Verb: a word used to describe an action
I have always wanted to be a mom. I didn’t dream of a white wedding, but of walking my baby down the beautifully paved street in the Rolls Royce of strollers. When I had my daughter, I remember being in total bliss. At one point when my daughter was about 9 months old, I remember thinking “I am sooooo good at this. Like, really good. Like have another baby good.” About a year and a half later, I had my baby boy, Yosef, who began changing my life immediately.
You know when your mom would always say, “Don’t worry, you’re going to have a child just like you and then you will know how I feel.” No? Was that only my mom?? Well, yeah, that is Yosef. A child just like me… and I was something special. Still am… spoiler alert: it doesn’t go away! Some people are born to make the world a better, more tolerant place. Some people are destined to break barriers. That is my Yosef. We just have to get through this small “childhood” phase alive.
When he was a little under 18 months, I put him into the best preschool in our area, just as I had with my daughter, who went through same preschool without a concern. However, with Yosef, a few months into the toddler class, he began to bite. Yes, biting is typical. They can’t speak, so they get frustrated and they bite. No, that was not Yosef’s situation. He excessively bit multiple kids faces with warmth and sweetness. Hannibel Lecter was a child’s story. It. Was. Horrible. He was not aggressive, but it was constant and his strong bite would always leave a mark.I remember being cornered at a grocery store by a grandmother who called him an animal and said he belonged in a cage for biting her grandson’s face. The mother called to apologize after she found out. She explained that there was a family event and for the first time in so many years everyone was going to be in the same city and they were taking family photos. The jaws of life mark on her face would not accentuate her outfit. I took it. I took everything. The dirty looks, and the stress from teachers and parents.
What made it worse, was that everyone wanted to help. If you have been through anything, at all in life, you know how hard it is to have so many people want to help. I did have amazing friends that were supportive, and it made it worse because I would just pray he wouldn’t bite their kids and alienate me more from everyone. The guilt was real. Feeling guilty for what I wasn’t doing right, or wasn’t doing at all. The tears were endless… and throughout everything, he remained a happy little boy.
After exhausting all the in-class efforts the teachers could expel, we hired a shadow. Yep, you heard that right, a shadow… for a toddler. Why didn’t I pull him out of school? Don’t ask my husband, he couldn’t tell you why… especially since he was the one asking. I thought, then, that it was because there was something wrong and that I needed to deal with it instead of pretending it was not an issue. I think the truth is that I needed the normal. Taking him out of school was akin to a failure. This is my dream, remember? This did not fit the plan. He was perfect. Why deprive the school of his perfection? We just needed to handle this one, small thing. After a few months of a full time shadow, we decided to pull her back and see how he was doing. Thankfully, the biting phase had gone away, and while there were a few more bites in the toddlers and two’s classes, it was a more typical bite that had a cause and the teachers were able to work with (I never thought saying that would be the good end of the scope).
Throughout this time, Yosef remained the same happy and energetic boy. Now, because I want to be transparent, by energetic I mean to say Non. Stop. Movement. Like, never not moving. Or jumping. Or running. Or humming. Or singing or flipping. But he also never forgot to say please and thank you. He always waved to a stranger. He ate all the food on his plate. He would kiss my cheek and dance with me. He was my best friend. He asked questions we didn’t know the answer to, and impressed us as much as he baffled us. He was constantly changing me for the better, and bewildering me at the same time. None of this has changed, almost 4 years later.
Before I knew it, 2 years had passed and my daughter was now graduating Pre-K (in the same school as Yosef) and moving up to Kindergarten. Pay attention, or you will miss my really good idea. I decided that I wanted to keep them in the same school and moved him from the stability of his small school that was overstaffed and loved him so much, to a much larger school with bigger teacher to student ratios. Yep! That was it, my really smart idea. I’m full of them, trust me. It will become clearer as we get to know each other better.
