Love in the Midst of Meltdown Hell

I have been reading "The Explosive Child" over the past week and with each page turned, I become more excited to start using the methods. I've already started trying to ignore and "let go" of certain behaviors like name-calling and screaming. Old habits die hard and I'm not getting it right every time yet. But I'm getting better. Especially now that I got past the part in the book that tells me what I CAN respond to and how best to do it.

This past week has been terrible for melt-downs. It's like he's getting worse. But I have to acknowledge that his life must seem pretty out of control for him right now. He has a newborn sister who is sick. His dad has been feeding him food with gluten in it and I think that may be contributing since we do have medical lab results saying he is gluten intolerant.

And I haven't been totally sticking to his diet either. Last weekend I gave him strawberries, during the week, an orange. Also I've been giving him a new multi-vitamin and making a new bun mix. Any of these things could be contributing.

His father isn't helping matters. Yesterday when our son was getting frustrated, he began to verbally attack his dad.

Dad (who I personally believe is the adult version of an inflexible-explosive child who never developed the skills I'm attempting to teach my son) responded with a meltdown of his own. He reached over to our son's lego house that he's been working on for the past week and said that when our son talks to him like that it makes him want to break his lego house. When this response only made our son more verbally abusive, Dad pushed the lego house off the edge of the table letting it smash to pieces on the floor.

As you might predict (and I'm sure ANY child would do the same), Our son screamed in horror at the top of his lungs. He came running upstairs to tell me what happened. I was lying on my bed nursing my one-month-old.

I was unbelieving. Although it's true that Dad has behaved very childishly in the past, I still found it incredible that he would do such a thing. My son assured me that he did. I said, "Maybe he was just cleaning up." But my son said: "No, I was looking at his face when he did it and he had a mad face." I asked my son, "Why was Dad mad at you?" And he responded crying loudly: "I can't remember!"

A few moments later, Dad came into the bedroom scolding our son for whatever he'd said to Dad, and informing us that he was leaving. Then he followed our son downstairs and continued to scream at him about what an awful child he is.

I broke free from my nursing newborn and attempted to intervene because I can't stand to see my son being punished for behavior he has no control over. That's when Dad turned on me and blamed me as our son's "primary caregiver" for not raising a son who knows how to respect his elders. Meanwhile, baby sister too has started crying. Our son is falling apart about his lego house. And I'm in shock wondering how my house went from quiet and peaceful to psycho-ward material in a matter of minutes.

Needless to say, I was happy to see my ex-husband leave.

This had been a long day of difficulties for my son. Earlier I'd asked my dad to come over and drive me to the hospital because my youngest daughter is sick with a terrible sounding cough, congested nose, and vomiting. She's only a month old, so this can be serious stuff. My son was playing in the snow when my dad arrived.

Thinking to help me, my dad asked my son several times to come and get into the car because we're going to the hospital. My son wasn't ready to leave the snow yet and didn't budge. My dad decided a heavy hand was needed (and he'd seen me do the same many times in the past so he probably didn't think it was wrong) and he picked my son up and carried him kicking and screaming to the door of our house.

"The Explosive Child" warns about physical contact during meltdown phase...

My dad dumped my screaming son in the door. All the while he was kicking, screaming, and telling my dad what a stupid idiot he is and how much he hates him. My dad, feeling very upset and offended got in the last barb before walking out the door to wait in the car and called my son "a spoiled little brat."

I can't blame him. I've done a lot worse than that in my attempts to punish my son for his behavior (like hitting him back, telling him maybe he should go live with his dad, feeling almost hatred towards him in darker moments of his disability). Before I understood that he couldn't help it, I was determined to "teach him a lesson."

Now my son was adamant that he was not getting into a car with Papa.

It took about 15 minutes for me to calm him down. I used the Collaborative Problem Solving technique described in the book. I told him we needed to compromise. He didn't want to go in the car but I needed him to go in the car because we had to take his baby sister to the hospital. He was too far gone to consider a compromise himself, so I suggested one. I suggested he comes in the car but he doesn't talk to Papa. After a few minutes, and I'll admit I cried in front my son while attempting this negotiation, he agreed to the compromise. (It had been a stressful few days with my sick newborn and out of control son.)

Once we were in the car, (thankfully) my dad acted as if nothing happened and suggested taking my son for fries while baby sister and Mommy went to emergency. My son came around pretty fast. It was actually kind of surprising.

