Although we haven’t had any changes in Corey’s behaviour yet, she is delving into his thoughts and trying to see how he thinks, which no-one has ever done before.

She uses techniques like having lots of toy animals on a table and asking him to choose one animal for each person close to him.  Then asking him questions and to arrange the animals in order to answer her questions.

She also had one session where she had him drawing angry faces and happy faces etc, on a whiteboard, and he relates to doing these things really well.  No-one else ever did this sort of therapy, they only ever asked him questions or asked me questions, but didn’t really try to relate to him on this other level.

Although we still don’t have a diagnosis of anything, and it doesn’t look like we will, at least he is getting some help.

I don’t think Julie believes he has anything like ODD or Aspergers or anything at all, she believes something in his past, some traumatic event or perhaps a few events, have led to his behaviour and because it wasn’t dealt with it has been kept in and increasingly gotten worse.

I’m not sure if I agree with this 100% as I do feel that there is something else there causing his behavior, but I guess it is possible so we’ll keep going down this road and see how we go.  At least it’s the most help we have ever received for him so if it can help him then we’ll keep going.

He has another session this coming Friday so I’ll let you know how he goes.

Saturday night we decided to go and get Chinese for dinner.  The change in Corey was incredible.  We’ve never been able to pinpoint any exact food that seems to set Corey off until now.  It’s possible that he’d been good for a week so was due for a bad change anyway, so perhaps it may have happened and it wasn’t the food, but it is strange that the timing of it was just after he’d eaten Chinese for dinner.

It didn’t take long for him to start being naughty.  He was naughty but quiet too, between naughty moments he would go and lie in his room and watch TV.  Then at bed time, about three or four hours after dinner, he went crazy.  He was at his worst.  It was incredible and I’m surprised to know that his behaviour still surprises me at times.  Perhaps it surprised me because we had had a reasonably good week with him and then this just came out of the blue.  He screamed, yelled, screamed, banged his head, threw things around, screamed some more and well you know how it goes!  And there was really absolutely no reason for this meltdown, it just happened because it was bed time.

So could it have been the MSG?

Is it a coincidence that his behavior had been reasonably good and then once he ate MSG he became very bad?  Today is about four days since the Chinese dinner and he has been pretty awful for the last four days.  Today his anger seems to have subsided and he is having a ’silly’ mood.  I wonder if this is the end of the reaction to the MSG, if that’s what it was.

So today is grocery shopping day and I’m taking my list of additives and preservatives to avoid from the Sue Dengate book ‘Fed Up’ and I’m only going to buy foods without those additives and preservatives and in particular MSG.  Let’s see if I keep him off MSG for a while whether it will make any difference.

My older son Ben, he felt really sick after eating the Chinese.  He picked up fairly quickly, but he did lie down on the sofa for a while after dinner because he felt sick, so perhaps a reaction from him to the MSG also.

I wasn’t sure how this visit was going to go but I am really happy now after the visit, it went really well.  Julie was really good with Corey and he did open up a bit and talk to her.  Being our first visit we went in together but in the future she will want sessions with just Corey, maybe some with just me and some with both of us.

Corey seemed to relate to her quite well which is a huge thing when it comes to therapists because if he takes a disliking to them he will just refuse to speak to them EVER.  But he seemed to like her so that is off to a good start.

She started by doing our family tree with him and then once she had the family tree drawn up she asked him who the people were that he had the closest relationships with and then the not quite as close but still good relationships with.  Then she moved on to who were the people that he had conflicts with.  She marked these things on the family tree in different colours.

It was interesting to see that I was the person that he said he had the closest relationship with but I was also the person that he has a lot of conflict with.  I knew that already but it’s just interesting to see that come out in a session like that.

He was late to school because our session was at 9:00am but his teacher knew he would be late so that was ok and he actually went into school without any issues.  Mind you today is the last day of swimming lessons so he wouldn’t have missed school and missed swimming, especially since they get to swing on the tarzan rope today.

The school had their assembly meeting this morning which they have every second Friday so we got there just in time for that starting so I stayed for the assembly.  I’m glad I did because Corey received a Principals Award for ‘fantastic work in all areas of maths’ and he was really quite proud of himself standing up the front with his award.  Ben also received a Principals Award today for ‘improved effort and attitude towards his learning’ which is great to see too.

So we’re having a happy day so far today, everything has been good, although I’m a bit concerned about tonight.  Corey wanted to have his friend sleep over last weekend and we said no due to his behaviour not being good enough.  Last time he had this friend over for a sleep over they ended up having a huge fight and I had to call his Mum to come and pick him up.

