Watching My Son Shut Down

You know something is off. You can tell. You child is telling you by the little tics and tells he has even if he isn't telling you but he won't tell you. THAT is the problem. I can't fix what I don't know.

HistoryBoy doesn't like riding the bus to school. Last year I understood, it was a long bus ride, 40 min to school when the school was basically across the street from me, less than a 5 min drive in my car. This year is maybe a 15 min bus ride and he still fights it. I have let it go most of the time and pick my battles as it were. But it got to the point where he was calling to say he missed the bus and needed me to pick him up.

Then there were the meltdowns, almost daily before school. My child who loved going to school, loves to learn suddenly absolutely refused to get ready to get up and get ready to go to school. He would feign sickness and when that didn't work he was tired. When that didn't work it was an all out screaming, shrieking, head banging meltdown like I haven't seen in years.

I had to walk away. HistoryBoy may only be 4'9" and 70 lbs but I am no longer able to contain him as I did when he was 4 or 5 or 6 and had one of these fits which I think is the last time I really saw one where I would have had to contain it to any extreme. He is stronger than me in this mode. He can hit, kick, bite and I am unfortunately just not physically capable of handling him in that mode. I had to let him wind down. It took approximately 20 minutes I think. My neighbors probably thought I was murdering him.

When he was calm, I told him it was time to go, and he got up to come with me. At this point we are late for school. He dresses and we leave. We get to school and the procedure begins again. Some days it is a mini-meltdown, not a tantrum, but a crying, why am I making him go to school? Don't I want to spend time with him? I am being so mean. Or I get the silent treatment but he will still not get out of the car. It still takes another 20 minutes. He is now at least 20 minutes late for school. This is the pattern for a month or more.

I am at my wits end. I talk to his teachers. I talk to his case worker. No one comes up with anything. I am getting NOTHING out of HISTORYBOY. He is clearly losing his noodle and I am clearly going to lose mine!!

Something had to be done!

Part 2 tomorrow