Silly sounds, rude faces and talking back....
A sign of an episode?

I have really been watching for any patterns in Harry's behavior lately, to see if we can determine an episode of ADHD coming.
Something I have noticed....

Trigger
Milk? he had milk today for first time in 3 days (could be a coincidence)

Signs
Silly sounds, like bla bla bla bla, neh neh neh,
Along with silly faces, sticking out the tongue, the rolling eyes
His work becomes less focused, scribble and "out of control"
He will talk back and call names
Seems to have more energy, spins, flaps, rocks on chair, can not sit still
Everything seems to be more exaggerated, the voice is louder, the movements bigger, the emotions and drama over the top.

Interventions
At this point, short direct directions are the best for him.
Settling him in an activity that he enjoys, like drawing (maybe with a new book or crayon to make it seem exciting) TV is a great downer for him, the soothing effect is great when things are getting really high.

A rough start to the day!

Harry will have long periods where he is the normal, sweet, helpful, child that he is. Then every so often out of the blue with no warning he is completely an ADHD case.....

Today started out with yelling, nothing could be said in a normal voice, every thing was screamed even though the person he was speaking too was right next to him.

Very demanding, wants things then and there. Like breakfast, he appeared to be frustrated that I was doing something and not getting his breakfast straight away.

It was all about him this morning, if he wanted something he demanded it, if he was talking then he demanded to be listened too, if he was sitting at the table then Thomas could not sit there too.

He was all up in Thomas face today, with sounds and silly faces, just needed that attention.

Now he is running around the house, its like he has so much energy he has to burn off.
Eating breakfast he needed to stand next to his chair and shake around.
While not talking or having anything to say, he would continue to be vocal with silly sounds.

He wanted to be hit by his brother, he said he loved it and wanted him to keep doing it.
There was a cushion on the ground which he ran circles around for a few mins then ran out of the room, raring ready to go, like a race car!

He is now upstairs throwing toys around the playroom making more verbal noises.

This has been our morning!

I have just turned the tv on and ahhhhh, Silence! First time this morning. TV really is a grounding self soothing thing for Harry.

5mins while typing this and he is still sitting quietly on the couch watching tv, it really is this mama's saving grace this morning!

Because of the ups and downs where for a week he is fine and then a few days he is off the wall, it really is saying to me that he has triggers to his ADHD. What are these triggers? food, environmental, sleep? Maybe once we find these triggers we can better handle and predict his ADHD moments.

He hasn't been sleeping well, having late nights and not winding down at night, could this be a sign that he is about to have an ADHD episode? or could this be a cause? not enough sleep.

Yesterday he said he drank a lot of milk at school. Could he be lactose intolerant? Another trigger maybe? was there a color or flavor in a food yesterday? Something really did trigger him off yesterday....but what? Maybe when we find out this we can really help him.

Tickle Monsters....

Tummy tickles are the best! I love giving them to my boys. Thomas screams...more! More! I usually sit on his legs, pin his arms back and tickle tickle tickle the belly! So fun! He will then with tears of laughter say, that's enough! And so I stop and then he says again! we have a great time doing this.

The other day Harry saw me doing it to Harry and he started to tickle my back while I was tickling Thomas, so I let him tickle me and I laughed. Then I turned around and thought I will do the same thing to Harry, I pinned him down and started tickling, it was hilarious. He did the "I need to go potty" so off he went. In the mean time I was chasing Thomas around the house trying to catch him, Thomas was laughing and running around. Harry joined in saying, you can't get me! So I chased them both up stairs, we chased Thomas into his bedroom and tickled him on his bed. Then it was Thomas and my turn to chase Harry into his bedroom. He jumped up on his bed and the tickling began, Thomas was more just watching as I tickled Harry on the belly.

He then started screaming, mind you I always look for the cues to say it is getting to much for them or they have had enough, no signs this time. He went from laughing to screaming bloody murder! I jumped off of him really quickly, he continued to cry uncontrollably, screaming get out of my room, the joy and the fun, the playing had gone. He seemed to be furious and very upset. I asked him if he was ok and he said just leave me alone. So I left the room with him crying on his bed. Not exactly the outcome to a fun moment I was looking for. I was shocked how quickly he had gone from fun to sadness. I really didn't understand?

Not sure if he was too overwhelmed? Was feeling scarred in his safe place, his bedroom? Really didn't know why the tears and anger arouse so quickly? This mom is still puzzled over this moment!

Unpredictability!

Words that come into my mind about Harry at the moment are....
Angry, confused, emotional, sensitive, frustrated, fragile, sad!
One second happy the next minute sad. Something that brought a smile to his face one second could bring complete oversensitiveness and frustration the next.

I don't know what the trigger is to setting him off or what I can do that will bring him joy? He is so unpredictable, it is scary to be around him. He hits his head, he screams, he slams doors, pushes his brother over, hits what ever is around (luckily he does not hit people) he threatens and cries.

