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.

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

Yesterday was a really bad day.  After school, Ben and a couple of friends were giving Corey a hard time and they all argued and stuff until Corey had enough and couldn’t control himself any longer.  He just completely lost control and started going after one of Bens friends.

He was really angry and chasing Bens friend saying he was going to F%#*ing kill him.  I was terrified of what he might do if he had caught him and thankfully he didn’t.  The boys Mum was terrified too.  I yelled for him to stop and when I yelled his name he just turned toward me and yelled ‘what the F*#% do you want’.  Just what every mother loves to hear from her 10 year old son.

It was so bad that even some people in the houses across the road from the school came out of their houses and stood on their lawns to see what was going on.  Two teachers came out to see what was happening and then they just said ‘oh the parents have it under control’ and walked away.  That really annoyed me, the teachers wont take any responsibility after school once the parents are there but in a situation like this I think that they should help.

It was really bad, he was really bad.

When my husband came home I just burst into tears.  I just can’t take this anymore.

The really sad thing is that Corey can’t take it anymore either, I really think he’s losing control more and more and he doesn’t like it.  He was talking about killing himself and then he started punching himself on his legs, then started punching himself in the head.

It is getting scary and I know I need to get help, I need to do something, but I just don’t know what to do.

I don’t know what to do.

I have one friend who has 3 kids the same age as my 3 and they are all quite good friends.  Her oldest is having a birthday in a couple of weeks and she keeps going on about how her son doesn’t really want to invite Ben because Ben doesn’t get on well with Corey.  That really annoyed me, they are supposed to be friends and she is supposed to be my friend and yet she thinks it’s quite funny that her son doesn’t want to invite Ben.  The fact that Ben doesn’t get on well with Corey has got nothing to do with their friendship or his birthday party.

They did the same thing to Corey last year when it was her middle sons birthday, him and Corey and very good friends and yet they didn’t invite Corey to his party.  Then they would keep talking about it in front of us and on the day she would send me text messages of her sons birthday cake – why would you do that???  If you don’t invite someone to a party you don’t keep talking about it and sharing those things about it to them.

Maybe I’m over reacting, but these things and a few others its just making me feel like they aren’t really true friends.

I know Corey is hard to deal with, he drives me crazy, but I hate seeing other people starting to dislike him and Ben because of his behavior.

I wish I knew what to do differently!

I have no idea why but there is starting to get a bit of a pattern.  It is often a Wednesday when Corey is ’sick’.  Today it is a headache.  I spoke with his teacher this morning and there isn’t really anything that we can think of that happens at school on a Wednesday that he might be scared off.

The other thing is that he came home yesterday and told me that he had a bad day and he was angry at a few people, his teacher being one of them.  They did skipping yesterday and he was ok doing single skipping, but then they did the long rope with 2 people holding it and one skipping in the middle.  Last time they did this he tripped on the rope and fell and was very embarassed and so he didn’t want to do it yesterday.  He flat out refused to do it and walked away and he was angry at his teacher for trying to make him do it. 

I can completely understand where he is coming from here as I was just like that when I was a kid too.  I remember doing exactly the same thing in high school but it was hurdles.  I refused to do the hurdles as I was just scared that I would trip on one and embarass myself, so I ran off and sat next to the fence and just flat out refused to do it.

So I’m not sure if it is because he had such a bad day that he doesn’t want to go today or if it is a ‘Wednesday’ thing or if he really does have a headache – who knows.

Let’s see how he is tomorrow I guess!