Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Lesson Learned!

I love my kiddo but sometimes he makes me want to start drinking. Aaron, his god-send of a teenage babysitter, met me at the door when I got home yesterday (that should have been my first sign) to tell me that Jonas had a good day but wasn't very good at listening. I now think that maybe that was code for "He's a lunatic today!" but I digress. Aaron seemed very glad to leave Jonas in my care and I should have taken heed.

The first few minutes of us being home together was totally fine and then things went South. Jonas hasn't taken his medication all summer and his ADHD has been pretty manageable. Keeping things flexible, outside and free range really goes a long way to helping keep things in check. Last night, however, it was a different story. ADHD had him fully in his grip. We had hyperactivity, impulsiveness and inattentiveness out the wahzoo. It was like he was in his own little world.

Thankfully, we haven't had one of these days in a while. A combination of anxiety about school, excitement about BB, and a day stuck inside because of rain had him bouncing off the walls (and I mean that literally) and chirping the entire time. He was in a goofy mood, which only made it worse because when we'd try to corral him he'd have this huge smile on his face and then crack a joke. Of course, that just made things worse, but I have no doubt that last night was a classic case of ADHD not a smart ass kid. He genuinely wants to behave but just didn't have it in him last night.

The key to days like this are for us to dig deep down into our well of patience. Sitting still and quiet is not something Jonas is capable of most of the time but especially not on a night like last night. Steven came home with a shoulder full of work-related stress and BB has brought all my emotions right to the surface, so we weren't exactly the picture of patience. We just wanted a low-key family night. We shot ourselves in the foot, though, by insisting on watching a movie that we've all been looking forward to. It doesn't matter that it was an all-out action flick with lots of excitement, he was absolutely not able to sit through it without constant bouncing, talking, singing and, at one point, a Jonas Blanchard dance show.

In retrospect, what we should have done was turn the movie off and saved it for another night. We should have pulled out a board game or the Lego. We needed something that we could all do together without the need to sit still and be quiet or sending him somewhere else in the house to do something by himself. I guess we got lulled in by an easy going summer and forgot some of our ADHD (and kids in general) lessons. Lesson learned! Isn't hindsight a great thing?!

Cheers!


I love this kid!

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