Nanci Kuykendall

>I think it is hard for
>people with 'normal' kids to understand that tactics
>have to be changed for a child whose reactions to
>normal stimuli are counter-intuitive.

>>your son does sound very like mine was at the time,
>>at least in some respects. You were lucky that you
>>*could* restrain your son to a stroller etc... mine
>>could get out of everything; they simply aren't
>>designed to restrain a child who is barely two feet
>>tall and weighs less than fifteen pounds.

>>I can tell you that it is at least possible that
>>things will get better... at 11 my son is very sweet
>>and cooperative and bright, though still very active
>>and unfocussed!
Eileen

Thanks Eileen,

Right now we are agonizing over what to do to help our
son, and the rest of the family, function on a daily
basis. The last few weeks have been terrible. He
seems to have almost no impulse control and every
emotion he has is the depths of despair or the
pinnacle of joy. He throws himself to the floor
crying if he does not get his way or gets frustrated.
He jumps and shouts for joy at his small successes.
He does not have the patience to do simple puzzles,
color, draw, show any interest in letters, or anything
else most kids know at his age.

I am concerned about him lacking the ability
physically/mentally to control himself enough to
function at the level we are expecting him to. He
KNOWS when he is doing something wrong or
innappropriate, but he seems unable to stop himself.
He will grab toys from his brother, hit or scream when
he is upset, throws tantrums at least a dozen times a
day and blows evertyhing hugely out of proportion.

He throws crying fits often, when he lacks the
patience or the ability to slow down enough to solve
problems. Yesterday it was how to put his trike away
with hands full of toys. I suggested maybe he should
get on his trike and put his things in the bag on the
hadlebars so that he could steer, as he was trying to
push it from behind, with poor results. He refused,
stomped his feet, screamed in agony, fell to the
pavement and eventually ran screaming to his room (all
in the span of about a minute) when he could not get
the trike to go where he wanted it to. He later shows
remorse and guilt over his misbehaviors, and shows a
complete understanding of what he was doing that was
wrong.

I hate watching him go through this, and on top of
that he is DRIVING ME BUGGY!! I am ready to run away
from home! I am not sure what to do with him, and a
good friend thinks he needs ritalin to help him get
some impulse control. I don't want to do that, even
temporarily, if I don't have to. There is the
possibility of chemical problems, but we are not sure
what. I am hypoglycemic (and have been reading the
Barley Juice info with interest) and tend towards
depression. Thomas bio father was an alcoholic and
drug abuser (my ex), and his parents abused cocaine.
So there is a possibility that those things are in
turn affecting Thomas. He also has multiple allergies
and I worry that it might be something we have not yet
discovered in his diet or environment that is causing
problems for him. Any ideas or suggestions?
Elimination diets we have thought of, and are
considering, but they would be really hard with all
his existing allergies, not to mention the difficulty
of getting preschool age kids to eat different things.

By the way Eileen, Thomas is underweight too. He has
always been really thin and wirey, and at age 2 he
fell somewhere below zero on growth average charts.
Now he averages about 10-20th percentage of average,
and his LARGE baby brother is bigger than him. We
were very lucky to be able to find carseats and
strollers that we were able to keep him in.

Nanci K.



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Lynda

Nanci,

There are now doing and some have been completed that indicate that FAS is
not just a maternal thing, that the sperm is also effected by chemical
dependency/abuse.

It seems that he has one thing under control that is usually something that
has to be taught--going to a quiet/safe space (his room) to desensitize and
then coming back to the rest of the family. The steps taken at the rehab
center I worked at started there and then worked with the kids to go to
their "safe" space when they felt the frustration coming on.

One of our patients had drown and as an after effect every little thing
threw him into a tizzy. They worked with him for about 6 months to get him
to where your little guy is and then another six months for him to recognize
when he was pre-temper tantrum stage. He was about 6 and really cute.
After he learned to recognize that stage, he would, in his most little adult
voice, say "Excuse me, my brains are too busy. I'm going to regroup." Then
he would go off to our "safe" room (I think I explained about the colors,
textures and no harsh lines thingy on this list before) and listen to music.

