Chicken Little

more commonly known as James.
Newly turned 10 in March this year.

My little sunshine - the child I knew I was put on this earth to create, grow, give birth to, nurture and encourage to become an amazing human being. I Love both my children equally but so differently. I have a connection with this little person I cannot explain nor do I think I could ever re-create.

The chubbiest little boy with the ocean blue eyes that only had eyes for his mummy soon turned into a green eyed little boy who was disconnected from life and lost. By the time he was in pre-school, we knew something was very wrong.  Our happy boy had a bad temper and no way to express himself - he refused to speak or even try different ways of communicating.  

We sent him to kindergarten to be taught by one of the best kindy teachers we could find - she was renowned for helping kids like James to turn that corner. By the end of kindy, despite massive improvement, he was still struggling.

I could feel our beautiful little boy slipping away. At the start of year 1 we managed to get a referral for a developmental Paediatrician, but 6 months away. 

 

We started him in weekly speech therapy, had his hearing tested, had him visit with an OT regularly.  Officially diagnosed in July 2012 after a particularly horrific 6 months with a teacher who lacked patience and insight to bother considering there was something more to his behaviour rather than her presumption that he was a spoilt brat who deserved to be beaten and punished for his inability to focus or complete school work. (She really is someone I hope Karma catches up with).  Its hard to believe that someone who is meant to understand kids could be so far detached from those kids.

 

To say I was dead-against medication (aka Ritalin) is THE understatement of the century. Nothing good had been read about or heard about this "evil tablet", but after much coaxing, my husband and the paediatrician had me agreeing to a 1 month trial of a quick release, short acting version of the drug.  2 days later I felt like the worst mother on the planet - not for any negative reason but for the fact that in 2 days, the impact of the medication was so severe, I'm sure I would have opted for James to take a DNA test to confirm he was still our child - the difference was remarkable.

 

We soon discovered that with every gain, there is a cost. My chubby happy little eater started wasting away as his appetite went on permanent vacation. Suddenly my life became ALL about getting food into this kid. Suddenly all the foods he loved, made him feel "icky". Gone was the dairy (milk, cheese and yogurt) gone was any form of sauce on food - dry is best, but most of all gone was his zest and enthusiasm to try new foods. Meal times also changed - gone were breakfast, lunch and dinner - suddenly his breakfast time featured around 10-11am, lunch at about 4-5pm and dinner anywhere from 9-10pm.

 

Along with the appetite went the sleep.  Gone were the 12 hours sleep per night, he now averages 4-6 hours at the best of times, despite using melatonin tablets to try an assist with his insomnia. 

 

As a parent you always make sure your kids eat first and go to bed before you but when one of your kids is out of "normal" schedule, the guilt of eating my own dinner as late as I can stand to do so as to try fit in with his schedule is overwhelming. There is also nothing worse than watching the clock, waiting for kids' bedtime so you too can climb into bed because you're exhausted beyond words.

 

Mood swings and changes to personality ... phew! where to begin....

 

Firstly, the potential for sensory overload in everything and anything is ALWAYS a possibility.  Light sensitivity, noise levels too high, tastes too strong, feeling too scratchy, smells too strong ..... and that's just the tips of the iceberg.

What amazes me though is that the solution to sensory overload (or so we have discovered) is usually an opposite form of sensory overload.

 

James will have a meltdown because its too noisy and because he is having a meltdown now everyone is staring and pointing and talking about him.

The solution to this, me taking him aside quietly, letting him climb onto my lap and cling to me like a baby koala while I gently rock him side to side, singing or humming him his favourite rhyme while squeezing him as hard as I can (which horrifies me every time because I feel like I'm going to crush him but he insists on "harder" if I'm not squeezing tight enough).

 

I think he feels that he has had all this negative attention on him his entire life because of the struggles he has had to endure, that he avoids being in the spotlight at all costs.  James likes one-on-one situations. He likes to focus on one person and aims to please.  Give this beautiful boy a chance to do something for you and you will forever have a little person seeking to assist with him main priority of aiming to please. He is seeking the positive response - its just such a shame that most people cannot see this or offer this freely to him without him having to do something for them.  It costs us nothing to smile at each other to say "hello, how are you?" or "thank you" for just about anything. How about thanking him for being such a happy boy or thanking him simply for being there - imagine if every kids felt special every day of their life, their entire world would change and their goals and aims would be that much higher.

So in summation of this ADHD label.... most of us are running a Windows operating system upstairs, James is simply running a MAC.... same job, just differently.

 

All I ask of people.... just give him a chance - allow him an opportunity to show you just how gorgeous his little soul is - he is after all a normal little boy who just happens to struggle with a few things in life.