There was little disagreement tonight that reminded me that it is always wise to make sure we are arguing about the same thing.

Next week is spring break, because of Paul’s difficulty with change we try to keep his schedule consistent, even during holidays. We told him that he could stay up an hour later, until 10:30, and wake up an hour later. This will make it much easier to get him back on the school schedule.

This lead to an argument between Paul and my wife. He didn’t think it was fair, and she kept trying to explain to him that it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t until she asked what time he thought would be a fair bedtime that the problem became obvious. It turned out that Paul thought 10:30 would be a fair bedtime.

In the beginning we used to laugh at moments like these, but now we have learned to save it. Paul just doesn’t think that its funny when stops listening and argues because he wants the same thing we do. But then most of these fight happen at night when his Concerta has worn off. At first we didn’t think it was funny either, but we need to laugh it off to keep our sanity.

~Living With Paul

Telling Paul about FASD again went better than I was expecting. He wasn’t comfortable and he didn’t want to be there, so he sat in a chair and tried to not pay attention. It’s not the environment that was uncomfortable, just the topic. Paul doesn’t like to admit that he is different, he would much rather just tell people that he is stupid than talk about FASD.

As we sad and talk about FASD, the therapist made sure that Paul knew we were not trying to make him feel bad about himself or his mother. She told him that his mother didn’t know she was doing anything to hurt him. We talked about all the things that Paul is really good at like working with his hands, his creativity, and his kindness to animals.

We told him that the reason we were doing this was to help him understand himself so that he learn how to recognize the areas where he has trouble and come up with solutions or strategies. We started watching a DVD called This is Me, and Paul told us he wasn’t going to watch. There was a cat in the DVD, used to show that Me, the character in the DVD was good with animals. On the way home Paul didn’t say much, but as soon as we got home he went looking for Simon, the stray cat we took in.

This meeting wasn’t intended to be the end, but rather the beginning as we try to help Paul come to terms with FASD.

~Living With Paul

Tomorrow we are going to try to explain FASD to Paul again. We have tried before and it has never sunk in. He refuses to acknowledge that he is any different from anyone else. The first time we tried to tell him, he applied it to someone else and said “Aw, thats sad.”

Trying to help Paul deal the stress he is feeling trying to keep up appearances we started sending him to see an art therapist. We were trying to get him to stop hitting himself and calling himself stupid when something didn’t go his way. He still does it, but not nearly as often. The art therapist is the most ingenious thing I have ever seen. She plays with him in her office, which looks more like a playroom than an office. While he’s distracted she talks to him about issues that we think are important and tries to find out what he thinks is important.

We have tried to tell him a couple of other times with similar or no result. He is either not ready or not able to hear what we are saying. This time we will not be alone when we try to explain it. It feels far more comfortable knowing a psychologist will be there to help us when we try again.

Paul is like we used to be and just focuses on the ADHD. Although for awhile he thought he had HIV. When the school was telling them about HIV and AIDS Paul came home and said “HIV? Isn’t that what I have?” We told him it was FAS and he said “No I know it has an h in it.”
So we said “You mean ADHD.”
“Yeah I knew it had an h.” he said and then we settled in to make sure that he really knew the difference between ADHD and HIV.

Holidays are always rough for Paul. His behavior is always a little bit worse, probably because it is the only time he gets to see his Dad. Although he hasn’t been making it to the family dinners lately. Today started with a fight between the kids, Paul didn’t want to get out of be to look for easter eggs, and his sister didn’t want to wait for him. We know that he likes to wait up on Easter so he can find candy before he goes to bed. This year we decided to do it in the morning instead of before we go to bed.

When Paul realized that she wasn’t going to wait for him, he slithered out of bed and started looking and complaining. We tried to tell him that it didn’t matter because we were going to make them split the candy equally anyways which he completely ignored. There were two kinds of egg the solid chocolate and the caramel filled. When Paul realized that there were caramel eggs and he didn’t find any he got right worked up. He did have candy though so he was relatively easy to calm down, this time he seemed to understand that we were really going to make them divide the chocolate equally. This stopped his meltdown but he also decided that there was no point in staying awake and went back to his room. I told him that if he didn’t do any of the looking we wouldn’t be doing any splitting so he came out and joined the hunt.