I've also had a few other surprises. Although my son seems to be melting down every few minutes over any little thing (he dropped his pencil, he leaned on his button getting out of bed, his older sister's singing is "annoying" him, etc), I am ignoring all his outbursts. And what is surprising is that after several of his outbursts, he walked over, gave me a hug and told me how much he loves me.

This morning it went basically like this:

My son: AAAAAGGGHHHHH! I DON'T WANT TO GET DRESSED YOU STUPID IDIOT! NOW SHUT UP!

Me: (cleaning kitchen and completely not responding)

My son (comes over to me two minutes later and wraps his arms around my legs): I love you so much, Mom! You're the best.

Normally I would calmly remind my son that he should not talk to me like that and then he'd respond with something about how he hates me or how I must not care about him. Then I'd reassure him that I still love him even when he treats me like this. But this was an interesting development. Ignoring him completely - acting as if it didn't even happen - worked better faster. (And I have to tell you that short outbursts are much preferred to prolonged screaming fits.)

If I hadn't read the book and I'd tried the ignoring completely thing, I'd think he's manic-depressive. But I now know he's "incoherent" when he's frustrated. His reaction to this incoherence is to yell every bad thing he can think of and sometimes hit or kick.

Getting mad at him makes him more incoherent and his reaction becomes even more out of control. Not reacting to him gives him a chance to calm down, gain back his coherence and in the aftermath, he wants to make up to me, so he tells me he loves me.

I can't tell you how much this warms my heart. For the first time in a long time I feel like my son actually does love me. Often it felt like he only loves me when he gets what he wants or things are going his way. But the truth is, he's loved me all along. He just can't cope normally with heightened emotion. He is emotionally developmentally delayed.

(And I've punished him for it incessantly!)

My oldest daughter has a learning disability math disorder. I wouldn't get mad at her for not learning math. So I shouldn't get mad at my son for not learning emotional control. That is *his* learning disability. And as their mother, it's my job to do what works. Not what others expect me to do.

My son is not a "spoiled little brat." He is doing the best he can with the skills he possesses. And if you take away the meltdowns, he is a loving, intelligent, funny, creative, beautiful person. So as the book instructs, my first priority is to REDUCE MELTDOWNS.

The Teacher Who "Doesn't Do Rude"

From September till December, my daughter LOVED school. She hated to miss a day. She had a fantastic, nurturing teacher at her alternative school. Staff changes that parents were not warned of in any way occurred over the holidays, and when my daughter returned, she suddenly had two teachers - neither of them very nurturing and quite the opposite of fantastic.

On my daughter's first day back after Christmas holidays, she bounded happily up to her new teacher's desk. "Can you open my banana?" she asked sweetly. (It's how my daughter talks when she doesn't know someone very well - sweetly.)

Her teacher looked down her nose at my daughter with a scowl on her face and said "Excuse me but I won't help you do anything until you use your manners." My daughter came home crying over that one. She stressed all night about it. "But I was so nice when I asked, Mom!"

I agreed that it was a bit harsh, but told my daughter she needs to remember her manners and I encouraged her to have a positive attitude about the next day.

The next day was no better than the first. The kids I carpool from my daughter's class concurred. The new female teacher is mean and the new male teacher is not much better. My daughter is beginning to have serious anxiety about school. "What if they don't let me use a calculator, Mom? What if they ask me questions in class?!"

I had moved heaven and earth to find the right school for my daughter where her learning disability would not impair her confidence and where the philosophy was one of nurturing and caring. As far as I was concerned, the evil anxiety needed to be nipped in the bud.

Day three of my daughter being back from holidays I descended on the school with her Psych. Ed. Assessment in hand. I spoke briefly with the male teacher and had an office visit with the female teacher. I could immediately tell that she was an ass-kisser and a fake. But she promised to let my daughter use a calculator and not fire questions at her (which she doesn't do anyway, she said).

I shared some of the transition our family has experienced over the past year and hoped that our talk would encourage the teacher to be gentle with my daughter. She requires a delicate approach, I emphasized.

Holy backfire on my ass, Batman! Over the next week, my daughter was perpetually being punished for one thing or another. This information was all served up to me with the "sincere understanding" that my daughter has been through a lot lately and with the new baby coming any day now, it's probably that she's just transitioning. She used my sharing of our family's hardships as an excuse to punish my daughter for her "behavior."

Let me stop here to say that never in all of my daughter's educational career has any teacher had problems with her "behavior." What I hear from teachers and other parents is "your daughter is such a pleasure"; "she has such a big heart"; "I love having her in my class / over at my house"; and even "she's my favourite."

