A bad day...

You
know it’s bad news when your cell phone rings and it’s your son’s
teachers' cell phone number that is calling.

Apparently J. has been having
trouble controlling his anger the last few days.

On Friday, while playing
kickball, he picked up the rubber base and threw it at someone. It hit the kid
on the hand and left a welt which has now turned into a bruise.

Yesterday while
on the playground for recess he picked up a handful of dirt and rocks and threw
it at a kid.

Today he pushed the girl that sits next to him, apparently
for no reason.

His teacher made him call me to talk about it. Of course he had
no answers as to why he had done any of these things…he never has a
reason or an answer.

He
can be the sweetest, most caring child sometimes and then, like the flip of a
switch he can change. I don’t know why. I don’t know what sets him
off. I don’t know what to do about it.

He
has had time-outs, lost privileges, lost toys…nothing seems to
help.

J.
has had these issues since he was a toddler. I can remember when he was in
Pre-K, his teacher told me that he wasn’t going to be able to make it in
public schools because of his behavior. She said the public schools wouldn’t
tolerate it.

He’s been doing pretty well though. There were a couple of
instances in Kindergarten that his teacher contacted me about. First Grade was a
walk in the park, never heard a word from his teacher about behavior issues. This year though, this
year has been tough. I know it is not his teacher, she is a friend of
mine and if anything, she is being more lenient with him than she should be.

He
gets picked on a lot by his big brother. T. is really mean to him and maybe
that is having more of an impact on him that I realized.

When he was in Pre-K I
took him to a play therapist for a bit and she felt like he might have Oppositional
Defiant Disorder. I am not sure how I feel about that, if I necessarily
believe that to be true because he is not ALWAYS like this. More often than not
he is not like this. It’s almost like the “There
was a little girl” nursery rhyme…when she was good, she was
very, very good and when she was bad, she was HORRID. Yeah, that’s J..

So,
I don’t know where to go from here. What I am doing is not working so I
need to try something else. I wonder if Karate would be a good idea, maybe
teach him some discipline and respect. D. thinks that is dangerous because
it will teach him even more ways to hurt others. Perhaps I need to get him into
some kind of social skills therapy to learn how to treat others with respect.
Or maybe I just need to RUN AWAY…ok, not really but that’s a little
bit how I feel.

I love him immensely but he sure can be a challenge.

"Raising a child is always a work in progress"

from Keeping Faith by Jodi Piccoult