Video games are the be all and end all in Paul’s world, and we had a little incident because that’s all he wanted to do. To the point that he was willing the skip a turkey dinner, he actually thought that we leave him at home while we went to dinner. During the day he was told that if he wanted to play video games he had to go outside and play. He decided that he wasn’t going to go and lurked around the house for a couple of hours. When he thought enough time had passed he tried to go on his DS, which sparked a fight with my wife. After he whined and cried for about half an hour she told him that he could either go outside or go to his room until he was ready to go outside. To my surprise he went to his room.

As the time to leave for dinner drew nearer I knew that we were in for a fight, and I wasn’t disappointed. We told Paul to get ready an hour before it was time to leave so that we could leave on time. My wife tried to reason with him but he just curled up into a ball and cried and screamed that it wasn’t fair and he should be able to bring his DS and play with that instead of the other kids at the dinner. When the baby was ready I took over, seeing that reasoning with him wasn’t working I decided to use our other staple - counting. I said “OK Paul that’s one.”
He looked at me all confused and cried “Why I just want to stay home and play my DS, I’m old enough!” I guess that technically he was right, legally he is old enough to be left in home alone. And we have left him home when we go to the store, but there is a big difference between leaving him for a hour and leaving him for 5 hours with no food.
“No Paul,” I answered “You’re not old enough and you’re certainly not acting like it. We told you what you had to do to play your DS and you chose not to. If I get to 3 you won’t be playing video games today period.” I went and locked the back door, when I got back Paul still hadn’t moved so I said “OK Paul, that’s 2″ and went downstairs to make sure that everything was off. I took my time because I knew it would take him a little while to choose, to my surprise when I got upstairs he was already outside waiting.

By the time we got to dinner he was back to normal and seemed to have forgotten all about his DS.

That’s the thing with Paul, the same tactic doesn’t work on him every time. We have to mix it up and keep him guessing. We only deal with Paul one on one. We’ve found that by using this method the other parent can still talk to Paul after. This has made it easier to keep things consistent. The funny thing is it was actually Paul’s idea, sort of. We used to deal with him together, but he wouldn’t say anything other than to tell us he only wanted to talk to one of us. As we learn to listen to Paul it gets easier to live with him, of course we still have to decipher what he is telling us.

Happy Easter

~Living With Paul

I keep reading that I have to pick my battles, and after 3 years of living with Paul, I think that that is sound advise. One of the battles that I have decided to pick is the direct defiance.

When I built my new computer a gave the old one to the kids. This included the cordless mouse, one of the old ones that doesn’t have a charger. A few weeks back the batteries died on Paul while he was playing a game, so he tried to put new ones in. Unfortunately he was in a hurry to get back to his game so he didn’t look to see which way the batteries should go in and put them in wrong. When the mouse didn’t work he decided that the best thing to do was hit the mouse on the desk until it started working, which of course never happened.

When he finally told me what happened, I looked at the mouse and fixed the batteries and noticed that it was looking a little beat up. I decided to roll the dice an ask him about it. Sometimes Paul’s impulsiveness works for us and he will blurt out the truth before he has a chance to think about it. This is always followed by a look of panic and a rapidly changing story as he tries to back peddle. Paul confessed to beating the mouse and I told him that I didn’t want him changing the batteries without supervision. He said OK, after all it didn’t matter to him at the moment, the mouse was working again.

When the batteries died this week it happened at a bad time. We have a new baby, who just turned one, and it was his bed time. He was crying for his bottle when Paul asked my to put new batteries in the mouse. I told him that I needed to make Jack his bottle and put him to bed before I could do that for him. I told him that it would take about 15 minutes and reminded him that he wasn’t to change them himself. While I was in the kitchen getting the bottle, Paul came by and went to his room. He came back to the kitchen with batteries in his hand, when he saw that I was still in there he ducked back around the corner and put his hand in his pocket. He walked past me again with his hand shoved into his pocket as far as it would go and went straight for the computer.