The female teacher only teaches two full days a week but she is also the vice principal, so she is at the school every day. My daughter attended her classes with the male teacher in between with only minor trepidation, but she dreaded Tuesday when once again, she would spend the day in this woman's class.

The following Tuesday arrives and I pep talk my daughter in the morning. Behave your best, no talking in class, listen to everything the teacher tells you to do...just be yourself, Angel. I can't imagine my daughter misbehaving so terribly that any teacher wouldn't like her.

Later that day I get a strange message on my phone from my daughter. She sounds like she's distracted by other people in the school office and she tells me "Mom, I have something important to tell you after school." I admit my first instinct was to jump in the car and go straight to the school. I sensed something was wrong. But was working from home on a deadline and the message had seemed innocent enough. Plus school was almost out.

When I arrived at the end of the day to pick up the kids, my son had left something behind in his class so we didn't see his sister right away. Actually, the bitch teacher came up to me before I saw my daughter and proceeded, very ingratiatingly, to tell me that my daughter had had "yet another bad day." Then she offered her reassurances that it was probably because of the transition to two new teachers, and the impending birth of her new little sister.

I had a distinct feeling like she was trying to put out some kind of fire and I wondered what had happened during the day. I was already sick of her and responded quite frankly that she was the first teacher who had ever had a bad thing to say about my daughter, then I walked away from her when she was in mid-sentence.

On the drive home, my daughter burst into sobs and told me about how her teacher had swatted her across the nose. The story goes that the teacher had asked the children to close their eyes because they were going to use their imaginations. My daughter didn't close her eyes and Mrs. Fucking Bitch leaned in her face, said menacingly "CLOSE YOUR EYES," and swatted her hand in front of my daughter's face, clipping (inadvertently, I like to believe) my daughter's nose.

My girl was inconsolable. I wanted to turn around and drive directly back to the school but she begged me not to. I have been a victim of assault and I have been a support worker for many years. I recognized the signs of trauma and of course, I did not turn around and go back. She stayed home the next day while I tried to decide how I was going to handle this new development. Rage seethed in my veins.

On Thursday, I called the school and requested to have a meeting with my daughter's teacher, who is also the vice principal, let's not forget. (In fact, due to low numbers and as part of the staff changeover during Christmas break, our school had the "principal" position taken away and given to the principal of a nearby school who was rarely on the property. I hadn't even met her yet.) I was given a meeting time for Friday morning.

I also took my daughter back to school on that day because the male teacher was in class. Over the course of the day, my daughter shared with some of her friends what her female teacher had done and how her mom (that's me) considers it assault. A couple of the children ran up on lunch and told another teacher about it.

If you can believe this, that teacher confronted my daughter about it! Oooh, I just tremble with rage to think of it. Another teacher at the school who has absolutely nothing to do with the situation, hears about a possible assault by a teacher on a student, and instead of phoning me or talking to a teacher my daughter knows and trusts, or arranging a meeting with me or anything that would be more appropriate if a child is abused by an adult, went to directly confront my daughter about it.

My girl started crying and said it was only a rumour. Then she went to the office and phoned me. I had told her that she should phone me for any reason, and I had let the secretary in the office know this too. She told me what had happened and I was outraged.

I spoke to the secretary and said that I wanted to know how some teacher felt she could approach my child in this way. She apologized and assured me that the vice-principal (yes, the self-same bitch who assaulted my daughter) had heard about the "rumour" and instructed all the teachers to not approach my daughter without me present.

I was also told that our meeting would need to be postponed to Monday morning because the vice-principal was busy all Friday in the library (another one of the places where my children must interact with her).

By Friday, my daughter is feeling the cold looks and disapproving attitudes directed at her from some of the teachers. Fortunately there are two teachers who treat her kindly and make her feel safe - one is the aboriginal outreach worker and she's only in a couple times a week and the other is a teacher who previous to now had always terrified my daughter. He is an imposing man, with a strong personality, and a take no prisoners attitude. Certainly not what I'd call "nurturing" but a welcome replacement for Mrs. Swat-Your-Face any day. That day I went on a tour of another elementary school near my house - just to check out our options.

Monday morning, we had our meeting. "What do you think she'll say, Mama?" my daughter asks on the way to school. She has stressed and cried all weekend. "I think she'll deny it," I told her honestly. "Then what will you say?" she asked. "I'll tell her that my daughter doesn't lie," I assured her.