Yosef had always been a handful, and I spent most of every school year working with the teachers and communicating with everyone as a team while Yosef was in Occupational Therapy. I am not at all surprised that he was not easy, but I also couldn’t understand how difficult he could be. He was so easy to me, an elemental and basic boy. By the time we got into the first few weeks of Kindergarten my sweet boy with the best heart that loved to please, had become that kid no one wanted to play with, unbeknownst to me. Every time I picked him up, I heard “I had a good day Mami”. I shouldn’t have allowed the thought that no phone call from the school meant that all was good. I was approached by the Director to come in for a meeting and they relayed some of their concerns and suggested I hire a Behavioral Therapist to observe. I was interested, but just interested. I really wanted to believe the teachers were overreacting and he was just being a rambunctious boy. For me, with only 3 kids at this point, he was a handful, but for a busy and full classroom it might just be too much. That was probably all it was. Now, I tend to be wrong about most things. This was one of those things. The school really tried their best to handle him and the severity of his behaviors became too much.
Being a working mom, I wasn’t able to go into the school and have conversations with the teachers as often as I would have liked to, so when I heard what a day in his classroom looked like for him, from the Behavioral Analyst, I was beyond shocked. He is such a strong academic student, that while engaged in structure or learning something new, he was able to be an active participant in class and many things were tolerated, until it just couldn’t be any longer. The therapist advised us to get a psycho-educational evaluation to really have all the information available to us. The results were not a surprise to anyone, Yosef has ADHD. I hate labels, you hate labels… I know, I know. But sometimes a diagnosis isn’t a label, but a key. For us, the door had been locked too long. We decided to begin an intensive behavioral therapy program as that is, other than medication, the main course of action. It took herculean effort on everyone’s end, and to their credit, the teachers were completely committed. It made a huge difference in his behavior at school. While he was still acting up on occasion, they were able to better handle and discipline him. We have seen such a huge change in his behavior but we still have many more mountains to climb.
Now, after lots of money spent, and lots of arguments, strain, and stress, he is doing much better in school at structured times. Anything unstructured, any free play such as recess, is still a challenge for him. We are making it work and I am in a team with his teachers. That is what it has to be. I have learned to look at behavior as a form of communication. His behaviors are telling me more about his own inner struggles than of what we are doing as parents or educators. This is his way of communicating and I need to listen and to translate.
If you are in a similar situation, you should know one thing. You are amazing. You rock. No one knows your child as a mother knows their child and every decision you make is leading you to the key to understanding. If you know someone who is going through this, please know they are trying more things than you can imagine to make things better for everyone. They don’t want advice. Give them motivation and tell them they are doing a great job and that you are learning from them and how much they are willing to do for their child. No matter what you do, do NOT tell a mom of a child with ADHD that their child will grow out of it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I don’t know what the future holds for us. I have 2 other kids that need my love and attention and support. Balance almost seems impossible and I’m often a wreck trying to gather my thoughts and make everything happen that needs to happen. I also have so much to do and I can’t figure out what I want to do next. If that sounds familiar, I feel you. And so does my son and so many other kids with ADHD who feel this way and can’t communicate because they can’t understand it. I was once told by my pediatrician that if an adult had an ear infection they probably wouldn’t be able to handle the pain. My goal from now on is to help shoulder the pain for him and be his advocate.
Every day brings new challenges, but one thing is abundantly clear to me. I was right. He is perfect. He is so much better than me and most others. I stopped waving at strangers until I saw that he still did. I stopped saying please because I stopped asking or expecting anything, until I saw he expected it all because he deserves it. He shares whatever he has, will give up his space for someone else, and you will never meet someone with a bigger heart. I have learned and continuing to learn so much from him and seeing the world in his eyes has made me a better mother and human being. I remember pulling my hair out because I didn’t know what I was going to do with him. I have decided I am going to enjoy him. It isn’t easy living with a verb, a child in a constant state of motion… but sometimes you need that constant flow to remember that nothing happens until something moves (Einstein said it so it CAN’T be wrong). Sometimes we aren’t here to teach our children, but to learn from them. Class is in session…
Thanks for reading,
Tzippy