Russell:
I will tell about our last few days,
January 21st is the date today.
On Saturday night we had a babysitter, the same one we always use and he
likes her quite a bit. When we got home,
I came in and took him potty and gave him a hug and a kiss and tucked him back
into bed. The next morning he woke up
really pretty happy and went downstairs to eat breakfast as normal. He came upstairs to get ready to attend
church; everyone was dressed and was waiting to get his hair combed. This is when he started getting upset. He loves getting his hair combed and usually
asks for it every morning, today as I followed our usual routine he kept
ducking his head and wouldn’t let me comb his hair. I bent down and felt his head, maybe he hit
it the night before and I didn’t know about it, he didn’t seem bothered by any
of my touches so I lightly combed his hair just in case I was hurting him, I
said all done and he fell to the floor crying.
I asked what was the matter and he flung himself back onto the floor
still screaming. I had to hurry and
finish getting ready and everyone else too so I just ignored him and let him
throw his fit. We headed out to church,
he had calmed down by now and was feeling better, we sat in our pew and he was
sitting near the end with his brother and asked to sit with Daddy. I pick him up and lift him over so he can sit
on Daddy’s lap. He starts throwing a
fit. This one I have no idea why, maybe
he wanted to walk over but there just wasn’t room for him to walk. Dan (my husband) gets him settled down by
firmly telling him to stop. After a few
minutes he seems fine and is happily playing with some cars on Dan’s lap. He goes through most of the meeting happy. Near the end he gets off Dan’s lap and wants
to go back over to Shane, Shane is asleep so I quietly tell him no that Shane
is asleep. He says oh, asleep, then puts
his finger to his lips and says SSHHH.
He is playing right next to me and keeps trying to slyly do anything he
can to push his way over to Shane until I finally grab him arm firmly and tell
him NO! He falls to the floor crying and
Dan takes him out into the hallway for time out. He comes back in pouting and with a very
mean, angry look on his face. He holds
this throughout the remainder of the meeting.
After the first meeting we take them into a nursery. We ask them both if they need to go potty and
both said no. We take them in and the
nursery leaders come and get Dan very soon after because he has peed his
pants. He also had eaten crackers for a
snack and had made a ridiculous mess of them.
They were caked all over his hands, all over his hair, and clothes; he
got it all over the table and into another girl’s hair also. So Dan had him sit with him in a chair until
church was over. We came home and he got
a shower, which he absolutely hates, to get cleaned up from his accident and I
left him in the tub for a minute to go get his clothes and while I am gone he
poops in the tub and puts the poop up on the ledge. I am furious with him at this point and so we
go over and over again where we go potty and put him on it for a while which he
doesn’t do anything. I get him dressed
and put him directly down for a nap. He
has a pretty decent nap but very quickly turns mean and angry after waking up. I end up holding him most of the night or
have him just sit next to me. Every time
we think he is ready to go and play he is mean to someone, steals a toy or
hits. When we say something to him he
just falls to the floor crying. That is
when I usually put him in time out until he can control himself and then I hold
him until he can quit being so angry.
This can take anywhere for 10 minutes to an hour, sometimes it is all
day where he ends up sitting right next to me because I can’t trust him to go
and play and be nice. This pattern was
our whole evening until bedtime. He went
to bed fine, and woke up with wet pants, so he got another shower to get
cleaned up first thing this morning and then we went down for breakfast which
he refused to eat properly, he was making a huge mess of it, smearing it all
over his clothes and wouldn’t chew his food properly and kept trying to swallow
it whole. He lost his chance to eat
after 3 warnings; he ate about ¾ of his breakfast. So far our morning has consisted of the same
pattern as last night. He is insistent
on being mean and angry.
This is sort of normal of our daily
lives; we have better and worse days. He
is very angry most of the time, he draws towards making bad choices and loses
control over his feeling constantly. He
does not like to be told no or be redirected in any way. He sometimes acts like his brain and shut off
and that all that is left is anger, that is when he gets to spend his days
sitting next to me, his brain has turned off and it seems like he is incapable
of doing anything other than breaking the rules, being mean or breaking
something. He has just recently learned
that potty is a way to misbehave also, he went a long time with just feeling
proud of himself for his accomplishment.
I was bummed when that happened.
Behaviors
I am concerned about:
Fits over anything and everything, no direction at all can go without a
fit.
