nixtress's Diaryland Diary

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My boy is breaking me

Trevor is driving me nutty.
I'm at the end of my tether here. Bear with a bit of ranting/pleading/prattling confusion.
While I know tomorrow I'll read this and shake my head, patience returned in full and ready to just take it on some more, tonight I'm frazzled and peeved and at my wit's end.
Increasingly, his behavior at school is getting worse. His teacher classified it as "attention getting". I classify it was unacceptable.
I've told myself his entire life that he's got quirks, that he marches to his own drummer, that there are things in his psyche that are plain different from other kids. Some of it is related to his autistic-like behaviors. Some of it is directly related to the wishy-washy diagnosis that Trev has behaviors that fall into the autistic spectrum, with none of them falling into one particular disorder more than others. Therefore, I've basically been told by professional doctors trained to figure this sort of thing out, that they haven't a clue really WHAT is wrong with my son or even how to deal with him. I've spent his entire life just trying to raise him the best I can, being flexible and available to the school system, tweaking things here and there and encouraging his teachers to do so as well. I've spent the last nine years trying to teach him to compensate for his quirks, trying to help him become a strong and confident kid, trying to help him be as successful as he can be. I don't know if I'm succeeding, don't know if I'm failing, haven't any sort of comparison to check us against. I don't know anyone else with a child like mine.
And I'm frustrated. At Trev's conference, I spent nearly forty minutes talking with his teacher and principal, trying to figure out what I could tweak to make this work a little more smoothly. They had ZERO input, could offer NO suggestions.
Part of my problem with all of this is that he's doing it at school. Home life hasn't been affected by it and he knows my boundaries. The teacher then complains to me and I don't know what to do to fix it. I'm out of answers. Part of me feels like the teacher needs to fix her own damn problems with him but how responsible is that as a parent?
Today I got a letter from her, detailing how Trev had straightened a paperclip and then used it to poke two tiny holes in her humidifier, causing it to be unusable. She stated in her note that she'd brought this humidifier from her own home and her husband was very upset as he'd spent $30 on it.
A huge part of me says that she shouldn't have brought it to school if she wasn't comfortable with the possibility of something happening to it. (Heck, I tell my kids that every time they want to take something in---they run the risk of something happening to it and need to decide whether it's something they'll be upset to lose) Another huge part of me says she put that in so that she could be reimbursed, which, by rights, Trev should do because he damaged her property. However, again, it's school and there are 27some kids in that room.
I've tried grounding him, tried taking away his favorite things, tried everything I know to do.
I'm really worried about him, beyond just the acting up in school stuff. As he's gotten older, he's not really expanded socially. He still hangs by himself on the playground, tends to stick to himself (for the most part) and stays on the perimeter when there are activities in the classroom. He still rocks, still isn't the best with eye contact unless the person he's talking with really engages him, still doesn't transition as well as he could.
On top of that, as he's gotten older, I see him turning inside more, see him blocking out what's around him. I took the boys out to dinner the other night. It was a quiet dinner situation, not alot of people around, not alot of disorder or commotion and he completely just zoned. He looks tired all the time, even while getting over ten hours of sleep a night.
I'm just not sure what to do.
I made an appt. with a pediatric counselor for the first week in April, in hopes that a trained, unbiased professional can give me suggestions I might be missing because I'm too close. I'm also calling tomorrow to talk with the behavior specialist/autism doc in Akron to see about getting him re-evaluated yet again. I'm really running out of other options here.
And I'm tired. I'm feeling really overwhelmed, between all that's gone on in the last two weeks with my family losses and just this whole year. I just want to be a good mom, want to help my sons be the best that they can be, want them to grow up to love themselves and be healthy and happy. I know, in my heart of hearts, that Trev is a good boy. I also know that he's a different kind of kid and I have to just work a little harder to understand and work with him.
Today, it's not so easy to be positive about it. Today, I'm deflated and frustrated and fried.
I've prayed more in the last three months than I think I have in the last three years. I just can't be a solitary rock anymore.
N.

9:13 p.m. - 2006-03-28

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