So last weekend we said no but we told him that if his behaviour was good this week that he could have a sleep over this weekend.  He has been trying really hard this week and although he’s had some bad moments, generally it’s been a pretty good week, so we told him that he could have his sleep over tonight.

So we contacted his friends Mum and asked if Dylan could sleep over and she said yes.  However, when we got to school this morning she was having trouble with Dylan and he refused to get out the car and go to school (she has a lot of issues with Dylan too).  So because Dylan didn’t go to school then he probably wont be sleeping over tonight, which Corey isn’t too happy about.  I do feel really bad for him because he’s tried so hard to be good this week to have this sleep over, but unfortunately there isn’t much I can do about it.  And I completely understand my friend saying no if Dylan is misbehaving so there is no blame there I completely understand her decision, it’s just unfortunate.

Anyway, fingers crossed he wont be too upset.  I told him he could invite another friend over after school if one of them would like to come over.  So we’ll have to wait and see what happens.  He has football training tonight at least so that should take his mind off things for a little while.

He actually did it at school today in the school counsellor’s office which I don’t know the full story of yet as I just received a phone call asking me to drop in and see them tomorrow morning.  Apparently it was over him not doing homework and as a consequence he has to do it during lunch time which I don’t think he was too happy about.

Then to top things off today he got in a fight at school at lunch time and has a detention tomorrow.  Surprisingly he is actually in a reasonable mood tonight so far which I wasn’t expecting given his bad day at school.

Last Saturday night my husband went out to a 40th, it’s not very often he goes out on his own thankfully as I had the worst night with Corey.  It was like he was being extra bad because Dad wasn’t home and was really trying to dominate me I think.  He pushed me a couple of times and picked up a chair and threatened to throw it at me.  His meltdown lasted a good couple of hours before he finally settled down.

Anyway, as his behavior has been really bad lately I’ve been looking around for…. help I guess, and I came across Mindsoothe Jr and thought I might give it a go.  It is suppose to just help with emotional well being and help with calmness.  I really don’t want to put Corey on medication if I can help it so I’m happy to try an all natural product first and hope that it can help.  I know it won’t solve the problem and won’t fix anything, but even if it can make him a little calmer and a little bit happier then perhaps it might be easier for us to help him.

They say that it can take 3 or 4 weeks before you see any real results so I’ll have to stick it out and hope that it does work.  I have ordered it and can’t wait for it to get here but it does take a couple of weeks since it is coming from overseas.

I will let you know how it goes when we get it and if/when we start seeing some results.

Click here if you want to find out more about Mindsoothe Jr for kids and teens

Tuesday – this is the day that I had a meeting with the school counsellor, a lady from the education department and Corey’s teacher.  This is also the day that Corey decided to wake up in a foul mood and absolutely refused to go to school.

I’ll talk about the Corey situation first.  I don’t know if he just woke up in a foul mood, whether me having this meeting at school was on his mind (although I hadn’t really mentioned it much) or what the reason was for his behavior, but on Tuesday morning it was terrible.  He was foul right from the moment he got up, then when I was in the shower I heard Lachlan screaming, then Lochie ran through to my room and refused to go out and get ready for school because he was too scared Corey would hurt him.  Apparently the scream was because Corey had hit him across the face. 

We have a reward system where they get a pin on the board if they are good or lose a pin if they are naughty.  If they are naughty in a violent or abusive way toward a sibling, then that pin that they lose is given to that sibling.  So because of the hit across the face Corey lost a pin and Lachlan got that pin – well you would have thought the world was ending, he was not happy at all.  I wasn’t giving in though as they are our rules and I’m sticking to them.

Anyway, that just made his mood even worse and he just refused to go to school.

So then when I had my meeting at the school, he was left to sit in the car.  I parked the car in the taxi spot right outside the office door so the receptionist could keep an eye on him.  The meeting was good.  His teacher is new to the school and she is really lovely – yay, finally he has a nice teacher.  His teacher last year just didn’t care about kids with needs, it was like they are a big inconvenience to her (and already this year there have been issues with that particular teacher with another child but I wont get into that).

Coreys teacher this year though is so nice and in the last few days since that meeting I think she has really tried to help Corey.  He came home on Friday and told me that he thinks he is the teacher favourite as she always asks him to help her out and do special tasks and is really nice to him.  So that is great to see that he has a teacher that is giving him the help he needs in the class room.

The other good thing that came out of this meeting is that I think the seriousness of his behavior has finally become known.  When I mentioned how he gets quite violent and punches walls and punches himself in the head etc, it really got their attention.  So the education department is now arranging another meeting with a lady who specializes in this side of things and will know what path to take.  So I should have that meeting within the next couple of weeks.  That is their biggest concern now, is that he has so much anxiety and anger and that really does need to be addresses.

