not iPods, iPhones, tv or tablets. So yes, I'm now off topic although I definitely see a connection between computer and behavior for my son. Anyway, I'm finally figuring out what works for my daughter. It's nice, but she is a lot of work. What I've realized, is don't look for things that claim change or that claim they can fix her. She is who she is, just like everyone else she came to earth with her own set of challenges and strengths. All anyone can do is help her and love her. I was also given the expectation she would grow out of her misery, her constant crying. Around 18 months, a lady at church speaking from experience told me, some point you have to realize they aren't going to grow out of "it", accept it for who they are. She told me her second was her hardest and still is. She said if she would have had another like her second she would have never had 7. I think she was one of the reasons I choose to have baby A.

2 comments:

  1. Do you have a mini trampoline in the house? My kids loved this, especially in the winter.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I so relate to the screen time obsession thing! You described David! But maybe this is what parenting looks like now in this age of a million screens?

    Anyway, I also liked what you said about sometimes you have to accept "it" because your kid isn't going to outgrow "it."

    ReplyDelete