Thursday, July 9, 2009

Flawed System

The system is flawed. It's not that I didn't know this before, it's just that I've been dealing with it so much the last few days. To start I'll preface this so it makes sense.
Benjamin has been OUT OF CONTROL lately. He's getting really bad really fast and we can't come up with a solution at all. He's not eating again, which isn't to unusual for him. He throws his food, screams, kicks, and most of the time won't even come to the table. He is ruining everything. Most everything is covered in pen, crayon, highlighter, sharpies etc. I'm using my dads laptop because Ben colored all over our computer monitor with a sharpie marker. He takes all the clothes from the dresser and throws them everywhere multiple times a day. He broke the windows, and the screens. He stole 2 pairs of scissors and sliced his sheets up. He shreds Sams boxes full of diapers. He sneaks food and throws it all over the house. He shreds games and game pieces. He's now used 3 tubes of tooth paste to paint his bedroom, his brother and himself. He covered the basement in honey. He wrote all over the white couch. He trashed all the DVDS and CDS. Took jewelry from my moms room. Stuck a bead up his nose. Slammed doors on people. hits kicks and pushes his siblings. sleeps for MAYBE a few hours a night, yelling the rest of the time. Last night he was kicking and slamming his door so hard that he literally ripped the screws that hold the door onto the frame out and the door is now broken. if we put a baby gate up he kicks it until it comes out. He broke my dad's telescope. he runs away from us in public. he insists on wearing pj's anytime he's near his room. he obsessed over trains to the point it goes everywhere with him and he freaks out if anyone else touches them. he screams so much from sun up to sun down that the adults get headaches almost every day. we have to pause the TV in the evening every 2-10 minutes because he will scream until someone comes. he peels all the wallpaper off the walls. He repeats the same thing obsessively over and over until you either repeat it back the way he wants it, or you come up with the answer that he wants. and even then sometimes he won't stop.
these are just a FEW of the things we are dealing with on a daily basis. It's at the point where he can't be alone at all and an adult has to be with him at all times. The crappy part is when he's in freak out mode I seem to be the only one able to cuddle him and calm him down. so that makes for great fun! :)
we've spent the last week calling all the phone numbers we possibly can trying to get some additional autism testing and support. we are getting nowhere. heck the state of kansas behavioral and mental health line informed me there are NO autism resources in our area. It's been very frustrating. We've got some more calls in and waiting for phone calls back. With so many people with autistic children you would think our system would be better equipped for this. To be told there are NO resources. WOW. the good news for ben is I won't give up, the bad news for all these people is I won't give up! :) by the time I'm done nobody will be told there are no resources, because I won't drop this. It's not fair to parents and families.

in other news.
Emily~She's doing good. A bit bored with summer, but all in all well. She's been reading alot. She's participating in 2 reading programs so that keeps her busy. She's also been watching all the Harry Potter movies and is loving them. She spends quite a bit of time on her laptop playing games, and learning to type faster.

Jace~He's just Jace. All energy. He's also in the summer reading program, and has been working thru some books. His reading does seem to be improving as he is doing better reading boxes and labels and signs and such. He got a big boy bike and is going to be learning to ride that as well.

Ariana~She's doing good. She's still the little princess. Always singing and dancing and playing dress up. She's still in OT and will be having a new speech evaluation next week. She's been making some improvements with her hands and hand movements and is finally starting to get some of that down.

Me~I'm 16 1/2 weeks pregnant already. Time is flying and I have no idea if it's going to slow down at all. My sono is on the 28th of this month and we think that we will be finding out if it's a boy or a girl. I've been doing lots of knitting and that's keeping me pretty busy.

Bob~he's doing good. still job hunting. the job market around here really sucks right now, not that it's great anywhere else either. he has learned to knit and so spends some time in the evenings doing that as well! :)

1 comment:

Christie said...

I'm sorry you are dealing with this. We are fortunate that we aren't going through this. I don't know where to tell you to turn either. It is sad that KS is so backwards about this. Have you tried to contact Rainbows?