The previous Thursday or Friday, Jack had been complaining quite a lot about teeth hurting. While he has noticed some sensitivity in the front tooth, he'd been complaining with very LOUD displeasure about a back molar. I wanted to give that a couple of days, because the last two times he yelled about a back molar, it literally fell out right before we were supposed to go into the dentist. So I had that in mind, waiting to see how it would turn out.. then all he really cared about was the front tooth.
The weekend of the 24th, there were a couple of incidents where he was on a computer game while talking to a friend from school. I had told him up front that if he got really annoyed about anything in the game, he was going to have to sign off. He hasn't been handling his anger very well, and he'd recently flipped out big-time over someone calling him a "stupid noob" in a chat room on there. (Something I hate about this game, and I have told him to stay away from it.. but you know how kids are).
I saw that he was getting worked up about something (wasn't sure what), and he got so mad at me that he ran my office chair (with him still in it) over my toes. Then he ran up to his room screaming at the top of his lungs. I knew a lot of it was due to his teeth, but still- unacceptable! After some sneaking out of his room to call me all sorts of names, I told him that he was done with his electronics for an entire week. He would have gotten them back today, but he had to meet his behavior goals at school every day for a week before that would happen. That didn't happen.
While dealing with his teeth, he had this rash or something that started developing off the side of his mouth, due to him picking at chapped lips. He's always super sensitive when his lips are chapped, so I knew none of that was helping matters. The rest of his weekend was pretty crappy, and Sunday night was all about trying to get Jack into a dentist right away. He has several (two pediatric, an endodontist, and then the general), but none were open or answering. I wanted someone local who worked on kids, and who would do a root canal. Turns out a friend's dentist opens at 7am on Mondays, so that was my very first call last week, since my kids didn't have school that day.
After several hours and two dentists later, he got his root canal.. but it wasn't as smooth as the first time around. (Imagine an 11 yr old boy being overly dramatic, declaring loudly for the whole place to hear, that somebody needs to put him out of his misery!!) After the root canal, he was then complaining out the door that his numb mouth was REALLY annoying. Good grief.
*You know, these are just not the parenting moments you can prepare for. So many, I can't even keep track..
Tuesday he was back to school, and as I knew would be the case, it wasn't a great one. But now he's a kid taking antibiotics for a tooth infection that the endodontist said she could literally smell, a rash spreading to his arms and forehead (which is now believed to be Impetigo), and he's probably still in pain (though not complaining about it, because he feels so much better than he did before he went in!). Oh.. and no doubt the antibiotics have made his regular meds less than effective. HE'S GONNA HAVE A BAD DAY.
He had two days last week where he earned his electronics. Then Friday morning I was called in because of an incident that stemmed from being tagged out in gym class. Then the aide kept showing him the "bad behavior" cards, color by color, and his anger and frustration ramped up. Then his new glasses got knocked off as she tried to keep him from finding solace (I guess- who knows) in his classroom from last year.. and on and on and on, until he went on a rampage in the Intervention room, knocking over everything in sight.
SO....
He earned himself a 3-day suspension. Meanwhile, I'm like "WHY DID YOU DO THIS?" in my head. Not to him, cuz I already get him. But to the staff. Why did you let this continue on and on? Why did you give him ample time to do the amount of destruction that I saw? JUST WHY? And then the kid wore himself out with his frustration to the point that he just fell on the floor in a "puddle of kid", and cried. Um. WTF.
This was just one of those days- a culmination of a bunch of $h*t poured on him, and he couldn't handle it all. Everything came together in a Perfect Storm, and as a result of it, he's lost his electronics for a month. That part he knew without my even saying. But as you can clearly see, those aren't the thoughts that enter his head (most of the time) when he's about to lose it.
Then, with the bad weather in this part of the world, where we've barely had a full week of school for a while, he's out another 3 days. They've given him in-school suspensions for just as much, so he doesn't think he's getting a vacation.
I like the staff at his school- the ones I deal with on a day-to-day basis. Truly. But JEEZ! Clearly, somebody needs to address the deescalation techniques used in schools- especially for kids with known behavior issues. They can't let this happen. This can't all be on him. He doesn't do this at home. He knows better. He doesn't hit adults, he doesn't trash our house in a rage.. so why does it happen there? Because he can. Because they don't stop it. What I want to know, is why don't they?
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