Just a little odd

Listening overload

My mom picks Jake up after school since I'm still at work when he gets out.  She has to drive through a "pick-up" line with a sign on her dash given to us by the school, which has Jake's full name on it.  A teacher then walks through the car line with a two-way radio, calling of the names of kids coming up in the next group of 20 or so cars.

Several times during this process the last year or two, Jake's name has been called and he hasn't come out to the car.  They eventually find him, sitting at a table where he's supposed to be, but unaware that his name was called.  The first time everyone panicked.  For about 30 seconds they thought he was lost.

This happened again last week, and when I asked Jake what happened, Jake said "Sometimes the other kids just get too loud, and I have to shut my ears off."

I was fascinated by what he said, because he's never been able to put the experience into words.  He has a hard time recognizing how he feels or expressing anything but concrete concepts.

Essentially what happens is that Jake gets sensory over-loaded (too many signals being brought in by his senses all at once) and as a coping mechanism, he blocks one or more out.  Now there's Auditory Processing Disorder, where there's nothing wrong with a child's hearing per se, but what they hear doesn't make it to their brain (or gets there, and can't be interpreted correctly) - and I sometimes have thought Jake has a smattering of APD - but in this case I think that for whatever reason, he just can't deal with an excess of commotion.  However his brain is processing and organizing sensory information, it just can't keep up - so it shuts that sense off instead.

The good news is that Jake has gotten progressively better at dealing with loud noises and functioning when he's uncomfortable - for me, what I look for is progress (rather than hoping he'll magically stop having these issues.)  And the people in the pick-up line have learned that this happens sometimes, and they don't have to shut things down for a possible missing child until they've called his name again.  ;)

Homebody.

If it were up to Jake, he would never leave our house.  He very often breaks down due to being away from home for too long, or not having at least one day during the weekend when we don't leave the house at all. 

We have an argument almost every time I ask him to get his shoes on and get ready to go somewhere with me - even if it's just out for 20 minutes to get groceries.  He does have his moments when he's decided that he wants to go somewhere - this usually involves a quest for sugar or for toys - but on the whole, he wants to be home.

Jake's new idea is that he should be home-schooled.

If he were home-schooled, Jake reasons, he'd never have to leave the house.  I would save money on gas because I wouldn't have to drive him to school (never-mind that school is less than a mile away and on my way to work.)  All this, plus I could spend more time with him: "Mom, do you like taking care of me?"  "Of course I do, Jake." "Well you could take care of me MORE!  Wouldn't you like that, mom?"

The real reasons I suspect he's asking me 50 times a day if he can be home-schooled are (1.) he hates getting up in the mornings, (2.) he's not fond of the hustle and bustle of the school day (too much sensory information coming at him) and (3.) he thinks he could play Wii for "recess."

Now I think homeschooling is great and amazing and a wonderful option for a lot of families.  But I also know that Jake's needs are being met in our local school district and that he REALLY needs the structure of the school day and being around his peers.  It's almost like exposure therapy for him - the more time he spends at school and learning to cope with what makes him uncomfortable (i.e. anything that involves leaving the house), the better he's able to cope in every other area of life.  And my big picture goal is that he will be able to function independently as an adult, so the whole coping with life thing is kind of important.

When I explained to Jake that I am a single mom and working is necessary for us to have a house and to buy food - and thus there is NO way I could stop working to school him full-time - he said "Maybe my Nana can do it."

My mom has taken care of Jake while I work from the time he was 13 months old.  I moved to Nashville from Montana in 1997, and my parents followed in 2003, to be close to Jake.  They have been a huge help, and it's great that he has such a close relationship with them.  Now that Jake is school age, he spends every day with my mom during the summer, and during the school year she picks him up each day after school.

My mom told me the day after Jake and I had the initial home-school conversation that he asked her if SHE could home-school him.  She was asking him questions about why he was asking, and he ended up asking her:

"If my mom says yes, can you move in tomorrow to start?"

Meltdowns

* note: I wrote this on July 12th, 2006, when Jake was almost 4.  If you ever see a child throwing what seems to be an extreme tantrum, don't judge too harshly; it could be that they're having a meltdown that they honestly can't control, and it's certainly not for any lack of good parenting.

And I'm happy to say that meltdowns of this sort are almost completely a thing of the past, as Jake gets older and better learns to deal with frustrations and sensory issues.

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I haven't talked much about Jake's meltdowns. But they're frequent. And totally random. Most of the time, it's because Jake's gotten to the point where he's processed so much sensory information in a certain time span, and something small happens to tip the scales to overload. He screams and cries and can't deal with life. It kind of reminds me of spells that colicky babies have in the evenings.

