I have three children – they are now old enough to wipe their own butts, tie their own shoes, wash their own private parts which has frankly freed up enough of my time so that I can work again (joy).
At one time in my life I actually had three kids under the age of two and I was way too old for it (36 when I had the last one). I had twins – and as if that wasn’t intense enough – I managed to get pregnant right after they turned one with a third. Needless to say, even though I had traveled full-time and been a high-level manager in a very stressful job – this was the hardest thing I had ever done – relentless – and really it still hasn’t ended. These are the things that even though someone probably told you – you can’t remember when your body is saying “Have a kid….HAVE A KID” – that is what I wanted – A KID (that would be ONE KID) but instead I got three – all at once. I didn’t go to the grocery store without a second adult for almost five years.
Unlike the twins – who were only 5 lbs. each and looked mostly like wrinkly old people, the third child – a boy was born looking like an angel at a perfectly normal weight of 7 ½ lbs. He had white blond hair and teal blue eyes. Cutest thing ever until you watched him for a while. My sister in law said when he was born, that he was going to be the biggest problem. I thought that it was awful that she could think that about a newborn. Little did I know….
At the age of two – almost on the dot – one morning he developed an opinion and hasn’t stopped since.
Anyway – I sent him to school – a private school, pre-K when he had just turned four, knowing that he would probably have to repeat because he was barely old enough. That year our family set records at the school: First kid in the office at the start of the year. Only kid in the office on the first day of school. Youngest kid in the office, ever. Most visits to office during year. Most times sent home during the year. Most time spent in the office. Greatest number of children from same family in office on same day. He spent so much time in the office – he was featured in the principal’s going away video when he retired.
To be fair – the kid has issues. First he has two older siblings, not much older than him but bigger and they are twins. He is the dog on the bottom of the heap. He holds a grudge and will attack from behind and he is fierce.
He also has respiratory issues, snores, has sleep apnea, unstable blood sugar and still wets the bed at nine. We discovered after four years of attending the same private school that he was colorblind. In retrospect I should have known but he didn’t really like to color (for good reason), and in doing some research – I find that most children with colorblindness aren’t discovered until after first grade – sometimes into Junior High – and sometimes not until adulthood. For a while he colored all the people green. – this bothered the teacher a little but I thought it was because he had been watching the Hulk. He also sometimes colored things inappropriately. I thought that he was just doing it “his way” because I would have done it “my way” just to spite the teacher. Turns out – he can’t tell the difference between red and green, orange and green, purple and blue, sometimes pink and blue or pink and purple, red and black and sometimes doesn’t recognize brown. This caused a lot of problems in first grade because the teacher would criticize him for doing it “wrong” which really pissed him off. When I finally discovered it – a lot of things “clicked” and we sent him to public school – hoping for allowances that they are required to grant other kids.
Predictably his favorite colors are yellow and blue.
We had a lot of problems that year (first grade). With a “brilliant” scheduling system, they sent the kids to PE at 10:30 (he had eaten at 6:30 am) – then after they got really hot and sweaty – and hungry, they went to reading with a teacher that didn’t like him anyway. So we have an angry (because of PE), hot sweaty kid with low blood sugar, who is color blind and being told his coloring was wrong….all while being asked to sit still and be quiet. Recipe for disaster. His method of handling it was to throw a freakin’ fit – at which time – I got the call from the school. At which time he got disciplined.
The kid got thrown out of school at least one day every two weeks, had been expelled for throwing scissors, was referred to two different psychologists, speech therapy, occupational therapy and physicians because of his behavior – they all said there was nothing they could do…he didn’t qualify for a diagnosis…his academic performance was not affected, etc. For the past 6 years that he has been in school – I have been called at least twice a week, emailed two or three times, read numerous written messages, and had to pick him up every other week or more often. Yes we disciplined him. He always promised to try and have a good day – then he didn’t. Even we did not understand.
After all these visits, though apparently – they can’t actually officially diagnose his problem(s), in addition to the colorblindness and all the other issues, “Someone” (that would be my High School best friend’s mother who was a kindergarten teacher for over 30 years) identified Sensory Processing Disorder, also called Sensory Perceptive Disorder or Sensory Affective disorder. SPD can manifest in a number of different ways. It can involve all of the senses and kids are either overstimulated by the environment or understimulated by the environment – or a mix of both. It took a call to the woman who gave me and my best friend a bunch of shit for staying out too late to find out what all was wrong with my kid.
This is the kid who wants all of the tags cut out of his clothes, who screams when you put socks on him because the seams aren’t exactly right, screams when you comb his hair, hates to be “pelted” by water in the shower, flinches and screams if you cut his hair, worries with textures of clothing and food – and best of all if he is jostled or bumped, is completely sure that he has been physically attacked by someone else ON PURPOSE. This coupled with his laziness in speaking, his respiratory issues, sleep disorder, labile blood sugar, hatred of competition and colorblindness has made school very difficult.
He is also an electronic genius – figured out how to use the DVD remote to get to all of the extra features and color the barbie horses on his sister’s dvds with no instruction at the age of two, when mom could barely figure out how to turn the damned thing on. He excels at video games – much to his older brother’s annoyance. He might, if given a chance – become a criminal genius – probably a hacker.
None of it was really a problem during the first four years of his life because he was home with mom – and during the day there was no one to fight with, no one who actually cared if he was naked, no one to make him put on shoes or comb his hair, no one to tell him he was wrong and always got fed right when he was hungry. In short, he got to do pretty much what he wanted or needed and never left mom’s sight because I didn’t trust anyone.
He is nine now – and the issues have diminished some but not completely. I still get called, emailed, written and occasionally have to pick him up.
SPD, though not officially acknowledged as such, is a very mild form of Asperger’s Disease – a member of the Autism Spectrum disorders. The problem is that it is “mild” so there is nothing to do. There is no label, there is no help – there is not anything the school will do to allow for his issues because he doesn’t qualify. He doesn’t have a Speech Disorder, Mental Retardation, Autism, Asperger’s, ADHD or any other sort of readily identifiable issue which would qualify him for state-mandate allowances. He just throws fits when things aren’t exactly right. That’s how he is seen – just a bad kid because they still don’t get it.
The problem with this attitude is that if you tell a kid they are bad enough times – they will be.