Books and Bullying

So we have had issues with bullying in public school and with “friends” in the past. This hasn’t been a huge problem lately though- Thank goodness!


I came across a book this past week. I read it in 2 days- it was that good! It is The Year of Learning Dangerously by Quinn Cummings. I didn’t agree with everything she said but I love that the author was willing to admit her own shortcomings in her own education and how she felt overwhelmed at times and doubted that she was doing the best for her child by homeschooling her. This is an issue that all homeschool parents have at some point- Am I doing what is best for my child? Anyways- one of the parts that stuck out to me (so much so that I wrote it down!) was her summary on bullying. She is talking about all the questions someone (who she refers to as the interrogator) asks when they find out you homeschool. Here is the quote that I wrote down from pg 24: “‘But,’ the Interrogator might ask, ‘how will these kids learn to deal with bullies and jerks?’ As luck would have it, there are bullies at the Scout meetings, in the mall, on the playground and even at family reunions. There are jerks everywhere you look. Children who homeschool do get to negotiate with socially toxic people. What they don’t get to do is grimly endure an entire year sitting two feet from a person who makes their lives miserable on a regular and predictable basis. It’s not unreasonable to hope that by the time homeschooled children enter the world as adults, they will have acquired the self-possession required to walk away from someone who is belittling them and been spared the recurring nightmares of being trapped in the locker room with the bully.”

This is SO true! I had tried to figure a way to sum up the answer to this question, particularly since we have experienced bullying in various place and not just the public school. I absolutely love this part: “What they don’t get to do is grimly endure an entire year sitting two feet from a person who makes their lives miserable on a regular and predictable basis.” I like that particular part because bullying is one of the reasons I pulled my 2nd son out of public school. Yes he still gets bullied occasionally by “friends” but it is not a consistent thing. He isn’t coming home from everything we do crying that no one likes him, so-so was mean to him, etc. Instead of coming off the bus every other day crying and upset I now have a child who gets upset only occasionally about another child bullying him- maybe once a quarter, instead of every day. And because of the homeschooling community that we are in if he tells me about it when it happens I know I can always make it into a teaching lesson with all the kids involved…and the parents won’t be upset that I “corrected” their child! LOL

Vaccinations and medical issues

For info about vaccinations and all kinds of medical issues check this article out:
http://www.regardingcaroline.com/pubmed

Bet you didn't know I have a son with butterfly powers, now did you?!?!

I just had to share this:

The other day J tells me that God was originally making him to be a butterfly but when I became pregnant God decided that He would give J to me instead...and took almost all the butterfly powers away. I had him repeat this a few times, thinking I had misheard him! LOL
Then I was like "Where do you get this stuff?!?!" Thinking someone (namely big brother) had been putting stories in his head. LOL He said "No one told me it...I just know."
So then I asked him why he thought he use to have butterfly powers. He said “well I am the only one in the family who can curl their tongue like a butterfly so it must be true!” I asked him to show me...He meant curl it so when you look at him his tongue looks like an “o”. Similar to this:

Of course, since he said no one else could do it everyone then had to try- turns out only J and I can curl our tongues “like a butterfly”. LOL

Through all the hard times I will always remember that my son is an original, amazing, creative child. Man, there is no limit to what he can accomplish if he puts his mind to it. :-) I love my butterfly son!

Tagging?

So my son evidently has an issue with “tagging” his name on everything. I guess I should be gratefully he doesn't tag his territory like a dog does!! LOL


Here are some examples:

My bookcase (carved no less!): Guess who will eventually inherit it? LOL

His dresser: (2 separate drawers)

What is up with that? He keeps telling me he isn’t sure why he does it. He also wrote his name in his closet with permanent marker- still haven’t gotten that off, even though I tried stuff that supposedly would take it off (such as that "Eraser" that is suppose to get everything off!).

Anyways, thought I would share my frustration upon finding yet another “tag”! :-)

More Medical Issues...

So yesterday was our yearly check-ups for the younger boys, J & N. I purposely had the appointments back-to-back so I could get it over with. :-)

N is now on the growth chart! LOL Last year he wasn’t even on it. Yea! He is having a urine re-test to be cautious but otherwise his checkup was great.

On to J…so on top of his ADHD, Kindney-reflex, Asthma, IgA Deficiency, Autoimmune disease susceptible, Washed blood only transfusions, Aspergers, Raw Carrot Allergy, Gluten-free self he now has Scoliosis!! Seriously. Can you believe it?!?! I am so P.O.ed that I don’t know what to think, do, or say!! Seriously! This child already has so much to deal with and now this. I completely thought to myself “Are you joking??!! Couldn’t it be one of the other boys? Why him?” I know that is mean to wish it onto another one of my children but he has sooooo much to deal with already!! How is this fair to him? I am soooo MAD!! This was/is me:

So last night I read up on yet another medical issue for my poor middle son… Scoliosis. The experts don’t know why it happens. There are 2 different kinds- C or S curve.


