Kind of Lost

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It seems like every weekend, my 3 1/2 year old son and I are given a new concern about his development by his daycare teacher. I'm going to tell you what's on this week's menu...and maybe you can help explain/suggest workarounds for some of these things:

1. When other children approach him, even quietly, he screams at them (literally) and then runs away.
2. When the teacher tells him to do something, he says no. (Also, when I ask him to do something, he usually says no.) If I say I want the light on, he says he wants it off. If I say it's black, he says it's white. Get the picture? This has been going on for about 5-6 months. At first I was like "Isn't that great? He's learning his opposites". Not so great, now. I thought this was a normal phase - but I also thought it was supposed to happen when they were about 2 - and it seems a little long-term to be a phase. Any ideas with this?
3. Screaming at nap time. He refuses to take a nap now and tonight gave me a big problem about going to bed, and asked me to sleep with him. Bad dream, maybe? He is usually a decent sleeper/napper, as long as it's part of his daily routine.

The good news is, she told me she won't drop him unless he gets aggressive. She just wants to know what his diagnosis is so she is more effective in working with him. Someday the learning resource department of our local school system (the only ones in our area that do free or even low-cost LD or behavioral evaluations) will call me back....

Actually, the #2, the arguing/talking back/defiance thing is the most concerning, and the thing I understand least.

I was always amazed at how my son 'changed' from year to year. Some teachers found him to be too much and some had no problems at all. Of course he was the same child, but some were able to make their classroom rules clear and insist he follow them and others needed to tell me every little thing they thought he was doing wrong.

My son would not nap in preschool. The teacher complained about this and I told her he had not napped since he turned two. She said he would still have to lay quietly while the others napped during nap time. I told her I would be happy to have a talk with him about it but the fact still remained; I am not there at nap time to insist he lay quietly and she would still have to be the one to be in charge of her classroom at nap time. I think she got the point and really had no other complaints for the rest of the year. He liked her a lot and did well in her class.

His kindergarten teacher disliked him to the point of smacking and berating him in front of his peers. I had him moved to another classroom and for some reason, that teacher had no problems with him.

When he was in the third grade, he was in the office every week for fighting...getting suspended! What fun. In the fourth grade, not one trip to the office, not one fight, not one complaint from his teacher.

Like I said, some people are equipped to deal with a large group of children and some are not. Some just like to make you feel bad about every little thing your kid does. I once even had a recess teacher stop me in the halls and tell me she thought my son had OCD because she saw him eating pebbles on the playground. I asked her why she did not stop him and inform his teacher, and how did someone so qualified to diagnose my son ever wind up herding kids at recess?

Worry about the big things...don't sweat the small stuff. It's amazing what kids grow out of...autism or not.

Thanks, Claire.
I believe this teacher is more successful with him than the last; she has made great strides in getting him potty trained and he thinks she is really nice, he has told me -- and even when she gives me her concerns she says "but he is doing great in every other way". Not like the last one, who seemed put upon just to be in the presence of children.

Obviously being around other children stresses him. And both teachers have made very similar comments, which have onyl fueled my fire to get him DX'ed.

It's an awkward feeling, being told by a teacher that your child *may* have something you know he has but can't get an official DX for due to time and financial constraints.

Now, how do I get that argumentative thing licked, so the teacher's not giving me an armchair diagnosis of ODD in a month?

Write a letter to the special education department asking them for an evaluation. Explain that your sons preschool has concerns and you would like a full evalution.

This will set the clock rolling for the evaluation process. Check your states Dept of Education website to see what your time frames are for evaluations. Once something is in writing, they have to start the process. A phone call will get you nowhere.

The evaluation that the school does is actually somewhat basic (or at least I think it is). The school cannot make a diagnosis -- especially for behavior problems, autistic spectrum, etc. They may do further in-depth testing if they think your child has a learning disability. But again -- check the laws within your state.

Your other choice is to go through your pediatrician. Have them refer you to a developmental pediatrician. After seeing the developmental pediatrician, they can help you get the ball rolling for testing with your school districts special education department.

as far as the opposite thing goes- what have you done to address it so far ? Are you ignoring it, or caving into it ?

I'm not caving. But I'll argue with him for a little while, and then just do it my way anyway, which usually results in a tantrum.

Re being argumentative, I usually try and get my son to at least verbally re-neg on things with a pleasant tone. We go through the process in a robotic fashion (ie. I don't think he necessarily means "sorry", but at least with practice of saying it, things eventually start sinking in).

For example, son will be rude to me and tell me that I need to stop bossing and be quiet. I will tell him that it's not polite to talk to adults like that and that he needs to say, "Sorry, Mum," (and also tell him what to say instead). He will often say sorry, but if he says it in an angry voice, I'll get him to say it in a "nice" voice. If he refuses, I will sometimes threaten to cut his computer time or "resign" from being a mother for the next while . . . to which he will usually say sorry immediately.

I find the key is telling him explicitly what he NEEDS to say to correct what has happened, rather than just expecting him to come up with an apology of his own. Works for me most of the time.

Your post struck on one of my pet peeves about preschool: forced naps. Kids grow out of naps, some at 18 mos, some at 4, but sometime during these years they all do. Yet all these preschools insist that all the kids nap, and make no accommodation for kids that are somewhere else on the development scale with this. Sit quietly for 2 hours? A toddler is supposed to DO that if he can't sleep?

My son had behavior issues in preschool, long before anyone considered it possible he was on the spectrum, and to appease the school we went into family counseling. The counselor concluded that activities at the school like the forced nap/quiet period had been so stressful for my son that he could not handle the place. She placed all the blame squarely on the school fro any behavior problems he had there.

Now, looking back, it probably wasn't quite that simple. But, still, that entire situation WAS stressful for my child, and it was just stupid policy rigidity that kept them from offering a better solution.

I realize this is probably only the tiniest piece of the puzzle for your child, it sounds like he is doing OK with it, but, still, doesn't it make you ask, WHY?

Hmmm. I figured out the nap thing. He's had a cold, which I believe to have contributed to an ear infection. If he's not better by tonight, We'll be at the doc's office tomorrow.

Arguments? Well, we're still struggling with that and probably will be for a while. Just how much obedience can I expect from him? He's 3 but acts more like he's 2. He imprints on picture-associations and routine/sequences, but often doesn't seem to understand verbal instructions. My parents say he "pretends" not to understand so he can get his way. The instructions he follows best are the sequences of things he does daily. And he adapts to new routines/sequences/associations quickly. IE he learns the pattern very quickly. As long as it is something he accepts initially. If I can get him to do it once, I can get him to do it every time, especially if it's associated with things in a sequence.

But if I tell him "sit down on the couch instead of standing on it" he will a)not hear me or b) say "no, stand up". Or "staples are not a toy" and he'll retort "staples are a toy". My boyfriend says he translatesa lot of life into equations to understand it. That's the metaphor he uses. So -- how do I change the equation of yes = no?

Anyone have good ideas on "consequences" of argumentativeness (timeouts don't seem to work, as he either doesn't get it or, as my mom would say, "pretends" not to understand)

Calisthenics are a good idea, but may lead him into the "I think it's a game" mentality.