After I put Jack to bed I went to see Paul…

When I got to the computer he turned around and said “The mouse started working again” and went back to playing his game.
“Because you changed the batteries?” I asked.
There was a very quite “Yes.” from Paul.
“Even though I just finished telling you not to do that?” I asked. This launched Paul into a little tirade about how he wanted to play on the computer and he didn’t want to wait so he did what he had to do.

At this time I decided that making Paul turn off the computer was a fitting consequence. When I told him to turn it off he moaned “What? For putting batteries in the mouse?”

I explained that he did a good job of putting the batteries in, but that it didn’t change the fact that he had done exactly what I told him not to do. This led us to the end of the world, with Paul crying that it wasn’t fair and that he should be able to do what he wants. I reminded him that direct defiance is bottom line behavior and told him that I wasn’t taking away his screen time. To my surprise Paul calmed himself down and went to play his Gameboy.

All in all, things went rather well. I was expecting the full blown fight that usually results when Paul doesn’t get his way. Although I can’t tell if it was just a good day or if I’m starting to wear him down.

~Living with Paul

When Paul first came to live with us, we were told repeatedly that he had ADHD not FASD. We have since obtained documentation to the contrary. The only person telling us about FASD wasn’t reliable, so we didn’t listen. As a result we focused on the ADHD. We bought a book from the ADD center here in Winnipeg, which my wife read cover to cover. It could have been written about Paul, all of his behavior issues were there along with tips and strategies to deal with them without medication.

We of course drank this all up and concocted a regime for Paul to follow that was supposed to make Following a “normal” routine easier. This lead us to the charts. They contained not only what he was expected to do (wake up, brush teeth. etc) but also the desired behavior (listening, co-operation). For everything that was done the kids got a point. I say kids because we didn’t think it would be fair to have a chart just for Paul, so we made one for his younger sister as well. At the end of the week they were given a reward based on the amount of points the received.

The rewards were the kind of things that only really matter to children, the ability to choose supper in, an extra hour of “screen-time” on the weekend, or choosing a restaurant to go to. For the first little while this worked very well as Paul yearned for the much coveted extra screen-time tickets.

It wasn’t long before the charts became too hard for Paul. We had to remind him constantly to check the chart to see what he should be doing. We of course just thought he was being lazy, or testing the boundaries. So we stuck to the rules we had set, not understanding that is really was too hard for him.

Before we finally got it, we even tried making each check mark worth a nickel. This of course just made thing worse as it put more pressure on Paul.

Throughout the chart fiasco Paul kept trying to tell us that it was too hard. We just wouldn’t listen, there wasn’t anything unusual on them, and it was stuff that he did, and should be doing every day.

We have learned a little since then, and I understand now that it was not the charts themselves that were too hard. They just put too much pressure on him. He couldn’t sleep because he was so upset about missing a check mark. He would get so worked up that we started giving him ways to earn them back.

In the end while the charts did calm some of the chaos in our home, the toll it was taking on Paul was not worth it. The charts are gone now, and replace by a list that he can check to see what he has to do. There are still good days and bad days, but he has one less thing to get stressed out over.

~Living With Paul

When Paul first came to live with us we had what he now refer to as his honeymoon period. He was like one of those TV children, always offering to help, quiet, polite and friendly. For the first 2 weeks we were left wondering what the big deal was, and then he had his first meltdown.

The meltdowns are bad, and because Paul is unable to regulate his emotions, they only get worse if they are left unchecked. The first one caught us of guard, because it was so unlike the Paul we had been getting to know. While I no longer remember what sparked the episode, I still remember what followed.

It was like a flash flood, we thought we were handling the situation well and then we were drowning. When we tried to make Paul sit at the kitchen table to have a time out, he refused, and started yelling that he didn’t have to do what we tell him. I could see that nothing was getting resolved and that it would be better to talk to him when he was calmer so I tried to send him to his room. He responded with a very determined “No!” so I walked him to his room and sat him on his bed (mistake 1). I tried to walk out of the room and close the door but he was right behind me (mistake 2).

