analyze him

Today we saw the developmental and behavioral specialist again. Lemme refresh your memory. R2, our special needs 10 year old, has violent rages when he's not being angelic. Those are pretty much the 2 options. So we saw a psychologist last month and they sent us home with a spreadsheet. I'll let that sit for a minute, for humor purposes.

Seriously, though, they wanted us to chart his fits and try to find some patterns and such. The only pattern I charted the first two weeks was his ability to NOT do something expected. Zero fits. Textbook. Then, the last two weeks, he used up all that stored tantrum with a couple of doozies. One fit lasted 55 minutes, with toddlers screaming outside the bedroom door and peeing on the floor in the hallway and dropping bowls of macaroni across the kitchen while R2 screamed. I used my webcam to tape that one and took the video with me today to the clinic.

The psychologist is young. Maybe younger than me. Last time, the supervising psych was in there, too, but today we just had the younger one. Sometimes, I feel like telling these nervous younger docs what to do. Eventually, she had some helpful ideas for helping R2 communicate, and then after we watched the videos of the fits, she said I was amazing and very patient.

There's something very healing about being honored by doctors and teachers. I think most parents of special needs kids are constantly second-guessing themselves and trying to make the best of a complicated situation, and there is always ignorance and implied (as well as direct) criticism. So when someone who sees a lot of these kids and knows how hard it can be says you're doing a good job, it means a ton.

I asked about a straitjacket, but no go. So, 2 visits down and no tranquilizer darts or straitjackets. What are these people doing, anyway?