Binkies and Briefcases

I’m very happy to report that all of a sudden Nicholas is doing amazingly well! (For those of you who don’t know, our son is adopted and has been struggling for a few years with severe behavior problems related to his attachment to me.)

First, apparently, we are potty trained! I have to give my husband full credit for that one. On Saturday he decided to put Nick in underwear and stick with it. He took Nicholas everywhere he went (Lowes, Target, the dump…) that day and just kept changing him when he had an accident. Nick had 9 accidents that day and I truly thought that he just wasn’t ready yet, but then the next day we tried the underwear again & there were NO accidents. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t had one since, and we are going on the fourth day. I think seeing that daddy really wanted this from him made him try harder than when I was doing the same thing. I know there might be some regression, especially with the new baby coming, but I am SO happy that he is making this kind of progress!!! He’s going to kindergarten next year and I was worried he would be held back or sent to the school for kids with special needs just because he wasn’t potty trained yet.

Second, we have been seeing some dramatic improvement in his behavior. He still hits us and tends to have an inappropriate level of anger over minor issues, but he is really working on it and genuinely sorry afterward. The biting, throwing things, and other destructive behaviors (knocking over the tv, taking markers to the furniture, etc) really haven’t been around for a few months. I’ve sent Abby in with him to his last few play therapy appointments so he could practice playing with peers & I have really seen him trying to apply the skills his therapist has been working on with him. I also haven’t gotten any poor behavior reports from preschool, which is awesome because it was about this time last year that he was taking off his clothes and rubbing feces on the floor. (God must have been working overtime in those teachers’ hearts because I truly don’t know how he never got expelled.)

And finally, he actually seems to be learning lessons from his mistakes. This is huge because, obviously, that’s a really important skill to have as an adult and I honestly didn’t know if that would ever happen, so to see it clicking at four and a half is pretty amazing. It gives much more hope to his future.

Yesterday, for example, my friend Staci & I were at our church sorting clothes that had been donated. The clothes were in a small room behind a stage and in front of the stage is a large open area, so my kids and her youngest daughter, who is the same age as Nick, were running around in the open area playing tag while we moved the clothes to where they needed to be, keeping an eye on the kids as best as we could, but there really wasn’t much that they could get into.

Except there was a water fountain.

And Nicholas & his friend were very proud of themselves for making up a new version of tag, one where you took a big drink from the water fountain & then ran after your friend spitting the water at him/her. They both got pretty wet and the floor was gross.

But they are four and they honestly didn’t know they were doing something wrong, so I didn’t feel comfortable punishing them, although it was pretty exasperating for me to have to deal with. So instead I had them clean it up as best as they could with paper towels from the bathroom & I obviously told them that we couldn’t play games that involved spitting or destroying the church. But Nick didn’t seem to be affected at all by having to clean it up or my talking with him, so I thought I needed to make the lesson stick a little better.

We went home and got some money from his piggy bank & took it back to the church office. I called to make sure someone would be available, then we drove right back over there. Our pastor took some time and talked to Nicholas very patiently about what it means to be tempted & thanked him for admitting he did something wrong & trying to make it right. Then Pastor Bob asked Nick what he should do if he was tempted to spit again & guess what?

Nick actually said, “Maybe don’t spit?” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That might not seem like a big deal to you, but my kid has never in his life made a connection like that before & I didn’t know if it was a skill I’d ever be able to help him learn, so for us it was huge. In the past, he would have changed the subject & started talking about the airshow he saw last month or something.

And this morning when he hit his sister at breakfast & I asked him what Pastor Bob said to do if we found himself wanting to do something he knew he shouldn’t he said, “Don’t hit Abby. Sorry, Abby. ”

That’s what I call progress!

It would have been so much easier & faster to just put him in time out for the whole spit tag thing, but I’m really glad I took the time to try to make it a learning experience because it certainly paid off.