YAY – finally!

A Good Book – my Aunty was out the other day and saw this book called “Have a New Kid By Friday” by Dr. Kevin Leman.  She thought about me when she saw the book and bought it for me.  When I first heard the name I just thought ‘yeah right’ how can any kid change that much in just a few days.

But, she had bought it for me so I sat down and had a read.

WOW!

This book is really good.  I have read a lot of books on raising children, how to have happy children, how to have healthy children, do you have a tricky child, fed up (Fed Up by Sue Dengate is also a good book if you think their diet may be affecting their behavior),  etc etc etc, I’ve just about read them all.  This book would probably be the best one I’ve read.

Sometimes when reading these books I feel like they must be written by someone who has never had kids.  Not with this book, when I was reading this I could relate to it very well.  The strategies that he uses are quite good and although I know it’s going to be difficult sticking to it I’m certainly going to give it a go.

Just as an example – for sibling rivalry, when they are fighting he says to put them in a room together and let them work it out.  I really didn’t think that would be possible with Ben and Corey – I didn’t believe they could have a civil conversation together.  But I tried it yesterday, I put them in the laundry (the least fun room in the house) and told them they couldn’t come out until they had talked about why they were fighting and reached some sort of agreement.

My golly gosh they actually did it.  Instead of just yelling at each other, they discussed it sensibly and were quite serious and when they finished they called me in and told me what they’d discussed.  They even admitted to what bits they had done that they shouldn’t have done.  They had told each other how their actions had made them feel.  The best bit is – for the next couple of hours they were good and didn’t fight (I know a couple of hours doesn’t sound like much, but it is in my house).  They had another fight later in the afternoon and I did the same thing again and once again they talked about it and worked it out.

So, I’m going to be reading it again, just to make sure I know exactly what I’m doing and then these strategies are going to be enforced and we’ll see if there is any change.  I need to talk them through with my husband too to make sure we’re both on the same wave length with this.

So far though I’m quite impressed with this book and definitely recommend it, but if you want to wait a few days and see what results I get I will post back here and let you know.

Thanks for reading
Take care
Sheryl

Have a New Kid by Friday: How to Change Your Child’s Attitude, Behavior & Character in 5 Days

So last night he had a few drinks and was a bit tipsy to say the least, so over he came.  The kids and I were outside playing basketball at the time.  So Jeff comes over and starts talking about Corey.  How Corey obviously has problems and so do I with him.  Then he starts going on about how I need to just stay calm and actually when he is being naughty I should send him over to his house because he is really good with kids and kids just seem to like him for some reason.

He continued to tell me how he often hears us yelling, he often sees Corey out the front throwing tantrums, and often hears Coreys bad language.  Then again told me that I should really try harder to stay calm.

I’m sure as you’re reading this it probably doesn’t sound all that bad, but….. he went on and on and on about how I should stay calm.  He went on and on and on about how great he is with kids and that I should just send Corey over to him.  He just didn’t stop, he just went on and on and on about it.

When my husband came home I left and came inside the house and then Jeff continued to go on and on to my husband about it all.  I swear I was ready to put the house on the market and move, but like my husband said, if he isn’t happy living next to us then he should move.

Jeff says it doesn’t bother them so it’s not a problem, he just wants to give me all this advice on how I should be handling it.  I basically said to him that yeah he might hear this going on, but he doesn’t live with it 24 hours a day, he isn’t in my situation so he really doesn’t know what it’s like.

That’s what really pisses me off – sorry for the language, but it really does.  If people haven’t had to deal with kids with behavior issues, they really have no idea what it’s like.  It’s easy for them to give advice and tell me that I should stay calm – they have no idea what it’s like.

All he did was make me feel like I’m a bad parent – I’m sorry but that doesn’t help.  I know I should stay calm, he’s not telling me anything I don’t know, but it isn’t always easy to try and stay calm.  Believe me I try but you get to a point where you can’t take it anymore.

Anyway, that’s my rave for today.  I was just really angry had to get it out.
Thanks for listening
Sheryl

When Corey gets into one of his rages I really can’t stand to watch him like that.  Sometimes he just gets so upset that I think he’s going to explode if he doesn’t stop yelling and screaming like that.

For example, last night him and Ben just wouldn’t stop fighting.  My husband just got to the stage that he’d had enough and told them both to go and have a shower and go to bed – it was only around 7pm at the time.  Corey just went crazy and lost it completely, no way was he going to have a shower and go to bed that early.

