Raising A 24/7 Child #2

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The reason I chose to title my articles concerning our grandson “Raising a 24/7 Child” is because we soon learned that he came with many behavioral problems. He refused to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner.  He entertained us with 35-minute major meltdowns continuously throughout each day.  His meltdowns consisted of screaming and crying as loud as he could.  Windows open or closed, you could hear him outside! I know our neighbors probably thought we were torturing this child. If the screaming and crying wasn’t bad enough, he would lose control and become very angry and start throwing objects near him or breaking whatever was in his way. 

When our grandson turned 2-years old other behaviors manifested. At night it became a constant battle putting him to bed. Most nights, he fought us at bedtime screaming and crying. It eventually became a game between my husband and me to guess how many times he would get out of bed – the winning number was 21 times of putting him to bed and him getting out of bed. Our grandson was determined to over-rule in his area.   

After our many sleepless nights and weariness from the temper tantrums, my husband and I decided to seek help.  Our journey to find a suitable agency for our grandson began with taking him to an eating institute to teach him to like and enjoy food (he still struggles in this area).  He was diagnosed with “failure to thrive.” At the eating institute we ask them to guide us to an agency that could help us with his behaviors.  We selected one the agencies recommended.  Our first visit to a therapist for help was quite an eye-opener.  We thought we knew how to raise children, after all we have grown children, successfully functioning without our aid.

After our grandson’s evaluation and mounds of paperwork with thousands of questions to answer, we learned he has several behavioral problems.  Our grandson not only has failure to thrive, they also labeled him with:  abandonment; oppositional defiant disorder; post traumatic distress; impulsivity; and sensory issue.  My first reaction was “dear God what an assignment You have given me?”  Within two weeks our grandson started therapy twice a week with out-patient therapy in our home. Unawares to us, a journey was about to begin in our lives that would change me and my husband’s lives without our permission. We would have to learn new training techniques, which were foreign to us. Raising our grandson we soon learned would be a 24/7 day watching him, redirecting him, and finding ways to bring balance into our family life.

When I don’t post regularly it is because of what is happening in our family life.

Stay tuned more to come…..

Journey With The King

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