One thing that struck me that you said "at the level we are expecting him
to" is something we told parents to throw out the window. The rule was no
expectations. Look at where the child is and work to move forward from
there. No yardsticks, no comparisions. Once parents grasped that concept,
quite frequently both they and the child made tremendous progress because
the need to make it to level "x, y or z" was removed, thus the stress level
was removed.

Don't give up, it does get better!!!

Lynda
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nanci Kuykendall" <aisliin@...>

> Right now we are agonizing over what to do to help our
> son, and the rest of the family, function on a daily
> basis. The last few weeks have been terrible. He
> seems to have almost no impulse control and every
> emotion he has is the depths of despair or the
> pinnacle of joy. He throws himself to the floor
> crying if he does not get his way or gets frustrated.
> He jumps and shouts for joy at his small successes.
> He does not have the patience to do simple puzzles,
> color, draw, show any interest in letters, or anything
> else most kids know at his age.
>
> I am concerned about him lacking the ability
> physically/mentally to control himself enough to
> function at the level we are expecting him to. He
> KNOWS when he is doing something wrong or
> innappropriate, but he seems unable to stop himself.
> He will grab toys from his brother, hit or scream when
> he is upset, throws tantrums at least a dozen times a
> day and blows evertyhing hugely out of proportion.
>
> He throws crying fits often, when he lacks the
> patience or the ability to slow down enough to solve
> problems. Yesterday it was how to put his trike away
> with hands full of toys. I suggested maybe he should
> get on his trike and put his things in the bag on the
> hadlebars so that he could steer, as he was trying to
> push it from behind, with poor results. He refused,
> stomped his feet, screamed in agony, fell to the
> pavement and eventually ran screaming to his room (all
> in the span of about a minute) when he could not get
> the trike to go where he wanted it to. He later shows
> remorse and guilt over his misbehaviors, and shows a
> complete understanding of what he was doing that was
> wrong.
>
> I hate watching him go through this, and on top of
> that he is DRIVING ME BUGGY!! I am ready to run away
> from home! I am not sure what to do with him, and a
> good friend thinks he needs ritalin to help him get
> some impulse control. I don't want to do that, even
> temporarily, if I don't have to. There is the
> possibility of chemical problems, but we are not sure
> what. I am hypoglycemic (and have been reading the
> Barley Juice info with interest) and tend towards
> depression. Thomas bio father was an alcoholic and
> drug abuser (my ex), and his parents abused cocaine.
> So there is a possibility that those things are in
> turn affecting Thomas. He also has multiple allergies
> and I worry that it might be something we have not yet
> discovered in his diet or environment that is causing
> problems for him. Any ideas or suggestions?
> Elimination diets we have thought of, and are
> considering, but they would be really hard with all
> his existing allergies, not to mention the difficulty
> of getting preschool age kids to eat different things.
>
> By the way Eileen, Thomas is underweight too. He has
> always been really thin and wirey, and at age 2 he
> fell somewhere below zero on growth average charts.
> Now he averages about 10-20th percentage of average,
> and his LARGE baby brother is bigger than him. We
> were very lucky to be able to find carseats and
> strollers that we were able to keep him in.
>
> Nanci K.
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
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>
>
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>
>

Nanci Kuykendall

>There are now doing and some have been completed that
>indicate that FAS is not just a maternal thing, that
>the sperm is also effected by chemical
>dependency/abuse.

Yes I know, which is why I mentioned the paternal
possibilities. It worries me, and makes me angry with
myself. But I came from an alcoholic and abusive home
and the fact that I left my ex and married my husband
at all are miracles I think. I left him when I was 2
months pregnant and the realities of trying to parent
a child with him, or even near him, hit me in the
face.