Of course Corey isn’t going to give in but neither is my husband and my husband completely refused to leave Coreys room until Corey agreed to go and have a shower.  Which of course he wouldn’t and the longer my husband stood there the more Corey would scream.

I just couldn’t stand listening to him screaming like that and I know it isn’t good for him.  He always ends up with headaches after he screams and screams like that.  But, my husband was dealing with it and we know that even though we don’t always agree with one another on discipline, you can’t show that disagreement to your children, we need to be strong and back each other up, so I decided to just stay out of it.

However, after another 5 or so minutes of this constant screaming I couldn’t take it any longer.  As much as Corey makes me angry and when I’m so angry with him I really don’t feel like hugging him, but I knew that it was the only way to calm him down.  So I walked into his room, told my husband to leave and just sat next to him and hugged him.

I talked to him and told him to take some deep breathes and we just sat there like that for a while until he calmed down.  Once he was calm I told him that I wanted to talk to him but I didn’t want him to lose control and get angry, I just wanted him to listen.  Then I calmly asked him to go and have a shower and tried to explain to him that all this screaming doesn’t help the situation and certainly wont make Dad give in to him.

Corey got up and had a shower – he did make sure to point out that he still refused to go to bed after the shower, but I just ignored that and only worried at this stage about him having that shower.  Because he did then go calmly and have a shower and had completely calmed down by the time he got out the shower, we did let them stay up a little bit longer before going to bed.

I know that I have occasions where I just have had enough and I lose it with them, so I know how my husband felt.  I am trying hard lately though to try and not get to that stage and to try and stay as calm as I can.  It isn’t always possible, sometimes you just lose it and I think anyone that tells you they’ve never lost it with their child (especially if it is a child with behavior issues) is probably lying.  We’re only human and it is a difficult job to raise and deal with a child that has behavior issues and it’s normal to show cracks and lose it from time to time.

It was a nurse at the hospital a couple of weeks ago that told me that if anyone denies ever ‘losing it’ then they are lying.  That was when I did reach the point of not being able to take any more and I went to slap Corey on the arm.  We were doing dishes at the time and Corey was holding a metal spatula thing and when I went to slap him, he went to put his arm up in defense and my wrist came down onto the spatula and cut open my wrist.  I ended up with 7 stitches in my wrist.  When it is a cut across the wrist, it isn’t easy trying to explain to people what happened – a lot of people just assume that I tried to cut my own wrist being in that position.  I just tell everyone that I had an accident while doing the dishes – which it was, I know it was an accident and if anything it was my own fault for losing it.

But I guess it did teach me to try and be more calm and not to lose the plot so quickly.  I think since this happened I have really put an effort into being calmer with the kids which is a good thing.  I have brought in some new rules and they miss out on things for being naughty and I’m being tough in that sense and sticking to my guns when I tell them that they are banned or missing out on something.  For example, we have a rule that they only have friends over after school or go to a friends house on Mondays and Fridays.  Now, we’ve added to that rule that if they are constantly fighting and their behavior is really bad at home, then they don’t have anyone over at all.  Last week they had no-one over on Monday for bad behavior and so for the next few days they were quite good and so they had friends over on Friday.  They have been fighting constantly over the weekend so today I’ll be sticking to my guns and not letting them have anyone over.  I know they won’t be happy about it, but they learn quite quickly when you enforce rules like that.  Especially when their little brother does get to have someone over because he does behave.

Anyway, I’m raving again, I know that once I get started I usually rave on a bit.  So back to the hug therapy….. that was my point of this post, in my new quest to stay calmer with the kids I have used the hugging to calm Corey a couple of times and it has worked very well.  Sometimes I think that’s all he needs is a big hug.  I think he often feels so lost and like he doesn’t fit in.  Sometimes I think he gets quite jealous of his little brother who is a real affection kid and is always coming and giving me hugs.  Then with Corey who is always naughty I usually don’t feel like hugging him, so I know Lachlan does get more affection and I think that really does bother Corey.

So, as well as trying to stay calm, I think I really do need to put more effort into showing Corey more affection too.

Lots of hugs – you can never give your kids too many hugs!

Thanks for reading and I hope you and your kids have a lovely day
Sheryl
My-Beautiful-Boy.com

Since starting this blog I have had a number of emails from Mothers with similar issues, with kids that have behavior problems and can’t seem to find a solution to them.  Some with ODD, some with ADHD and some with Aspergers and then some, like Corey, that can’t seem to get a diagnosis.