J has an S curve.

There is about a 20% chance that it won’t get worse. If it does get worse (typically happens as a child goes through puberty) then he can wear a brace that will prevent his spine from continuing to curve. Once he is finished growing, if his spine is curved to a certain degree (from what I have been told it is like using a protractor for measuring math angles), then he will have surgery to fuse his spine. If untreated it could cause organ issues…like crushing them. If you “google” scoliosis you will see some pictures that are not that nice to look at.


In the end I am sure I will have to look forward to many years in a brace and then another surgery! On top of everything we already are dealing with!! I am sorry to be a pessimist here but they told me that his kidney reflex had a 90% (or some such high percentage) to naturally reverse itself by the time he was 5…he had surgery when he was 6 1/2 yrs old. So you can see the reason for my bitterness and lack of hope here. In this moment I just cannot look at this as the “glass is half full”. This is just too much on top of everything else.


Even though I am disheartened by the diagnosis I have decided to be pro-active. From the articles I read it seems that people who do certain stretches, see a chiropractor, and/or do karate (I guess because they do a lot of stretching?) tend to not curve as bad. So we visited a chiropractor today- someone we have known for years. He said he has dealt with many children who have scoliosis. Most of the kids he has worked on have not had to have surgery. The stretches/chiropractic visits seem to help. J will see him once a week for the next month and then once a month until he hits puberty. We are also going to start doing back stretches every day. As for the karate- if we had the money I would really consider it but as it is we just can’t afford it. The main issue at the moment is getting him to not do flips, somersaults, bridges, etc. Evidently these are no-nos for people with scoliosis…unfortunately he is determined to work on his flip throw-in for soccer. (See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqIJSzOf7bM)

I am convinced that somehow all his issues are connected, even though supposedly scoliosis is not an autoimmune disease (at least as far as they know). How could one little boy have all these issues and they not be connected??

Gluten-Free Again- Thank God Almighty- Gluten-Free Again!!!

Sorry it has been so long- it seems the days just keep getting shorter!


O.K. So the medical issues…well when we went to the doc for my middle son’s checkup the doc had a lot to say. He was in the room with us for about 1 1/2hrs. I am sure his next patients didn’t like it but I loved it! After our ordeal with the previous doc I was glad that I had found one who would listen to me & was willing to try natural remedies.

Anyways at this appointment he told me a lot of stuff but the main things were that he diagnosed my son with Aspergers (along with ADHD)- I forget the specific terminology (Social something) but it was in part due to his social skills. He also said he thinks J is either sensitive to gluten (if you will remember I had taken him off gluten at this point) or had celiac disease. But in order to prove him right J had to go back on the gluten. I really debated doing this…but if he had celiac disease and we didn’t know it could cause issues later in his life. So we went back to the gluten…For 5 ½ months I have been doing a count-down of when I could take him back off. It was horrible. If I didn’t believe in his behavior change before I sure do now. He only needed to be back on the gluten for about 1 ½ months to do a blood test. Well his blood work came back inconclusive so we had to go to a pediatric gastrologist to have an upper GI done. And of course it is months to get into a specialist’s office! End result- he isn’t allergic to gluten just sensitive to it. Thus he is now gluten-free again.

This time I am trying to make sure he has no gluten whatsoever! Did you know chapstick has gluten in it? A lot of candies do too- and unless it is pure 100% chocolate you can count on it being in your candy bar. Even sunscreen and playdough have gluten in them! Last time he went gluten-free I concentrated more on the breads and pastas. Now that I have that down pat I am going for the hidden gluten.

Here are a couple of websites I have found that seem to have great info for gluten-free people:

http://glutenfreerestaurants.org/index.php


http://www.livingwithout.com/

Medical issues

I haven't written for a while...Sorry...I am in the middle of sorting out medical issues of one of my boys. Once I figure out what is going on I will blog about it.

ADHD & Aspergers

So since starting my research I have come across many articles that suggest that my son may have been misdiagnosed as ADHD instead of Aspergers or may have both. I am not sure exactly how I feel about it. Aspergers would explain a majority of his symptoms. I have found some great websites that have lots of info on them: http://www.retrainthebrain.com/autism.html and  http://autism.lovetoknow.com/ADHD_and_Asperger




According to http://www.retrainthebrain.com/autism.html below is a list of characteristics associated with ADHD or Aspergers.



Autism (or Aspergers) Behavioral Checklist



• Difficulty mixing with other children; My son has this.



• No real fear of danger; My son use to have this - now he seems to fear alot of things



• Tantrums: displays extreme distress for no apparent reason, He has this to a degree- he overexagerates.