Frequently reverting on potty
training, does perfect for long periods of time
Anger daily
Hurting himself and others, cat
included
Strong desire to constantly break the
rules, main focus of his days
Will not take direction, takes
everything as an attack, even if it is simple
Lying, yes at 2, will bite himself and
blame it on someone else things like this, Rachel does the same thing
Sneaking behind my back to get what he
wants
Unwilling to learn anything from us,
how to do a puzzle or drink out of a cup without a battle or being angry at us
Will not play with toys that interest
him, always taking others toys or pushing his way into everyone else’s games
(usually forcefully)
Trying to be in control, constantly
Tells me what to do, all the time (put
on shoes, put on Russell pants, put pillow in bed, get water etc.) refuses to say
please, if I ask him to ask me nicely he will get angry. When he is in a good mood he still likes to
name the objects but the command isn’t part of it. Just pants, Russell shoes etc.
He sometimes seems to be blinded by
his anger, like he can’t see past it and then starts making really bad choices and
almost gets what I would label as stupid.
It is just in these moments, like his brain is shutting down.
Constant, constant talking and
repetition (mama home, mama home, mama, home, mama home) after each one I will
affirm, yes we are going home, he will keep going until I actually tell him to
stop it.
Excessive eating and stealing food
Whenever we have a sitter, he reverts
to behaviors that he did when he first got to our house but will not do with us
Makes most of his bad choices when he
knows I am not looking, seems premeditated.
Breaking toys, Ones that are not
easily broken
Gets satisfaction out of playing with
toys that are a favorite of other siblings and will not relent, especially when
the other sibling in sad about it. It is
almost a favorite pass time. They will
lose interest quickly if no one is upset that they are playing with the toy.
*What just happened with Russell is a
very good example of the struggles we have with him consistently. It is dinner time, we have been working on
eating with our mouth closed. He did
great with it for about two weeks, now he has turned it into a battle. We give little reminders to please eat with
your mouth closed, they are made lightly and kind, we know they are only two
and don’t expect much, but at least an effort.
About a week ago he decided that it was going to be some sort of a battle,
he wasn’t going to comply anymore. So at
first he would turn his head down as far as he could and turn it away from me
so that he could eat with his mouth open but I wouldn’t see. I would still ask him kindly to eat with his
mouth closed, you can hear it a mile away.
So after he realized that wasn’t working so he decided to put his lips
together and do a pretend chew, not actually chewing his food at all and then
swallowing it whole. That I couldn’t let
happen, he was going to choke and I just don’t think his digestive system was
going to take that nicely. So I would
stop him and set him in time out until he was ready to eat like a big boy. After 3 time outs he would lose his chance to
eat. He then got to a few days where he
was doing great again, we would give our reminders, he would be proud that he
was doing it right and we would praise him a lot for doing such a great
job. Yesterday he decided to not comply
again, so tonight it started off with a frozen gogurt, I gave him a reminder and
he proceeded to scream very loud and threw his food. I took it away and set him in his bed. We had chicken nuggets for dinner and he
pulled the, I will pretend to chew but not really chew, so he got another time
out. After his second time out I gave
him a firm warning that he was about to lose his chance to eat and he pees in
his pants. So I put him back up to the
table because he still gets his last chance to eat before he gets his clean up
shower and he promptly makes the choice to just refuse to eat, so I say ok, let’s
go take your shower since you peed in your pants. He screams and screams bloody murder during
his shower so I let him sit for a few minutes to calm down. I come back to see if he is ready to finish
getting washed and he throws a bar of soap at he that he picked up from the
shower. I tell him he has now lost his
blanket tonight since he chose to be mean to Mom and he has to say sorry. I put him in his jammas and he goes to bed
without his blanket and he lays down just fine, seems to be ok with life now. These
types of battles are what have us mainly concerned, the nicer we are the worse
he gets, we have to be strict with him, always.
I am getting worn down by these constant battles, they consume a
ridiculous amount of my time.
Rachel:
When she came she was very sweet and
friendly. She was a very aggressive
child but quickly learned that it wasn’t ok and after a few months stopped. She really disliked my husband at first and
would scream and scream for him if he had to do anything for her, especially
putting her to bed. She gradually got
used to him and then quickly became her favorite. Most of her behaviors really surfaced after she
had been with us for a bit, about 6months.
She started panicking. She has
always been very stubborn but this surpassed any stubbornness. There were small spurts of it before this one
particular occasion but were easily overcome.