One thing that most of these Mothers have in common is that living with a child with behavior issues can be incredibly challenging and difficult and often you feel like your all alone.  It is difficult putting up with tantrums on a daily basis and it is just as difficult having other people look at you like you are a bad Mother that can’t discipline her child properly.

As mothers with difficult children we all know that there is much more to it than just discipline and in fact if you have more than one child and your other children are perfectly normally behaved, then it really can’t be a discipline issue if they are all disciplined the same way.

Anyway, here I go raving again, if you’ve read my blog you have probably realised that once I start writing I do tend to rave on a bit and let it all out

The reason for todays post is that I have just replied to a couple of emails that I’d received from other mothers and I started thinking about whether I should have a forum on my site.  Not that I mind people contacting me via email, I don’t mind at all and in fact it is nice to hear from people who read my blog and it lets me know that I’m not alone in my quest to make my child happy.  I was just wondering whether other mothers would be interested in a forum where they could share their experiences and talk to other mothers will similar issues.

So I’m not going to just jump in and create a forum (a bad habit of mine – get something in my mind and rush into it) I thought I’d put it out there and see if anyone would be interested in joining a forum.

So if you would be interested in joining a forum with other mothers of children with behavior issues then please leave a comment below to show your interest and if I get enough response and enough interest then I will set it up.\

Thanks for reading – I hope you and your children have a great day!
Sheryl
My-Beautiful-Boy.com

He does have a really good teacher this year so he is so much happier.  The school enrolment numbers were 1 student down for being eligible for another class and another teacher.  Numbers are counted again at the end of next week and if they get one more enrolment over the next week then they will get another class.  So there is still a chance that he might be moved to a different class.  I’ve made sure that he doesn’t get put into the class of the teacher he’s had so much trouble with, so even if he changes class he should still get a good teacher.

I wasn’t very happy on the first day back at school though as my older son Ben is in year 7 this year and the year 7 teacher at that school left at the end of last year, so we didn’t know who the year 7 teacher would be.  After all the trouble that Corey has had with his teacher last year and the year before, I wasn’t very happy to find that particular teacher is the one that Ben got as his year 7 teacher.

So I am hoping that the school will get the extra class and that the year 7’s still might end up with another teacher.

I know you can’t expect to have 3 kids go through school without having at least one teacher that you don’t like, it just seems this one particular teacher just keeps on hanging around and my kids keep on getting stuck in her classes.  Well, one good thing is that at least Ben will be able to cope much better with her than what Corey could.

I found out the other day that there was another boy at our school with Aspergers who’s parents actually pulled him out of that school because of this particular teacher – so it was good to know that it wasn’t just me imagining the way she treats them.  This boy has come back to our school now on the condition that he doesn’t get her as a teacher again.

It’s not good when a teacher treats a child like he’s an inconvenience just because he has some needs, these kids need teachers that can try to understand their needs and work with them, not treat them like a big inconvenience.

As I woke this morning to the start of a new year I woke to the familiar sound of my children fighting.  Who needs an alarm when you have children!

So the first day of our new year is no different than any other day, the day was still full off teasing, fighting and swearing.  Thankfully, we had a good night last night bringing in the new year and so I at least was in a good mood and could tolerate it to a reasonable extent.

Now, if you’ve read my blog you will know that Corey is my middle child and he is our problem child.  Corey will become angry at the drop of a hat and lose his temper and swear over absolutely everything, even something as simple as asking him to brush his teeth.

So if asking him to brush his teeth results in a heated argument, imagine what kind of response I get when I ask him to do something like help with the dishes.

Well today I actually got Corey to help with the dishes without having to fight with him.

How did I do it?

I don’t even know what made me think of it at the time, but here is how I did it.

I asked Corey and the other 2 boys to come and help with the dishes.  Corey did the usual and said ‘No, I’m not doing dishes, why should I’.

Why should I?????

So instead of getting angry with him or yelling or even just arguing with him, I just said ‘ok fine’.

Then I calmly walked into the laundry and I started pulling his dirty clothes out of the dirty clothes basket and throwing them back into his room.  He walked in as I was doing this and said ‘What The!’

Once again, I remained calm and simply told him ‘I’m not washing your dirty clothes – Why Should I?’

Corey picked up his clothes and put them back in the dirty clothes basket and said ‘fine I’ll do the dishes’.

No yelling, no arguing, he came and helped with the dishes.

So I was quite happy with having discovered a method that actually worked and got the result I wanted without the arguments and the swearing that we usually get.

I need to keep my mind open to look for other similar situations that I can use to get the desired result with such little confrontation.

Fingers crossed that we can reduce his anger and swearing and make him a happy little boy again.