One of the biggest problems I have when going about my business is dealing with my own insecurities when it comes to suggestions. I deal with perfectionism issues. Because I am not currently thin, I often feel I shouldn’t talk about weight loss. Because I find myself often stressed, I often feel I shouldn’t discuss stress management tools. Because I have a son who has behavior issues, I often feel I shouldn’t discuss natural things that may help that issue.
You see, in my mind, people who write about these things should be successful in dealing with them. My perfectionist leanings keep me feeling inadequate if I have not achieved perfection in an area I might speak or write about. I then worry those who like to disparage my efforts (that is referring to those who trash-talk me behind my back) will use any imperfections as ammunition against me.
But…today…I don’t care. I’m setting my fears aside to share some small victories and discuss the other goals our household has been working on with my youngest son.
My youngest son is 8 years old right now. He is my fourth. I gave birth to him via cesarean section when I was 37 years old. He was a generally happy baby. I nursed him for about 3 1/2 months until I could no longer keep up due to the long work hours and stress of finishing my bachelor’s degree. Around the age of two, we noticed he wasn’t speaking much. He talked, but not as much as his older brother. We figured he would pick up with more speech once the brother who was two and a half years older, went to pre-school. At the time, I worked full-time outside the home, in addition to running my consultation based business and belly dancing. My husband worked part time and was home more often. Due to income constraints, our third son was in a home-visitor based preschool program. So we never did get the youngest on his own until kindergarten came around. By that time, number four was three. Number three was having issues with his behavior at school, so number four kind of was stuck on the back burner. Since I worked third shifts, he spent a lot of days curled up with me watching cartoons while I desperately tried to capture a little bit of sleep so that my husband could work part time from home doing tech support.
This would be when I really started to notice his speech delays. He also showed no interest in coloring or writing his name. He refused to wear clothes most of the time. He was very food obsessed. I sought help.
I turned to the county educational system for help. Number four was enrolled in a preschool program where he got to interact with other kids. Some aspects of his speech improved. He saw therapists who got him to color, draw, write his name. His behavior was another issue. He regularly threw fits. I am talking all-out temper tantrums and being physcially aggressive with the other kids. He also displayed a short attention span – like even shorter than other kids of the same age.
I wanted to avoid prescription medications as much as possible. This led us to get him lined up behavior modification systems at pre-school and kindergarten via his I.E.P.
(individualized education program). While there were some small progress, we still struggled with his attention span and his behavior. We even caved and tried a popular prescription ADHD medication at the end of first grade. This did not have the desired effects and instead exacerabted his behaviors. We were so conflicted. How could this be happening? It was not my first rodeo. I have other children and ALL of them were boys. So what were we going to do?!?
About this time, I found myself in a major career shift. I now had time to really dive into researching what could be going on with my kid. I consulted with educators who specialized in “problem” kids and medical docs who incorporated natural and alternative methods in their practices. There had to be some sort of options to try.