Decisions

What do you do when the one person whose advice you crave is no longer there to give it?

For the last few weeks, Mark and I have been dealing with an emergent situation with Sam and his school. Perhaps I'll go into details on it later, but the short story is that we've had to decide whether it's the right place for him and if perhaps it's time for a move to another school. Obviously, that's a big decision with consequences on either side. Because of the circumstances it didn't seem that there was a clear good choice, and any choice could have some serious and long-term consequences.

Last week after a long talk with Mark (who let me know that he would go with whatever I thought was best), my eyes welled up with tears and I leaned my head on his shoulder and said, "Since my mom died, I've never wished more that she was here to talk to about this." I missed her so much. I knew she'd have the answers I needed.

But I was on my own.

I spent a few days mulling over the various ramifications of each path. I would be moving him in the middle of the year away from friends he'd been in school with in some cases for years, and to a new environment with new kids, and then we'd do it all over again when he started kindergarten. And there wasn't just Sam to consider, there was also Caroline. She is in the 3 year old class at the same school, and is doing well there. It wasn't fair to move her, too, if she was happy there. And how would Sam feel about seeing her get dropped off twice a week at his old school, and seeing his old teachers?

Then, on Wednesday I went to choir practice where I saw my friend, K. K has had dealings with the same school over a similar situation. Her reaction was a pretty uncharacteristically strong one: "That's bull*&#*! Sam's a great kid, you are great parents. Don't let this make you think otherwise." K knows us and Sam pretty well, and is the mother of a somewhat high-maintenance boy herself, so I take her opinion pretty seriously. She went on to tell me that there was still one spot left at the school her son is doing very well at, she wouldn't pressure me and was happy to just listen if I needed to vent, she knew that there were lots of drawbacks and benefits to whatever we decided, and that she knew we were great parents who would make the best decision for Sam. Also, had I thought about talking to Mrs. B, the principal at the school we planned to send Sam to next year? I might find that helpful.

So, I called Mrs. B. She sings with the choir at church on occasion, and she and I are on good terms. She picked up on the first ring, and I went through the list of concerns that the school had regarding Sam. She laughed.

"Oh, man!" she sighed. "Boys just DO NOT belong in our school system, do they? Have you thought about switching schools?" She went on to describe some of the challenges she had with her own high-maintenance son who is now grown and how she felt they made her a better principal. She pointed out with a smile in her voice that she had her eye on Sam at Mass last weekend, and she had a feeling they'd be good friends next year. And I laughed, too. I didn't feel put on the spot or like a failure acknowledging that Sam might spend some time at her office. Her tone conveyed that this was a part of her job that she really enjoyed - helping kids who were a little "more" figure out how they fit into a classroom environment, that she was on my side in helping me as a parent figure all of this out. When I pointed out that I was working on developing the skills to help him, she said,

"Oh, Kate. You already HAVE the skills to help him. You're just finding them. God would not have given you a child with this temperament if he didn't also give you the skills to help him. I firmly believe that."

Breath out.

I hung up the phone with a huge weight off my shoulders. Somehow, in spite of feeling lost and overwhelmed, I had been able to find a way to people who could listen, offer advice, and support my and Mark's parenting. I wasn't as alone as I thought I was.

I thought about all the advice I'd gotten. The old school, with their recommendation that we take Sam to intensive, long-term counseling for what they believed were emotional issues. Our therapist from this summer, who told us after spending several hours with Sam and listening to us that there was absolutely nothing wrong with him, and focused on helping us as parents develop some better skills for helping him. The Sunday school teachers who have approached us and told us how much they enjoy having Sam in class, how he is unusually observant, curious and spiritual. K and Mrs. B's observations and advice. My own instincts, telling me that I wasn't being blind to my own child's challenges, that Sam was in a negative cycle with his teachers at the old school and the issues he seemed to be having were, in fact, a result of him being at a place at which he was no longer thriving, and that taking him to therapy for something that wasn't wrong might make it worse.

So, we've started the process of switching Sam to a different school, and as of today I'm working on tying up some loose ends - mainly, visiting the new school and getting Sam's buy-in, and talking to the old school about our decision in an adult enough fashion that I can feel comfortable keeping Caroline there for the rest of the year. So, you know, just little things. Gulp.

And in thinking about this today, I realized something. If my mom had been around to talk to, I might have fallen into a familiar and easy trap: I could have just taken her advice and done what she thought I should do, because that was often what I ended up doing. After all, she was usually right. Instead, I had to seek out and weigh advice from others, something I'm not usually comfortable with. I had to decide on my own who to give the most weight to based on instinct and past history. I had to trust my mothering gut. I might have reached the same conclusion as I would have if I took Mom's advice, but this time it was MY decision.

And in the end, that is perhaps the greatest gift she could have given me: the realization that I can do this, and I'm not as alone as I thought.

Nice Monster

First, an update: Sam has been doing MUCH better in the behavior category. His preschool teachers were great about incorporating my discoveries and ways of dealing with him, and he had a very successful day on Wednesday. We went to McDonalds for lunch to celebrate.

