The first 5 years of raising our 24/7 grandchild was the most challenging thing every in our lives. We had a therapist at our home twice a week. Plus, we had to take him weekly to an eating therapist. And, the challenges we faced with his behavior put a big strain on our marriage. We both wanted to use our own methods used for raising our own children. Very quickly we learned neither of our methods for raising our 24/7 grandson worked. At the end of each day, we were stressed, discouraged, and arguing over whose parenting skills were better or worse. As you guessed, our grandson’s behavior hadn’t improved. Also, before I forget, we also had challenges with the maternal grandparents and our grandson’s mother. They wanted to add their two-cents, which caused much confusion with our grandson. We were on a merry-go-round journey which added to our unwanted stress and responsibility we didn’t ask for.
For some clarity and an update, our 24/7 grandson was a “late bloomer” in eating, talking, walking, and potty training. He has behavior and emotional diagnosis we had never encountered with our own children (read posts 1 & 2).
We understood him being late in the area of walking and talking, so we lovingly coaxed him in those areas. However, words can’t begin to describe the nightmare we had in the area of eating and potty training. He wouldn’t accept our love and help in those areas.
In the area of eating he would smear his food on his highchair, throw it on the floor, on the table, or anywhere but eat it. The eating institute wasn’t helpful in this area either! After many months of this, we had to take turns sitting with him for an hour or more at every meal time coaxing this child to eat and to drink his prescribed boost drinks (due to failure to thrive). This scene occurred every day until the middle of the year of his fifth grade. At the age of 11, they were able to prescribe medicine to stimulate his appetite. Currently, he is eating without being coaxed, but he is still behind on his growth spectrum.
Potty training was horrible to say the least. We wanted to put him in daycare, but he had to be potty trained due to his age. He was almost three years old! We had tried potty training when he was two years old, but he wasn’t having any part of sitting on the chair. The task of restarting potty training was now on again! Our 24/7 grandson fought us on this issue with verbal “no,” and had major meltdowns with piercing screams that would go through the very depts of your soul! It was horrible! We literally had to tell our neighbors what we were doing and apologize to them so they wouldn’t think we were hurting our grandson and call Children’s Youth Services on us.
After many long months of potty training horrors, our grandson at the age of 3 years and 4 months, finally adapted to being potty trained. Next step, enroll him into daycare!
We enrolled our grandson into a daycare facility across the street from our home. Each day we dropped him off screaming and crying. We picked him up every afternoon screaming and crying. After one week, the owner told us he wasn’t ready for separation and we needed to have his therapist work with him in the area of separation.
At the age of four, we tried again. This time we enrolled him into a Head Start Program. During his time at head start, he was a holy terror. He gave the teachers a run for their money!! Our 24/7 grandson allowed his anger and emotions to control his days. They decided he needed an IEP to continue his education throughout his school years. They were right, he is currently on an IEP. Our grandson is very smart academically. He makes high honors, but lacks social and behavioral skills. A challenge he will have to learn to mature socially and to control his behavior.
More to come….
Journey With The King
Journey In His Word 
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