The first time it got really bad was when Dan went out of town. He was gone for about a week, Monday thru
Friday, which is a bit common; he travels usually one to two times per
month. The twins have always been worse
whenever he left but she took it to a whole new level. Monday started out not too bad, but she had
started being a bit mean to me, not letting me touch her or help her in anyway,
refusing to do everyday common things etc.. Tuesday she shut down, She started
peeing her pants, when I would talk to her, her eyes would dilate huge and she
would stare blankly at me, draw her arms up to her chest and shake. She started just pacing around the house and
almost seemed lost and refused most of my love and affection. She was also failing to do simple everyday
tasks. I had to force her arms and legs
into her clothes because she would put them in so awkward they would get stuck,
I couldn’t put her in a grocery cart because she would hold her legs in the
weirdest positions possible, I ended up just feeding her because she was making
such a huge disaster with all of her food.
All this extra help just made her more and more angry at me and she
would draw further away from me. She
would start looking at me with terror in her eyes. Dan came back and she at first refused to
even look at him or even go near him but he would not allow that, he picked her
up and made her love him despite her screaming protests. After about an hour she finally came around
and was sweet and loving to him. The
next day she was fine, just like she was before, except she was angry with me
and only wanted Dan. These events have
happened more and more frequently with her, the durations vary and are not only
triggered when Dan goes out of town, sometimes they just happen. During Christmas we went to a home that had a
teenage girl that loved Rachel and Rachel loved her. Gradually throughout the night Rachel started
pushing me away and being mean, refusing to let me do anything for her, if I
smiled at her she would glare at me, things like that. The time to leave came and she clung to my
sister in law and screamed and screamed.
I put her in her car seat through all the screaming but soon settled
down and seemed ok. We got them to bed
and I talked to her a lot about how fun it was to have a new friend to play
with and love. That night she woke up
crying. I went in to see if she was ok
and she screamed at me and hit me in the face.
I picked her up and took her out of the room and held her while she
tried to get out of my arms and screamed at me.
I asked her a few times if she needed to go potty and she said no so I
brought her in bed with me to see if that would help calm her down. She laid awake stiff as a board for most of
it, Dan tried for a bit too but she was the same for him. I got fed up and put her on the potty anyway
and she immediately went a lot. I think
this was all about having to go potty but when she is in these moods she will
not tell us she has to go potty. We set
up the portable crib and very much to her dismay we had her sleep in there for
the night so she was close to us and didn’t wake up the other boys. These are just a few instances of her
behaviors when they are bad. She doesn’t
have a middle ground. She is either an
angel or stinker. I feel like this week
has been the first time on about three months that she is really starting to be
sweet and loving with me again. After
that first episode she has really withdrawn from me and I feel like we are
finally starting to move past that.
Behaviors
I am Concerned with:
What I so loving call “shutting down”,
eyes dilated, shaking, brain seems to turn off, panicked look or almost just
blank; worse in public or around other men
CONSTANT reverting on potty training
but will not go back to diapers (she will hold her poop until she is in agony
over it). A common one for a while was
when we would be in a public place and I would feed her a bite of a sandwich or
hamburger instead of letting her do it herself, usually because there was
nowhere for her to sit and I knew she would just make a huge mess if I let her
do it herself, her brothers got fed the same way but she would pee her pants,
to me it seemed like a protest or a way to let me know she was mad about it. She was perfect for the first three months and
has reverted about once a month for the last 6 months.
What seems like very unhealthy
attachments to other women (this has happened quite a few times, I gave one
example above)
Excessive eating, I can tell she will
not like the food but will clean her plate anyways, will eat until she throws
up, picks food out of the trash or off the floor to eat. Will shove huge amounts of food in her mouth
at one time.
Gets satisfaction out of playing with
toys that are a favorite of other siblings and will not relent, especially when
the other sibling in sad about it. It is
almost a favorite pass time. They will
lose interest quickly if no one is upset that they are playing with the toy.
Terror over any instruction or
guidance, please eat with your mouth closed, is met with huge scared eyes and
she will be on the brink of panic over it.
Helping her with a puzzle gets her shaking and terrified. She has been wanting to learn how to get
undressed and dressed by herself and she does it in a frantic panicky way but
will absolutely loose it if I try to help out in anyway.
Refuses to say please over certain
things, my favorite is how much she wants a drink of water but instead of
saying please water she would tell me about the cup, then where to take it and
how to fill it up with water. I got a full
instructional tutorial from her but never once a please. When I ask her, how do we ask nicely, her
eyes get large with that panicky look and she will say, water please. I praise her and get her water but it will
still happen this way over and over.
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