Me: Dude?
Him: Yes?
Me: Three years ago this week I told you I was reading a new book that would hopefully help me help you feel better.
Him: Yeah?
Me: You asked if it had tips or just stories and said that you hoped it had tips.
Him: <nodding>
Me: It had tips. And that is what we live now.
Him: <more enthusiastic nodding>
Me: We did OK, didn’t we?
Him: Yeah
Me: And we’re doing ok, right?
Him: Yeah we are.

For years, when people foisted their parenting opinion on me in relation to my 11 year old (the usual – a good smack, put my foot down, stop being so soft, punish him more… you all know the list) all I could say was “He doesn’t have a formal diagnosis and doesn’t meet the criteria for anything in particular. He just strugggles with the world sometimes”. The important bit in there was “sometimes”. That “sometimes” excluded him from treatment by the first psychologist he saw, excluded him from a diagnosis (and treatment) from the mental health service he was referred to, got him diagnosed from the play therapist… and on it goes.

I have sat in so many rooms with so many specialists trying to get across to them that he directs his frustrations at his brother and I, and “performs” in public. Each and every time I was told that the problem was with me. I got that, I get that, but no one could even point me in the right direction on how to help my kid who appeared to explode for no reason.

2 weeks ago, when school went back and one of his best friends went on holiday, his previous even keel disintegrated. He started exploding more often and included threatening to kill first his brother and then himself. Suddenly services are interested. Child protection social worker wants him seen by the GP, GP said “why bother, I can’t do anything”. Play therapist is willing to see me but my kid is not willing to see her. He told me during the week that he is not going to talk to anyone else because none of them listen to him and none of them help. Well of course, if he can hold things together in public then they don’t think he has a problem and it is all put down to a personality clash.

I foresee the whole exercise being an opportunity for the play therapist, the GP, the social worker etc to shame me for my poor parenting.

A friend recommended The Explosive Child and I read it during the week. I told my kid I was going to read it and he said “Is it just stories or is there tips in it? I hope there is tips”. He wants to not feel the way he does but MAN ALIVE he is so fragile at the moment there is no time to have proactive Plan B conversations and any time I have tried he has gotten frustrated and I’ve switched from Plan B to Plan C. So many things have gone into the Plan C column this week because I need things to be calmer around here in general so that we can have some peaceful time.

I hope his friend returning on Monday and doing some work with him to help him cope with the physical symptoms of ongoing age appropriate growth will also help to settle things down.

I have started a shopping list of things that frustrate him and I feel a little overwhelmed. <snip> it is the first time in a long long time I feel there is a light on the horizon.

The Parent, September 2016