My husband and I had been coworkers for over 2 years
at that point and he was recently (less than a year)
divorced from his chemically dependent, abusive ex.
We just sort of fell into each other and were married
a few months later. He did birthing classes with me
and was my coach and everything. He was very excited
and very ready to parent. We decided to put his name
on the birth certificate, since my ex told me numerous
times to "get rid of it" with regards to the baby. My
husbands name is Thomas and it was his idea to name
our eldest after his side of the family (5 Toms in a
direct line). He is a wonderful father, and I am
extremely lucky.

>It seems that he has one thing under control that is
>usually something that has to be taught--going to a
>quiet/safe space (his room) to desensitize and
>then coming back to the rest of the family.

Yes this is something we taught him early on, and
recently in the last 6 months, he has begun to self
implement it and not have to be told when it is time
for some quiet time. He will say, "I'm just goin' to
my room!" and we will say "Good Idea!"


>One thing that struck me that you said "at the level
>we are expecting him to" is something we told parents
>to throw out the window.

What I meant by that was behavior wise and not
academics or anything. We put no pressure on him to
perform anything along the "schoolish" lines of
course. But I see what you mean as applied to
behavior. I do not however, think that his
expectations are unreasonable for his particular case.
His expectations are:

1 - to ask politely for things and not demand or
order. When he does we simply give him the arched
brow look, or say "excuse me?" or "Could you ask that
again?" He knows the drill and responds "May I
please...bla bla" rather than Gimmee!

2 - Do not express your displeasure by screaming at or
hurting anyone in the family. If he does, he is asked
to please go to his room until he is ready to be
around other people again.

3 - The potty thing. He knows when he has to go, he
has absolute control that I have seen him display on
numerous occassions. He is just resistant, and/or
lacks the impulse control and attention span to stop
what he is doing to go to the bathroom. He was going
from standing at the bathroom door, clear upstairs to
his room to pee his pants and hide them at one point.

This week I have implemented a new strategy. I set a
timer and every 15 to 20 minutes (I swear he has the
bladder capacity of a mouse) I remind him to go to the
bathroom, not optional. He pees every single time,
and it prevents the "accidents" that we were having
completely. He likes me to make a big fuss over him
when he goes, so I do. He is feeling great about
himself and being able to go a whole day with dry
pants. Now we just have to get over his resistance to
pooping in the potty, which he has yet to do. He says
he is scared.

Thanks a lot for all the encouragement though, Lynda.
I do appreciate it. I am thinking that this is more
chemical related than diet related. As his diet
cycles through various likes and passions and there
seems to be no appreciable difference in his behavior
when he is focused on a very small menu for a while,
or when he chages gears and moves on to something
else. He really loves baked beans though. :-)

Nanci K.

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[email protected]

In a message dated 5/10/01 6:15:58 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
aisliin@... writes:

> Now we just have to get over his resistance to
> pooping in the potty, which he has yet to do. He says
> he is scared.
>
Just wanted to jump in here and say that I am personally acquainted with 3
children who do (or did) this very same thing. They are all from different
families and one is a girl. It's apparently pretty common, especially among
boys, and they do eventually outgrow it, although two of them would only go
in a diaper or pull up until that point.

Cheryl

Eileen M.

Mr. Rogers actually did one of his shows about this,
so it must be pretty common. He seemed to feel that
children had two fears: they fear they could fall in
and get flushed down themselves AND they feel that
their poop is part of themselves and that in flushing
it away they are somehow flushing away part of
themselves (which connects again to the first fear, I
imagine). I don't remember an awful lot about the
show, but I remember that it involved talking about
these fears, telling them how poop is made, giving the
child a lot of calming talk about what happens to the
poop when it is flushed, giving the child lots of
opportunity to flush the toilet themselves,
demonstrating how things that are smaller than
themselves are still too big to go down the toilet...

I wrote a book and illustrated with cartoon pictures
of my son when he was potty training... it seemed to
really help him with certain potty issues he was
having, and he was thrilled to have his own book about
it. That might help your child...