• Inappropriate giggling or laughing, In preschool he would get in trouble for laughing at another child's injury.



• May not want cuddling or act cuddly, This varies- sometimes he wants to cuddle, sometimes not.



• Noticeable physical overactivity or extreme underactivity; hyper



• Little or no eye contact, When he was little he could not make eye contact and I use to make him look at me when I talked to him. He would fight me on this but I wanted to make sure when I talked to him about safety issues he was listening. To this day he still doesn't usually make eye contact.



• Works impulsively; often makes careless mistakes: work is sloppy, This is him!



• Uneven gross/fine motor skills I am not sure exactly what they are talking about with this one. So I am not sure whether it applies or not.



ADHD Behavioral Checklist



• Cannot talk or play quietly; disrupts others with talk or actions, This varies-sometimes he can play quietly but other times he cannot.



• Difficult awaiting turn in games or activities, yep!



• Engages in potentially dangerous activities, This is accelerated when he has red dye.



• Plays without normal caution or consideration of consequences, definitely!



• Severe temper tantrums, He use to have these all the time. THey went away for a while but now they are back in the form of "You’re hurting me"



• Interrupts, disrupts, talks and acts inappropriately, Yes



• When younger, difficulty accepting soothing or holding, Sometimes



• Always on the move, overactive, even during sleep, especially when he has red dye



• Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly, I have to repeatedly call his name and make him look at me to make sure he is listening. If I don't see his eyes then he probably doesn't hear what I am saying.



• Often does not give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in school work or other activities, Yep!



• Uneven gross/fine motor skills. Again I am not sure what they are referring to...



This site also said that Aspergers/Autism can seem to suddenly develop too. So it seems according to this my son has both ADHD and Aspergers but according to the DSM he doesn't qualify for Aspergers...So confusing!!

ADHD; Food Allergies; Seasonal Allergies; and more

I am sitting here trying to decide where to start...I have learned so much info over the last few weeks it is frightening! I guess let me start with my ADHD son's diet...if you read previous blogs you will find out that he has a red dye and gluten allergy. While researching food allergies in general I learned more than I ever wanted to learn! LOL I met another mom who has an autistic son. She changed his whole diet and he has now improved so much that he would be considered a "high functioning autistic". Then my sil and I were discussing some of the changes in the autistic child's diet and she was telling me what she had learned about certain food items. Then I read this book: "Animal Factory". If you get a chance you should read it. It is an intense book about how America's food is being processed and how bad it now is for you. Anyways so after reading that book and everything else I had learned I took a step back and looked at what my family had been eating...It wasn't a pretty sight. I started incorporating more veggies and fruits (organic and local grown) into our diets. I started cutting out processed foods...I am no saint so believe there is still processed foods in my house but I am hoping to convert my family to all whole cooked foods within the next year. This will be particularly hard for them since they seem to be addicted to Mac&Cheese! I am also slowly changing over to local farm meats, antibiotics and hormone free. I also started my kids on probiotics, Fage (which also has probiotics), and vitamins, particularly the Omega 3s. The probiotics replace your good bacteria that any antibiotics will kill. If you ever have to take an antibiotic you should always take a probiotics. Fage is basically an unsweetened yogurt but much better for you than yogurt. I add honey and fruit to it for the kids. I had read lots of research that said Omega 3s are good for ADHD kids (and any child on the spectrum-Autistic, Aspergers, ADD, ADHD, etc). I want to add fish oil, zinc, magnesium, vitamin K supplements at some point since there is also research on these with the spectrum kids. So over the last 2 weeks or so I have changed our diet and I saw that for my ADHD son this has drastically improved his symptoms. He has been sleeping better, hardly any hyperactivity, and better concentration. While his physical symptoms have improved his emotional have become worse. Some of these emotional symptoms I am not even sure he had before...He acts like he has been mortally wounded when anyone touches him. He is suddenly very afraid of things he didn't fear a month or so ago. For instance: at the beginning of summer I had to constantly watch him when we went swimming because he liked to go into the deeper water (even though he couldn't swim very well). Now he is terrified of going into water above his waist-to the point where he won't even do swimming lessons. Even if I hold him and go in the deeper water he freaks out, afraid I will let go of him. As far as I know he hasn't seen any movies/shows with drownings, etc so I am not sure about this change. And it isn't even just the water -it is other things too. These are not symptoms that I have found to be linked to ADHD in any of my readings...I have seen them linked to Aspergers though...So I have started researching Aspergers. I am lucky to have a friend who has an Aspergers son and I can go to him with my questions. My son does not exhibit the necessary requirements to be diagnosed Aspergers. However I think, given that they are all on the "spectrum", just as Aspergers share some of Autistics traits, ADHD can share some of Aspergers traits. I am just wondering why it seems like these symptoms have appeared all the sudden...