Decoding Ty

Five years ago, even though we didn’t know it, our bouncy, pouncy, Ty-ger of a child entered the world albeit 15 weeks early.  He joined our family at 2 1/2 years old and our lives haven’t been the same.

Unlike our other two, he didn’t respond to cause-effect discipline or intuitively learn anything.  We still have to remind him to eat one bite at a time lest he shovel his entire plate into his mouth and then gag it all up…at every meal.  This fall, I set out on a intense quest to figure this kid out.  I’m an information hog by nature, and I wanted to make sure I knew as much as I could that would possible help us to raise Ty successfully. 

So I read, read, read, and read some more.  In fact, I’m still reading.  I have found some common threads throughout the resources I’ve come across and started to come to terms with re-learning some of our parenting techniques.

Here are some things that Ty’s up against that may or may not be due to being a micropreemie and/or being adopted after 4 other placements.  Either way, they are certainly compounded by those things…

1. ADHD–I have no formal dianosis but we are 99.9% sure that these four letters describe our son.  Lest you be skeptical, I fully agree that this is WAY over diagnosed (don’t get me started), but I fully believe, now that we have a Ty, that this is a bonified brain/neurological disorder.  And Ty has it.
2. Sensory Integration/Processing Disorder (SPD)–My jury’s still out on which of the three types most effects Ty, but he shows the majority of the symptoms in these diagnostic lists.  The more I read about this, the more I can’t imagine not being able to process the world properly or how frutrating it must be and the more I’m convinced this plays into Ty’s struggles.  These symptoms are all common in ADD kids.
3. Explosiveness–I cried after reading the first couple chapters of the The Explosive Child.  So few had nailed our child the way this book had. Okay, I cried during a lot of the books.  It’s just strangely reassuring to know that there are other kids like Ty and/or that other parents have struggled the way we have. 
4. Impulsiveness–Part of the reason cause/effect discipline does not work on Ty is that he’s doing whatever he’s not supposed to be doing long before he processes what the consequences could be.

Here are some hopefully helpful things if you can remotely relate to parenting a child like Ty…

1. Diet–While some physicians may swear there are not food sensitivities outside of physiological allergies, I know a lot of parents who beg to differ.  I’ve heard of kids having behavioral reactions to everything from gluten to rice to corn derivatives.  I wish I knew more about this or how to diagnose it without pure trial and error.  We’ve also started supplementing Ty with fish oil and probiotics.  I didn’t notice a huge difference so the jury’s out on whether we’ll continue once this supply runs out.
2. Connecting the physical to the neurological–The most fascinating books I’ve read are how holes in physical development impact neurological development and learning.  It’s a recurring theme all around me lately.  The infant/toddler play actions most of us take for granted (i.e., crawling, peek-a-boo, bubbles, baths, jumping, sand, etc.) can be detrimental if eliminated or skipped.  The things our brains learn through those types of play lay the ground work for being able to learn and regulated ourselves emotionally.
   Enter Exhibit A.  This is what Ty produced in September.  It represents his attention span as well as his lack of attention to detail.
   We started doing activities out of Growing an In-Sync Child in an attempt to start filling in missing developmental gaps in his foundation.  Two weeks later, he sat down with a similar coloring page and VOILA!  The improvement was not due to wrote lecturing about and practicing of drawing in the lines, but activities like pouring water in the tub across his midline and popping bubbles.
   
3. Explicitness–It’s like having an Amelia Bedelia.  There is no intuition or sense of allegorical language.  Everything is literal.  No, “Cut it out!”  It has to be, “Ty, please do not make siren noises.  Please use words or be quiet.”
4. Physical and eye contact–Not only does physical and eye contact provide a springboard for bonding, it’s required for kids who are ADD or have trouble processing sensory input.  Your child might not be ignoring you, he may actually not hear you if there’s any other kind of noise in the area.  Touching to get his attention and requiring him to look you in the eye insures you are heard and processed.  Of course, if your child is impulsive, it feels like being heard doesn’t seem to matter anyway…
5. Accomodations–I’m starting to be convinced that some kids with ADD and SPD need certain kinds of stimulation like others need sleep.  Ty is one of those kids that needs the feeling of deep joint impact if he has any hope of concentrating or sitting still.  Periodically the kid needs to go flying through the air and land…hard…on the ground.  Seriously we started letting him jump down 4 or 5 steps about five times before preschool and his constant wiggliness during circle has greatly improved.  We had to let go of our rule that jumping like that was unaccpetable due to safety reasons.  We’ve found that Ty needs it more than we need to protect him, and he happens to be like a cat…7 lives and always lands on his feet.  Volume of speech? Still working on that one.  But we have found that he needs an appropriate, QUIET outlet of energy at all times.  Wikki Stix have been a great tool for him.
6. Calm/Relax–I know this particularly relates to kids who have been through trauma but some kids seem to be addicted to adrenaline and other stress hormones.  Apparently coming off of them can feel like falling.  Kids are strangely intuitive enough to sense this and figure out which activities create stress, thus releasing more addictive hormones.  Ty tends to operate at this constant high stress, intense level.  You can watch him visibly struggle when required to do activities that are supposed to be calming.  We are working on helping him to be able to feel comfortable at a relaxed state.

Lest you think by reading this post, that we have Ty figured out and we’re all hunky dory…

When he gets up every morning, I take a deep breath and prepare to enter a battlefield.  I am way Type A if you haven’t figured that out, and he way pushes my buttons.  We’re all exhausted and frustrated (including him), and we all yell way too much.  However, God is gracious everyday and gives us glimpses of this really cute kid with a great imagination and fabulous sense of humor which is why we continue to fight to help him grow into his full potential.  Here’s to his 6th year…

Happy 5th Birthday Ty!

P.S.  Here are some resources I highly recommend…