I am at my breaking point with the boy lately. I've lost touch with my fans, my friends, and my family lately. I work almost all the time anymore. And when I am not at work, I am dealing with Goob's latest bouts of bad behaviors.
Last month, he went through a no-eating phase. It got to the point where we were actually concerned about his health. This month, however, he is making up for the previous month is spades. He eats everything in sight, food or not, and still wants more. His sleep has been off, sometimes missing whole nights of sleep. And the aggression is getting horrible. He won't listen and insists on climbing on anything and everything and getting into everything. He hits, scratches, and head-butts. I have a bald spot from him pulling my hair.
Redirection doesn't work.
Reprimands don't work.
Various forms of discipline don't work.
Nothing is working!
Today he's been in time out for the vast majority of the day. We've verbally scolded him, tried explaining to him that he was hurting other people and that wasn't okay. We've taken things away, we've spanked, slapped his wrist. We tried redirecting with his legos, a puzzle, coloring. At one point in desperation, we put on a Blue's Clues DVD. As I type this, he is sitting at the desk he uses to color munching on cereal and watching Team Umi Zoomi. I pray this will work for a little while, because I am getting to the point where I feel hopeless in the face of everything my boy has going on.
Between issues with his therapists and things going on at home, his OT/ST/PT is going horribly. His ST therapist is pregnant and cannot handle him on her own, so if his OT therapist is not there it is cancelled. We cancel both appointments when that happens because he does not do well when he doesn't have the three therapies at the same time. So it's been really inconsistent and I think that is part of the behavior issue.
He's not been sleeping well. The melatonin is highly ineffective. When he is asleep, it's a restless sleep. We've thought about moving his bed time up, but he will sit on the floor and cry from 7PM until whenever we start the bedtime routine when we do that. When I don't close, he's usually asleep on my lap by 6:50. I don't think 7:30 to 8:00 is really doable, although it might be a good idea.
I've been wanting to potty train, but I'm at the point with his behavior that I'm afraid of the potty being a tool to hit me in the head with. Lord knows that's what he does with everything else.
I think it might be time to make a phone call to his doctor. I don't want more medication for him, that's not what I'm after. But we're caught between typical terrible-twos and autism, and I'm at wit's end with no clue how to handle it.
Not everything is bad though. He's having a bad day, so that's what I see most today. But he has been a lot more affectionate, giving hugs and kisses, saying "I you" which is how he says "I love you." He's coloring more, and learning how to do puzzles. His balance is improving. He can answer you with yes or no. He seems to understand more of what we say to him. You can have a kind of conversation with him. He's been counting to ten all day every day, finishing lyrics in "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and doing is ABCs. He'll ask for help. And he is completely bottle broken during the day. He will try to sing along to song he knows.
But today, we're seeing the aggression, the not listening, the climbing and other dangerous behaviors. And today, I'm tired, I'm sore, I'm beaten and bruised. His father and I are at the end of our rope, and we don't know what to do anymore. And we don't feel like people understand, because our boy, he's not like a typical child. We aren't sure where the terrible twos end and the autism begins. We aren't sure how much of this is normal behavior for a typical child, normal behavior for an autistic child, or something more that we should be concerned about. It's a puzzle, and I feel like I'm missing some pieces.