My daughter had already decided that if there was any way to salvage this relationship with her teacher, she wanted to stay at the school where she had developed some very close friendships and where she had previously loved being a student. I had no idea how I was going to manage to express my outrage and also smooth things out for my daughter, but I did my best during that meeting. I really did.

She denied it as I knew she would. And I told her that my daughter doesn't lie, as I said I would. I gave her an out, however. I conceded that it may have been unintentional and that we'd like to find a way for my daughter to feel comfortable in school again and that we didn't want to pull her out.

The teacher promised she would try her best to win over my daughter (fucking liar) and I offered several suggestions ranging from "using a different, more nurturing approach" to "stop telling the class how much better than them her last class had been." (Of course, she denied that she'd ever done this either although many students and parents had informed me this was a daily occurrence.)

Let me just say that by this point, two other parents had shared similar bullying experiences of this teacher towards their children where the teacher squeezed their shoulders very hard digging her nails in. I did not bring this point up as I felt it was the responsibility of the other parents to address it. I did say, however, that I did not think that ANY physical contact between a teacher and a grade five student was necessary and she said perhaps I was right. (She's an ass-kissing, two-faced bitch.)

That day, my daughter was punished by yet another teacher for asking a question in class about imaginary friends. Already fuming in general, I let that one go. But I did approach the teacher the next morning to introduce myself (and subtly let her know that I was aware of her now and she was on my radar). Punishing a child for asking a question. This was going too far. And this is a child care worker!

Tuesday marked the third week back at school with the offending teacher. We pep talked, we visualized positive energy, we mentally prepared and when the whole day went by without a phone call home, I was optimistic. I showed up a few minutes early for dismissal, however, and was quickly pulled aside by the secretary.

She told me that my daughter had been "misbehaving again" and had been "sent to backup again." (Previously to now, Sophia had only once ever been sent to backup - the preferred punishment method of the school - and she'd been devastated because she so rarely got in trouble.)

Apparently, she continued to misbehave in backup and when she was sent back to her classroom, she had come to the office asking to phone me. Instead of letting her phone me, like I had requested the week before, the secretary told her "I will take care of you," took her back to her classroom and left her there to be reprimanded by the dragon lady for going to the office without permission.

At this point, my daughter broke down and told her teacher that she hated her.

Upon hearing all this, I was trembling with anger. I did not care if my daughter WAS misbehaving, this was bullshit. Last week the woman assaults her, and this week she's not allowed to phone home when she's feeling alone and vulnerable?

I spoke quite firmly with the secretary that I thought my daughter should have been allowed to phone me because of the assault and that my daughter had never had "behaviour problems" with her former teacher. The secretary responded that the previous teacher had no control over the class and that our kids needed to learn some respect. She also told me that she didn't believe my daughter about the assault because the teacher had denied it.

"My daughter doesn't lie," I told her. I'm ready to tear this school apart at this point. But I haven't heard my daughter's side of the story yet and I need to know what else happened and how everything had come to this point.

Meanwhile, the teacher is supplicating to me that she is trying so hard with my daughter but nothing is working. She's letting so many things go and making such an effort..."But I don't do rude," she finished. She's indicating that it is my child who is rude.

Another night of listening to my daughter's concerns and I laid sleepless for four hours. How could I send my daughter to school to be the target of so many adults, rallying together to protect another adult? Who was protecting my daughter?

That was two days ago. Yesterday, unable to send my daughter into the lion's den unaccompanied, I asked to sit in on the class and volunteer or observe. I was told no. So I sat outside the classroom all day. It was the first day that my daughter had with this teacher that didn't disintegrate into disaster. I guess evening out the odds (of adults taking sides, that is - and I am equal to as many adults as they can muster against my child) made the difference. I also called the principal and asked for a meeting.

She said she can't organize her schedule around the fact that I'm due to go into labour any moment, but she'd get back to me this week as to when we could all meet for an appointment. She also made the suggestion that I let my daughter talk to me about her feelings. Wow, eh? Sounds like she's really going to help us solve these problems. (dripping with sarcasm)

After school, I got to witness Mrs. Bad-Actress-I-Can-See-Right-Thru-You in her glory. A boy who is known at the school for having some issues and needing extra support, ran up to her with a big smile on his face. I didn't hear what he said, but I heard her loud and clear. She turned to him, looked down her nose, and said in a condescending voice "Excuse me, but I am having a conversation right now and it is rude to interrupt."

He seemed confused at first. He continued to smile waiting for her next comment, but she turned from him to the parent, effectively dismissing him. His smile faltered, he walked away, and she never did get to hear whatever his good news was.

Now you tell me who's rude?