Parenting

I am a professional parenting specialist. Oh, the irony.

My son is out of control. Out. of. Control.

Yes, I do have a Master’s Degree, years of experience as a nanny, elementary school teacher, child-centered business owner, and now parenting specialist. I have taken several parenting classes, read more books than I can count, and believe it or not I actually am qualified to teach other people appropriate ways to control their children.

Technically, it’s not my fault. He is showing a lot of signs of Reactive Attachment Disorder and he has also been diagnosed with sensory processing issues similar to those found in children with autism. (No, he does not have autism.) The fact that it is not my fault does not make it suck any less. In fact, it sucks much more because at least if it was my fault then I could fix the problem simply by changing my behavior.

Today he is in rare form. Actually, it started yesterday afternoon. At nap time yesterday, I knew he was asleep because it was quiet (a rarity in our house)and I went to check the damage. (There is always collateral damage from the fits he throws before he falls asleep.) I couldn’t find him. I just saw this:

Can you find him? He’s asleep in the hamper. 10 minutes after I took this picture he was awake, had the hamper upside-down and was standing on it in order to reach the blinds on the window. One of his favorite things to do is unravel them completely.

About 20 minutes after that I was starting to make dinner and he was watching a cartoon. He called to me, “Mommy? Can I have a new pull-up?” I told him to wait a minute and he said, “Well, can I just wash my hands?” Cue panic attack. I knew what that meant. He had poop all over his hands and had used it to “paint” our entertainment center. That’s not the first poop-on-hands incident and it won’t be the last. (In fact, it wasn’t even the last within a 12 hour period.)

This morning started out by discovering that he had scaled the baby gate that is supposed to keep him contained in his room at night (because he doesn’t sleep well and it is not unusual to find him playing with toy trains or doing belly flops from his headboard onto the mattress in the middle of the night). He was in the bathroom scattering his bath toys everywhere. Thankfully he hadn’t found anything too dangerous. This is my biggest concern because that is by far the most dangerous room in our house for him.

I just redirected him to the kitchen where I got him some breakfast, bananas, and yogurt. We are working on self-feeding skills with the occupational therapist. Today was a step backward. He dumped the yogurt on the table, the floor, and himself and “washed” all three of those surfaces with it. After I cleaned him up and he started to play I typed an email to my husband explaining how the morning had started. In the middle of that email, the dreaded call from the next room came. “Mommy! I need to wash my hands!” Yes, it was more poop.

I cleaned that up and made the baby the bottle she takes before her morning nap. I guarantee it took me less than three minutes to make that bottle. When I went back into the living room the tv was hanging out of the entertainment center (for the third time this week) and all of the couch cushions were on the floor.

Now, I know what you are probably thinking. “This kid just needs a good spanking.” No, he doesn’t. He has no reaction whatsoever to a punishment of any kind, be it spanking or time out, or taking toys away. Believe me, we’ve tried them all. We’ve also tried behavior charts, stickers, a “car jar” (picking matchbox cars out of a jar for good behavior), ignoring him, a weighted vest and blanket, and he currently works with a special education teacher, an occupational therapist, and a play therapist. Even with a team of professionals, his behavior cannot be controlled. Granted, it is much improved from the violent fits of biting, scratching, pinching, and attacking the dog that we were seeing this time last year.

Despite all of it, he is my son and I love him. I cannot relate to the mothers like those on a recent episode of Dr.Phil who choose to send their adopted children “back to sender.” How dare these parents?! Yes, it is hard for us (especially me because I am the one with him 24/7) but imagine how hard it must be for him.

No, it is not fun for me to deal with poop. Or getting bitten. Or when he attacks the dog. Do you think it was fun for him to be born to a homeless mother, placed in foster care, bond with Debbie and his foster siblings, be torn away from them and come to live with us, move to a new state, and get a new baby sister all before he turned two? I’m guessing that sucked more than scrubbing someone else’s poop off your living room furniture.

Am I making excuses for him? Maybe, but he deserves it. He also deserves a mom who will change his diapers, even if he is too old for them and even if their contents is scraped off of the entertainment center.