Now I thought I knew a little something about parenting, and thought that sticking with the time out I had given him was the best course of action. Of course this only made things worse, and as he became ever more determined to leave his room I dug in my heels and became more determined that he stay. Not seeing any other way I held the door closed until he stopped pulling on it (mistake 3). Satisfied that I had done the right thing and that he would calm down so we could talk about happened I started walking away.

I didn’t get more than five feet from the door when the banging started. I went back and found him punching himself and saying “I’m stupid” over and over. Still not realizing that I was ill-equipped to deal with the situation I ran into the room and grabbed his arm. I asked him why he was punching himself and got an answer I should have seen coming: “Because I’m stupid!”

I told him that he wasn’t stupid and to stop hitting himself. As soon as I moved toward the door (mistake 4) he started punching himself again. Not knowing what else to do I picked him up and said “Fine if I can’t trust you in here by yourself, then you’ll sit where I can see you!” And carried him to the kitchen and sat him down at the table. And just like that it was over, there was Paul sitting at the table (where he had refused to sit earlier) smiling, bloody lip and all.

We talked to Paul, and everything was back to normal. He told us he was sorry and went to bed like nothing had happened.

After Paul went to bed I phoned Family Services to report the incident and tell them that I had to restrain him. Having grown up in the system I knew how bad that could turn out for me. Not necessarily now, but down the road if he continues to hit himself and decides to tell someone that it was one of us…

Looking back I wouldn’t want to guess which of us was more confused by what was happening. Of course looking back it is easier to see what I did wrong.

Mistake 1: We should have tried to calm him down without trying to discuss the problem. The problem was what was upsetting him in the first place.

Mistake 2: I never should have tried to put him by himself when he was that upset. I was working off of experience with my step-daughter, who will go to her room until she is calm enough to talk.

Mistake 3: Locking him in, boy did I have the blinders on. A severe case of “I’m the parent, I’m right and you will to what I say!” Knowing what I know now, this was the worst thing I could have done. Paul was confused, upset and being sent away from the family. He wasn’t hearing “Go to your room until you are calm enough the talk.” but rather “Get lost, we’re tired of you!” I just reinforced this by trapping him in his room.

Mistake 4: I shouldn’t have tried to leave him again. I’m not sure if or what I was thinking at this point.

You might be asking yourself if you made such a mess of things, and you know that, why would post it for the world to see?

The answer is simple, if another parent can learn from any of the mistakes that we’ve made, then it is worth the embarrassment.

~ Living with Paul

I had only been with Paul’s Sister for a couple of months when I met him. He was living in a foster home and having visits with the family on holidays. His father had lost custody because of his problem drinking. He had to quit drinking and find an appropriate place to live within 2 years, or Family Services would make Paul a permanent ward.

The family visits inevitably played out the same way, Paul would ask “Why are you still drinking Dad?”
“It doesn’t matter if I quit drinking as long as I don’t quit thinking” or some other dumb rhyme was the usual reply.

Shortly after I asked Paul’s sister to marry me, she told me how much Paul living in a foster home bothered her, and asked me if I would be willing to try and get custody. I had grown up in the system so there was really only one answer. In the spring of 2006 we began our quest to get Paul.

We approached Family Services first, and were told that they couldn’t help us.
“If only you had applied when he was first apprehended,” they told us “Then you could have applied to be a place of safety”.

We, of course, thought this was the dumbest answer we could get. What child welfare agency would have given custody of one of their wards to a young single mother? Things were going well for us now; we both had decent jobs, and thought we could provide a stable environment for Paul. So we hired a lawyer and filed a petition for legal guardianship. A couple of weeks before our first court date, we were contacted by Paul’s social worker who asked to come in and talk to him.

The worker interviewed us, and I guess we did alright because he asked us if we would be willing to become foster parents instead of legal guardians. They strongly advised it and told us that because of Paul’s ADHD we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We talked it over and decided that it was the better option. As we delved into Paul’s history and discovered that he had been diagnosed with FASD as a toddler, we were glad that we had taken that route. The only catch was that they wanted us to talk Paul’s father into dropping his fight for custody. It didn’t take us long to convince him that it was the only way he would be able to continue seeing Paul on holidays.

6 months later, our life with Paul began.

~Living With Paul