Eileen


--- avalchro@... wrote:
> In a message dated 5/10/01 6:15:58 PM Pacific
> Daylight Time,
> aisliin@... writes:
>
> > Now we just have to get over his resistance to
> > pooping in the potty, which he has yet to do. He
> says
> > he is scared.
> >
> Just wanted to jump in here and say that I am
> personally acquainted with 3
> children who do (or did) this very same thing. They
> are all from different
> families and one is a girl. It's apparently pretty
> common, especially among
> boys, and they do eventually outgrow it, although
> two of them would only go
> in a diaper or pull up until that point.
>
> Cheryl
>


__________________________________________________
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Annette Yunker

"Mr. Rogers actually did one of his shows about this,
so it must be pretty common. He seemed to feel that
children had two fears: they fear they could fall in
and get flushed down themselves AND they feel that
their poop is part of themselves and that in flushing
it away they are somehow flushing away part of
themselves"

Dr. Brazleton and the hospital at which he worked actually set up a see through toilet and pipes so that these children could see where everything was going to alleviate their fears.

Annette


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Eileen M.

Your son sounds like mine in many ways. We got quite
a bit of help from our chiropractor, who is also a
nutritionist, homeopathist, ND who uses kinesiology.
The biggest help she gave us was telling us what foods
he was sensitive to... eliminating corn (corn starch
and syrup was the most difficult to do), dairy, and
wheat did him a lot of good... eliminated the constant
ear infections and helped him with impulse control a
great deal. Bach flower essences have helped a bit on
occasion, as has homeopathy, but I'd say the food
elimination was the most significant thing. It didn't
solve the problems completely, but it sure kept the
family sane, and helped my son considerably. The
other thing we did was use the book 'Holding Time'
when our son was two... if you can use it now, I'd
highly recommend it. It was really hard on us,
because our son was *extremely* touch aversive, so he
never relaxed into it the way they describe, but we
saw *huge* improvements after two weeks of treatment.
After a couple months we stopped using it regularly,
and only used it when he seemed to spiral out of
control of himself, it really seemed to help him get
grounded and centered.

That is the hard thing, but invaluable, I think... to
help your son learn to recognize his own feelings of
stress and 'spiralling' and to do what he needs to do
to break the pattern and center himself. I found that
my son was generally lashing out physically when he
was overwhelmed in terms of stress/stimuli, so helping
him eliminate the stimuli for a bit was helpful. I
found it helpful to make his room very zenlike... not
a lot of stuff, nothing on the walls... kids like this
are often very open to the world, they don't have the
same ability to filter out what is extraneous and what
is important. We sort of prioritize what is of
import, ignore the peripheral stuff and focus on what
is useful to the situation; for these kids it's all
the same, everything is important, which is *so*
overwhelming.

I think Ritalin is not necessary in a lot of cases, I
think some parents find it extremely helpful. You
need to assess your own situation, and your child's,
and be flexible, try different things. DON'T worry
about him doing what other kids are doing at the same
age... they aren't dealing with the same stuff he is,
so it isn't a fair comparison. Be aware of where his
own strengths and gifts lie, and praise him for those;
the rest of the world is hard on his self esteem, so
shore up what you can at home. He isn't sensitive to
others because he is so overwhelmed by his own senses;
he is actually more sensitive than most other
children. If he can learn to control that to some
degree, that can be a gift as well as a burden.

Eileen




--- Nanci Kuykendall <aisliin@...> wrote:

> Right now we are agonizing over what to do to help
> our
> son, and the rest of the family, function on a daily
> basis. The last few weeks have been terrible. He
> seems to have almost no impulse control and every
> emotion he has is the depths of despair or the
> pinnacle of joy. He throws himself to the floor
> crying if he does not get his way or gets
> frustrated.


