Tag Archives: meltdowns

Progress with any developmental disorder is rarely strictly linear.  Sometimes it seems to be one step forward, one step back, with little forward gain but also no net loss.  Other times, it seems a slow two steps forward, one step back affair, the often slow but detectable gain of skills outweighing the occasional backward step.  But some days, it seems all backward.

Today was a backward day.  In fact, I can’t recall a day in many months that ‘d label as bad from start of finish.  Generally, I avoid trashing a whole day, preferring to see the low spots as just that, spots, amidst an at least otherwise neutral background.

Today I’d be pressed to do that.  I practically giggled with glee when his father came to take him for the night.  (One of the few benefits of divorce is time in my own home without my kids.  Shh.  Don’t tell or everyone will be doing it.)  From breakfast onward he was oppositional and anxious, and I don’t really know why.  It started with a general refusal of breakfast beyond a few meager bites. Note:  He’s a really skinny kid.  Both my kids are, and I’ve longed to tattoo their foreheads with the words, “Yes, my mother feeds me.”   Today, he was joining me on his scooter while I went for a run.  Eating something beforehand seemed a good idea to me, but he was stubbornly against it. But despite the poor nutritional start, our fitness outing went well.  That was the last thing that went well today.

With a friend expected in the afternoon, I coaxed Bryce through some math problems (see this post on Quarks and Quirks, my general homeschooling blog for our summer schooling plans) and a page of handwriting.  It was miserable.  His anxiety was set on high for each task.  When Bryce is anxious, he’s louder than usual.  His tone becomes angry (although he can’t hear it himself), and he’s oppositional as can be.  I have a bad habit of catching his anxiety and anger and responding with a similar tone.  It’s been six months since he’s had the loud and long tantrums he had in years past, but when he ramps up, I still tighten, preparing for an hour or two of deafening argument and opposition, possibly punctuated with door banging and other delights.

I tensed quickly today.  That didn’t help.  He’s good at math, but he kinda freaks if he thinks he made a mistake.  Since he worries about the mistakes, he likes me to check every problem as he goes (a practice I discourage because it drives me nuts and increases his anxiety).  But when I hear, “Mom, is this right?” I often automatically look and start checking.  This morning, I’d just started looking over the problem when he screeched that he’s gotten it wrong.  Now, I’m pretty mathy, but it does take me a bit to work through the problem (no answer guide, darn it), and getting interrupted by a shriek in the middle figuring the perimeter of this object pushed my buttons.  Which pushed his buttons.  You get the picture.

Twenty minutes later, he’s finished the problems, smiling at how easy they were.  I eye him warily as I check the last 10, praying they’re all right so we don’t have a repeat meltdown.  They’re fine. Perhaps we’re fine today.  On to handwriting.

For my guys, Cursive Success meant plenty of tears and no success with cursive. <sigh>

Handwriting Without Tears is a sound curriculum used by homeschooling families, schools, and occupational therapists.  But it’s a lie.  My kids have cried plenty while doing those pages, although that has far more to do with their temperaments and disabilities than the materials.  My boys print only.  Both completed two years of cursive with HWT materials.  Both wanted to learn cursive.  Neither could incorporate those wiggly, connected letters as a useful  handwriting tool.  My younger was rescued from the attempt a bit earlier, when he renounced cursive halfway through the second book.  Since then, we’ve used the book as printing practice.  He reads the cursive and translates it into print, thus reinforcing his ability to read cursive while pounding the formation of the print alphabet into his brain yet again.

While handwriting is hardly a favorite around here, Bryce generally doesn’t balk.  Today is different.  Somehow, today everything is impossible.  He manages three sentences, and his handwriting was awful.  Not that I told him that.  I was still shaken from math and saw no gain pointing out the poorly formed letters and awkwardly spaced words to my already tearful kid.  Handwriting Without Tears, my foot.

I’d withstood with morning by holding on to our afternoon plans.  Folks were coming over, a buddy who is more cousin than friend and whose mom is more sister than friend to me.  The three boys had been doing well lately, enjoying a bit of Minecraft balanced with the trading card game, Magic the Gathering, and plenty of running around.  I’d pegged some of his anxiety to the anticipation of having his buddy around and a bit of access to his favorite computer game (the three play together on two computers).  But things continued to slide downhill all afternoon.  He complained loudly during the card games, accusing others of unfair playing and an assortment of rule infractions.  Even his time at the computer was marred by a stink about how long he could play.  I could relate the whole meltdown, but then you’d want to hide in your bathroom with the fan on and the water running and that’s my spot to go when I’m going to lose it, so I’ll allow you to use your imagination.  Suffice it to say, the afternoon was long and painful.

But why such a rough day?  I asked him about it.  Part of the challenge of Asperger’s is identifying feelings.  Often when he has a bad day, he’s getting sick.  His brother has had a cold, so I questioned him about symptoms and got nowhere.  He’s also experiencing another round of a recurring rash which he says isn’t itchy but seems to be accompanied by not-s0-delightful behavior.  Since kids on the autistic spectrum don’t often sense or express pain the same way as neurotypicals, I tend to ask a lot of questions about physical sensations when he’s out of sorts.  No information came forth, although as I continued to question him he blamed his mood on my insistence that he eat something that morning.  I was not convinced, but I did manage to leave that answer alone.

So here I am, many hours after his leaving for the night, and I still don’t know why today was so rough.  Likely, I never will, although perhaps he’ll start to sniffle or sneeze or itch, and then we’ll have a cause.  For now, it just feels like two steps back.