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| Parents of 'Difficult' Children |
| Public online group |
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Hi everyone!
I have two gorgeous boys..Hunter is almost 3 and Hayden is 18mos. They are (as most brothers are) total opposites. Hunter is totally out of control. Hayden is really laid back and content most of the time.
I am looking for any advice anyone is willing to give. Hunter has been diagnosed with PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified).
I went in the bathroom today, and he took that to be the opportune time to dive head first off the dining room table into the saltio tile. This resulted in a trip to the hospital where is threw himself out of my arms and began kicking and screaming and banging his head against the floor and wall.
Someone, please....advice? |
| Posted by Courtney on 04/07/2007 02:10 AM
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Hi Courtney.
I look forward to what others advise for you. I've never heard of PDD-NOS but I've been there with my DD as far as the kicking, screaming, throwing herself on the floor.
I just had my first playdate today with a girl I met through Raisingthem and DD threw the worst tantrums I've ever seen. The only thing that I can think happened is that she was overstimulated. The place we went to has an abundance of toys, crafts, books, movies, music, and an indoor playset with a slide. So she wanted to do everything all at once and I think that was part of it. The other thing was that she wants to do everything herself with no help. Even if I just show her how to do something to make it easier on her she wants no part of it. She wants to do things herself. So she wanted to slide but she wouldn't listen to me so I could show her where the ladder was so she could climb up easier. She wanted to do it her own way and she had a hard time and got easily frustrated. Throwing herself on the floor in a tantrum. She pretty much screamed, threw herself on the floor, cried, stomped her feet and carried on the whole time. There were a few moments of laughter but very few. I've tried time out, distraction, removing her from the situation, and even yelling myself. I can say yelling just makes the whole thing worse and distraction used to work but not so much anymore. She's too focused on what she wants right now to try and distract her from it. I've just started using time out but they say not to keep them in TO for more than a couple of minutes and usually she's not calmed down by 2 minutes. She will, however, sit there for a minute even though she's still crying. So I do think that's progress. Removing her from the situation seems to work the best for her right now which is what I did today. I took her to the bathroom and she was great for about 5 minutes when we came back but then started up again.
This is so hard, and I feel so alone. The other girls son was good as gold. He hardly made a peep the whole time.
I do know one thing I'm going to work on and that is to be less nervous when we go places. I'm so worried that she will have a fit that I hover over her and I don't think that helps.
I praise you for having a second. Abbi has cured me of ever wanting another child. I have my hands completely full with just her. |
| posted by Kati on 04/07/2007 02:19 PM
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Hello everyone,
I just want to be reassuring and say that from my experience even difficult children with age make incredible improvements in their behavior! There is light at the end of the tunnel.
When my kid was a toddler there were situation that made him unconfortable, like having too many people around or go in a restaurant, so I just would not do these things.
I figured that if I had to stress about it, it was not worth the trouble. I try to follow his rythme just to make everybody more relax. Slowly with time, I reintroduce my needs in the picture.
Also my son always wanted to do thing his own way, I could never sit down with him a teach him something. So I decided to let him figure things out my himself. We bought him the Leapster game system and he taught himself the alphabet, numbers, now writing and reading.
I just refuse the idea of labels. I know he has the capacity to learn, he seems content and he is very picky when it comes to people or situations. Aren't many adults that way?
Now that he is a little older, I just explain to him that sometimes we have to do things that we don't enjoy but we do it anyway.
The pressure we feel as parents is there because we compare the difficult child to the others and we want him to fit into the "good kid" stereotype. That does not work, the best is to really try to accept him the way he is and focus on his qualities ... of course you will need to smooth things out once in a while...
Vero
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| posted by Vero on 04/08/2007 12:04 AM
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Thanks for your response, Vera. I often think how easy it would be to just crawl into a cave and not come out until this stage is over, and I can reason with Abbi and talk her down when she's frustrated. I keep telling myself that this is not good either and that she does need social interraction with other children and adults. At home I let her try things and give her the freedom to do things but when we are out and about I tend to hover which I know is not good. I need to work on that.
I have to keep reminding myself to let Abbi just be herself and this too will soon pass. It's not easy though when even my own mother is telling me that Abbi's behavior is because I held her too much when she was an infant. To which my response is always "If the worst thing I ever do to my child is hold her too much, I can live with that." |
| posted by Kati on 04/08/2007 09:05 PM
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