__________________________________________________
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Johanna

we told our children poop was our bodies natural way of taking out the garbage, like we do in the house. That made sense to them and removed some of the anxiety. I let them move at their own pace in potty training. We provided potty seat and help if wanted, but left it up to the child when they were ready
Johanna
Life is the ultimate learning experience!
----- Original Message -----
From: Eileen M.
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 9:19 PM
Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] Extraordinary Children


Mr. Rogers actually did one of his shows about this,
so it must be pretty common. He seemed to feel that
children had two fears: they fear they could fall in
and get flushed down themselves AND they feel that
their poop is part of themselves and that in flushing
it away they are somehow flushing away part of
themselves (which connects again to the first fear, I
imagine). I don't remember an awful lot about the
show, but I remember that it involved talking about
these fears, telling them how poop is made, giving the
child a lot of calming talk about what happens to the
poop when it is flushed, giving the child lots of
opportunity to flush the toilet themselves,
demonstrating how things that are smaller than
themselves are still too big to go down the toilet...

I wrote a book and illustrated with cartoon pictures
of my son when he was potty training... it seemed to
really help him with certain potty issues he was
having, and he was thrilled to have his own book about
it. That might help your child...

Eileen


--- avalchro@... wrote:
> In a message dated 5/10/01 6:15:58 PM Pacific
> Daylight Time,
> aisliin@... writes:
>
> > Now we just have to get over his resistance to
> > pooping in the potty, which he has yet to do. He
> says
> > he is scared.
> >
> Just wanted to jump in here and say that I am
> personally acquainted with 3
> children who do (or did) this very same thing. They
> are all from different
> families and one is a girl. It's apparently pretty
> common, especially among
> boys, and they do eventually outgrow it, although
> two of them would only go
> in a diaper or pull up until that point.
>
> Cheryl
>


__________________________________________________
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Vaughnde Edwards

My child doesn't have these fears, but she constantly forgets to flush the toilet and she's 10! I have to remind her to flush the toilet, turn off all the lights that she turns on and shut the front door when she leaves it wide open...yeah to let the flies in the house even though its a nice day outside. We do not have a screen door on this apt...hopefully our next place of residence WILL have one!!

Vaughnde Edwards
Missoula, Montana
Praise the Lord, He is Risen Indeed!!

-----Original Message-----
From: Eileen M. <ravensegg@...>
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, May 10, 2001 8:19 PM
Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] Extraordinary Children


Mr. Rogers actually did one of his shows about this,
so it must be pretty common. He seemed to feel that
children had two fears: they fear they could fall in
and get flushed down themselves AND they feel that
their poop is part of themselves and that in flushing
it away they are somehow flushing away part of
themselves (which connects again to the first fear, I
imagine). I don't remember an awful lot about the
show, but I remember that it involved talking about
these fears, telling them how poop is made, giving the
child a lot of calming talk about what happens to the
poop when it is flushed, giving the child lots of
opportunity to flush the toilet themselves,
demonstrating how things that are smaller than
themselves are still too big to go down the toilet...

I wrote a book and illustrated with cartoon pictures
of my son when he was potty training... it seemed to
really help him with certain potty issues he was
having, and he was thrilled to have his own book about
it. That might help your child...

Eileen


--- avalchro@... wrote:
> In a message dated 5/10/01 6:15:58 PM Pacific
> Daylight Time,
> aisliin@... writes:
>
> > Now we just have to get over his resistance to
> > pooping in the potty, which he has yet to do. He
> says
> > he is scared.
> >
> Just wanted to jump in here and say that I am
> personally acquainted with 3
> children who do (or did) this very same thing. They
> are all from different
> families and one is a girl. It's apparently pretty
> common, especially among
> boys, and they do eventually outgrow it, although
> two of them would only go
> in a diaper or pull up until that point.
>
> Cheryl
>


__________________________________________________
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

A little late, maybe but. About children who are afraid to poop in
the toilet, with both of my children, as soon as they were able to
stand on their own, I would take them into the bathroom, and show
them as I emptied their diaper contents into the toilet, and flush
it. We would wave bye-bye, and try to flush the toilet themselves.
My kids are not afraid, but that may just be luck or something.

Melanie in Indiana