I know I shouldn't take things personally, but it is hard when all I do is open my mouth to offer support and he starts screaming that he hates me. Like what happened outside yesterday...

Harry and Thomas were playing really nicely (laughing and not pushing each others buttons) outside together, they had been wrestling, swinging, digging in the dirt and playing with cars. Thomas lost a matchbox car in the rockwall, so Harry tried to help, he ran up stairs and got his flashlight, when he came back down stairs he came running out the patio and said I have my flashlight, Thomas started walking over towards him and before anything was said, he threw it on the hard patio out of some type of anger or frustration (not sure what happened as no one had said anything) The flashlight shattered and then Harry starts saying "Dam, I am so stupid!" He runs over to the clubhouse and starts crying his eyes out. A very upset and sad cry. I asked him if he was OK? He got up (still crying) walked over to his flashlight and held the broken pieces out to me, he said nothing at first as he was still crying and then he said again "I'm so stupid". I said, can I help you fix it? On that note, he went screaming inside saying "I hate you mom, your so frustrating me!" then "I'm going to go find a new mom!"

What do I do? I am completely confused, all I wanted to do was help. As I sit here typing this, all I can think is maybe I need to ask him what we should do, instead of asking him if I can fix the problem? I will try this next time to see how that goes...will post!

So after all the drama that took place with the flashlight, I gave him some space, after about 30mins I went upstairs to see what he was up to? He was very quiet and honestly I was a little scared for his safety, was he hurting himself? had he really run off?
Thank god he was just sitting in his bedroom playing with Lego, as I walked in, it startled him and he accidentally broke something off of his ship, oh no I thought, is this the next trigger for a meltdown? But no, all he said was "Oops! that goes on here!" I was relieved but once again completely confused.

How can we even try and help him academically at the moment when we are finding it so hard to cope with his emotions and behavior.

Dave tried to read with him last night at bedtime and the result of that was more screaming, tears and Harry running into my room screaming I want my mom! When all Dave did was ask "come on Harry its time to read!" They had not even read a word yet.

Its like we are falling backwards with his development, barley keeping our heads above water!

Bedtime Routine

Bedtime routine we now do 3 pages of exercises from a kindergarden workbook.

Everything goes well until he makes his first mistake. Then he is no longer interested. He immediately wants to either do a different page or do it tomorrow. He also slapped his head hard. He also said something along of the lines that he was stupid and he cant do it.

I persist with trying to correct the mistake and finish the page. This makes things worse. Harry insists on doing another page to the point of tantrum. This resulted in Harry wanting mummy and running out of the room.

Harry finds it very difficult to work through mistakes or correct himself. When I tried to correct his pronounciation of "yellow" from "lellow" - he could pronounce "yeh" and "ellow" but couldnt string them together. He then immediately lost interest in that page so I moved on.

This is a bit of a catch up! As we have just started this blog, we hope to be updating it daily. So this post is a bit of a catch up of the week.

• Behavior/Headbutting - Tonight, Something we haven't seen a lot of lately is the headbutting, but man did it make an appearance tonight! During dinner, which was going really well, he was eating all his chicken and sweet potato. And then all of a sudden. out of now where...BAM! Really hard against the tile table top (enough to crack the grout) I think it was because we told him he couldn't have my fry that I had put aside for him until he had finished his chicken, he ate some chicken and then tried to sneak the fry of my plate and I told him he had to eat the last two mouth fulls of chicken. This response was totally out of the blue! The more surprising thing was how quickly he moved on from it, no crying or attention on his part and was past as soon as it happened, almost as if it didn't happen. Very strange?
  

• Learning - When working in a kindergarten work book with dad, if its an exercise he can do in his book he is happy to do it, but when it's something he finds hard he says "can we do it tomorrow!" and there really is no compromise or talking him into it, even with help. Its hard to get him to even just try it!
  

• Learning - We have been doing a word of the day, this is to get him focused on a easy word, where he can practice reading, spelling and sounding out, keeping it all simple. We did the word "cat" yesterday and while he was great at sounding out the letters he could not tell me what the word said. when asked to write the word on the chalk board next to it, he did not want to and said he would do it later and that he was too tired. funny how he was awake enough to go play lego after that. Its like there is always something else he would rather be doing.

• Behavior/Social/Emotional - This week Harry's hardest moments have been when we are going out. I will tell him what we are doing for the day and straight away "I don't want to go out!" Getting him dressed and out the door has been a 30min plus process that is always a battle with tears, screaming and foot stomping. All that just to get out the door and then when we get there from the moment we arrive to the time we finally get back in the car to leave, all I hear is "mommy I don't want to stay, can we go home?" repeatedly until we go, makes for a fun time out...not!

• Behavior/Emotional - Tonight when asked to get in the bath, he didn't want to go upstairs and cried and said he just wants to be with his mommy, when asked to go up he said "please I want to stay with you!" then I suggested why don't you have a shower then, off he goes!