Meltdowns are very different than tantrums -- they're not caused by brattiness or trying to get his way or anger or manipulation. It's simply something that happens when Jake's brain can't process and organize any more information. It also happens when he gets startled or frightened -- instead of a fight or flight response being triggered, he breaks down.

Jake had a horrible meltdown at Ryan's birthday party because he was running around in a playland thing (was overstimulated to start with and it was 2 p.m. and he hadn't had a nap) and a little boy he didn't know got too close to him and was too loud. Jake was crying harder during this meltdown than he did when he broke his arm. He was terrified and he completely freaked out all the grown-ups in the room, because they thought he had hurt himself. It was probably one of the worst meltdowns he'd ever had.

Yesterday I had to drive Lou's car because Lou took mine to get it fixed. I woke Jake up from a nap when I picked him up from my mom's -- and I'm starting to learn that Jake REALLY does not do well following a too-short nap, or mid-day if he hasn't had a nap. When we pulled into our driveway, it dawned on Jake that we weren't in my car. He started whining "I don't like this car! This not MY car." I told him we were done being in it, and we would take my car tomorrow.

Lou had parked my car in his spot in the driveway, so I had to park Lou's car in my spot. Jake starts crying when he realizes this. "That's the wrong spot! That's not where it goes!" And enter a meltdown. Complete crying and freak-out session because our cars weren't in the spots that they normally were. Even once he calmed down, he was asking me to move the cars.

I'm used to these occurrences, so it doesn't bother me -- although sometimes it frustrates me because I'm trying to do something else. But I can tune out his crying, knowing that he just needs to get it out of his system and then he'll be fine.  (Typically I sit with him in a dark room - so there's no further stimulation - and he cries for a while; and then he just stops and starts acting normal again.  I swear to goodness it's like a switch in his brain gets flipped back.) And once he's done, he recovers and gets on with his day like nothing has happened.

It's interesting at our house.

* note: I wrote this on July 12th, 2006, when Jake was almost 4.  If you ever see a child throwing what seems to be an extreme tantrum, don't judge too harshly; it could be that they're having a meltdown that they honestly can't control, and it's certainly not for any lack of good parenting.

And I'm happy to say that meltdowns of this sort are almost completely a thing of the past, as Jake gets older and better learns to deal with frustrations and sensory issues.

------------------

I haven't talked much about Jake's meltdowns. But they're frequent. And totally random. Most of the time, it's because Jake's gotten to the point where he's processed so much sensory information in a certain time span, and something small happens to tip the scales to overload. He screams and cries and can't deal with life. It kind of reminds me of spells that colicky babies have in the evenings.

Meltdowns are very different than tantrums -- they're not caused by brattiness or trying to get his way or anger or manipulation. It's simply something that happens when Jake's brain can't process and organize any more information. It also happens when he gets startled or frightened -- instead of a fight or flight response being triggered, he breaks down.

Jake had a horrible meltdown at Ryan's birthday party because he was running around in a playland thing (was overstimulated to start with and it was 2 p.m. and he hadn't had a nap) and a little boy he didn't know got too close to him and was too loud. Jake was crying harder during this meltdown than he did when he broke his arm. He was terrified and he completely freaked out all the grown-ups in the room, because they thought he had hurt himself. It was probably one of the worst meltdowns he'd ever had.

Yesterday I had to drive Lou's car because Lou took mine to get it fixed. I woke Jake up from a nap when I picked him up from my mom's -- and I'm starting to learn that Jake REALLY does not do well following a too-short nap, or mid-day if he hasn't had a nap. When we pulled into our driveway, it dawned on Jake that we weren't in my car. He started whining "I don't like this car! This not MY car." I told him we were done being in it, and we would take my car tomorrow.

Lou had parked my car in his spot in the driveway, so I had to park Lou's car in my spot. Jake starts crying when he realizes this. "That's the wrong spot! That's not where it goes!" And enter a meltdown. Complete crying and freak-out session because our cars weren't in the spots that they normally were. Even once he calmed down, he was asking me to move the cars.

I'm used to these occurrences, so it doesn't bother me -- although sometimes it frustrates me because I'm trying to do something else. But I can tune out his crying, knowing that he just needs to get it out of his system and then he'll be fine.  (Typically I sit with him in a dark room - so there's no further stimulation - and he cries for a while; and then he just stops and starts acting normal again.  I swear to goodness it's like a switch in his brain gets flipped back.) And once he's done, he recovers and gets on with his day like nothing has happened.

It's interesting at our house.