In other news...we now have an imaginary friend. Sam has talked about nice and mean monsters for a few months now, but just recently Nice Monster made an appearance. Yesterday, I was not allowed to help Sam with the potty because Nice Monster was helping him. We have to leave the gate open upstairs for a few seconds when we go up so that Nice Monster can come up, too. And at bedtime, he decided he wanted Nice Monster to put him to sleep. My excitement may have tipped him off though...he quickly changed his mind and decided that Mommy AND Nice Monster should put him to sleep.

I'm not particularly worried about this, and don't think I should be. It's actually pretty cute. When Nice Monster starts to tell him to jump off the roof, he'll be asked to leave. But for now, I think he's here to help Sam through a lot of adjustments he's had lately - new room, new sibling on the horizon...Nice Monster is welcome as long as he pulls his weight.

When preschoolers attack

Preschool drama. I picked Sam up from school, where he goes for about 2 hours on Wednesdays, and the teacher pulled me aside.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Uh oh. I know that teacher voice.
"Has Sam had anything, uh, BIG happen in his life lately?"

I told the teacher about his new room, and she nodded reassuringly. He apparently was rather aggressive toward the other kids that morning - pushing, hitting, grabbing toys, etc. They'd pull him aside and talk to him about using words, etc and I was nodding along, but the whole time I was thinking, "Oh my gosh. He's going to be THAT KID." I think the very kind teacher saw that look in my eyes, and she reassured me that her oldest son went through a tough phase like that, and now he's a delightful adult who runs his own business. Great, so he's not a serial killer. Oh, and Sam managed to get himself bitten by a little girl, complete with little pink tooth marks in his arm. The teachers were extremely apologetic and I'd feel sorry for him, but I think he had it coming.

On the way to the car, I chatted with Sam.

"Sam, I heard that the teachers needed to talk to you today about sharing."

He nods and looks at his hands, not looking at my face. "Mmm-hmm."

"If you want a toy, what can you say?"

He says in a canned voice, "Please, can I have a turn with that when you're done?"

Ok, that's a start.

I think this was a wake-up call for me about helping Sam develop these skills. Beyond preschool, he doesn't spend a lot of time consistently around other kids, and when he's at preschool they've got about one teacher for every 6 kids or so, and it's not fair for me to expect them to know all of his triggers, see trouble brewing, and head it off, let alone help him with every single interaction - that's my job. It's one of the reasons I chose to stay home, so I can do all of these things, not just the fun stuff.

So, today we went to an open play time at a local community center. Before we went in, we had a little talk:

"Sam, there are going to be other kids in there, and toys that you'll share with them. What are you going to do if you'd like to play with a toy?"

"Please, can I have a turn with that when you're done?" Sounding a little less canned.

"Good, honey. And you know I'll be there to help you if you need it, ok?"

"Mmm-hmm."

So, we go in and we have the place to ourselves for about 15 minutes, and then the flood gates opened. About 15 kids in the preschool came pouring in, taking over all of the riding toys and the bouncy house. I braced myself. Sam immediately went after the little girl on the motorcycle he'd most recently been playing with, screaming and running after her. Here we go. I scooped him up and walked him to the corner.

"Sam, she's taking a turn with that right now. I'll let you down when you can use words instead of scream."

He nods, and I let him down. He runs up to the girl again, and to my surprise says, "Can I please have a ride with you?"

She thinks about it and sizes him up, then nods. He delightedly hops on the back of the motorcycle and she scoots him about the gym, Sam giggling the whole time.

It brought me a lot of insight about why he behaves the way he does. I really, honestly think that he loves other kids, and wants to play with them more than he wants their toys. But, he's just so intense about it. With one little girl, he ran up and started talking in her face, then said he wanted her to take her finger out of her mouth and take her glove off so he could hold her hand, which he tried to accomplish by yanking her hand out of her mouth and trying to pull off her glove. She looked slightly shell-shocked. I can just imagine that at preschool he had some sort of interaction like this, and instead of me being there to sort of coach him through it, the kid rebuffed him or got mad, and it escalated into other ways to get the attention of the kid, then his frustration set him off on other negative attention-getting behaviors of the rest of the day. As a contrast, I helped him through that first interaction with that motorcycle girl, and things went more or less pretty well for the rest of the time we were there.

So, I have a new plan. If he throws something, grabs something, hits someone, or does any sort of other negative behavior, even if it's coming from an excited intense mood rather than a mad one, I calmly pick him up and take him away from the situation, where we have a little chat about what went wrong and how to do it differently. I hope at the very least he'll get the idea that if he does any of those things he gets a time-out, but I also hope that he starts to absorb how to do it better and that it sets him on that better path.

On the way home, I had another insight.

"Sam, I am so proud of the way you played with other kids today. You did a great job using your words and sharing toys."

He's gazing out the window. "I made that boy scream."

He's thinking about the one other time we had trouble, when he excitedly hit a boy who was playing in a tunnel, and I removed him to have a talk about it. Amazing - out of all the good interactions he had, he remembers the one that didn't go well. Is he going to be like this? "Good job, honey, you got mostly A's!" "But I got one B, mom." Is he going to take not pleasing people, especially those he's close to, really hard? I'll have to be sure that he knows when he's done well, and that it matters to me just as much if not more than when things go the other way.