beaners
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Posts posted by beaners
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I don't mind eating it, but it's too expensive for my budget. The tins were more than $3 dollars for less than a pound last time I checked. I won't pay that much for recognizable meat!
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Painting is totally a chore, but I can't think of a better time to get it done. The kids in the room that needs it the worst will be gone, so I won't have to worry about anyone touching things or needing to get the room set up for them to sleep in until it is done. The paint smell doesn't bother me too much. I will be touching up all the corners and walls and scraped spots in the main living area anyway, so I figured I might as well do it all. Now I'm wondering what the odds are that I will get halfway through and throw in the towel.
The homeschool prepping does need to get done. We are starting up very soon after the vacation and I do need to have at least the basics ready. I do have some possible open time for that after they get back. It would be easier while they are gone. But what wouldn't? LOL
Organizing and actually being able to appreciate the effect for more than a day sounds amazing. It drives me crazy to get something put in order and have the kids following behind me undoing it thirty seconds later. I'm not sure if it will be more defeating to see how it stays nice the whole time they are gone and then watch it get destroyed as soon as they are home again. I know I want to get at least some of this done to make our home more relaxing during my time off. I'm also trying to establish some new routines for the beginning of our year, and organizing would help with that too.
And sitting outside without having to chase after everyone the entire time? It sounds lovely. There is a very good chance that I will end up doing this every.single.day instead of the practical things I could be doing instead.
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My husband is going out of town soon and taking the higher maintenance half of our children with him. The possibilities are endless. I can't decide what to do with all that sort of free time. (Since when does having five children seem like a vacation?) So, Hive, what should I do?
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Having someone come in every day won't be able to happen. I do have a friend who comes by to clean and who is able to watch everyone. It would definitely be possible for me to hire her for an extra day a week to supervise him or the other kids, and that might be an option we take. My husband is home for two days, and we don't have these problems hardly ever when he is here. This child is typically very well behaved when someone else is here, although this friend has seen him meltdown before and knows what that is like. That would be almost half the week likely free from issues though.
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Thank you all so much. This is really helping me talk through these issues with myself and reconsider some things I hadn't thought about in a while. I think everyone directly involved has gotten used to our status quo (and WOW, I have discovered that you can get used to some really strange stuff when it is your normal routine!) and seeing how it looks to outsiders is super helpful.
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My husband does some of the schoolwork with the kids, but yes, I do the majority. My toddler and baby don't do schoolwork yet and my 4 year old goes to a SN preschool during the school year. The older boys are mostly at the same level so we do a lot in groups with them. This child could be doing work with the other two at his level, but I do his material separately to make things easier on everyone. He has activities he can do at the table by himself while I am working with the other kids, so that is what he is doing when I work with the other kids.
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I don't know if your OT, your pediatrician and your specialist teams have been trained in the brain wiring of children who have experienced trauma. If they have, then they're great options. If they haven't, then they're not.
Our pediatrician is an adoptive mama herself, and one of the specialist teams is the international adoption clinic of a major children's hospital. :) That is definitely the framework we are working within.
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You need to see a professional specifically trained in the brain wiring of children who've been through trauma no matter how long ago it was or how old they were when it happened or how long they endured it. If you don't know of one near you then maybe you can call the one near me and see if they know of someone in your area http://www.aztrauma.org/. Don't take any advice about behavior modification/ consequences/ discipline/diet from anyone untrained in this area. You'll just make it worse.
Of course if he's doing harm physically, mentally and/or emotionally to another child, you must remove him from the other child.
Thank you! We do "connected parenting" because of his trauma background, and I'm viewing everything through that lens. That background is why it is taking time to get into therapy that can work with his special needs and trauma needs.
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We are getting quarterly consults with an OT and work to do with him at home. Some of the calming things work but only if he is willing to do them. Transitioning him into the activities is difficult.
The kitchen table is our best spot for him right now because he can be supervised. When he needs it, I have the kids do their quiet time work in their rooms so everyone isn't running around while he is getting settled down. We were having him sit in his room to get calmed down before, but we had too many incidents because there wasn't a set of eyes on him. We are on a (too long) waiting list for appropriate counseling/therapy that can accommodate his combination of needs and history, but we do have a regular pediatrician who is aware of things in addition to our specialist teams.
We had originally sent him to our local school, but we pulled him when there were too many incidents where they weren't properly supervising him. Right now I think it would make MY day much easier, but it would set him back. The school and the way they were handling things didn't help attachment, and attachment is what a lot of what these problems stem from. We are actually doing much better than we were six months ago. We have made a lot of progress. But we do still have these incidents and handling them is my biggest homeschooling challenge right now.
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Sounds like he is verbally abusing other family members, which I would not allow for long. Whatever needs to be done, you can't justify sacrificing other children for the sake of this one, troubled boy.
Okay, by "not allow," what do you mean? What would you do? Because me "not allowing" the behavior hasn't made it stop. As mentioned, I don't subject the other children to his abuse. I either remove him or take everyone else into the other room. What is the "whatever needs to be done?" I'm hoping this reads the way I intend it. Absolutely none of this is snarky. If you have a gameplan that would resolve this, I want it. Badly.
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Haha, he is highly skilled at shoveling food into his mouth and insulting people at the same time. Or trying to disturb other people with his eating. Only when he is set off though. The rest of the time he is great and charming and pleasant and has decent table manners. When he has gotten started however...
Seriously though, I hand out lots of high protein snacks in addition to our meals throughout the day, so I don't think that is usually it. I will keep an eye out to see if he is getting hungry sooner than the others.
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14 years old. Developmentally closer to early elementary. Background of extreme neglect and abuse. Putting him on my lap wouldn't work, and once he is set off he can't pull it together with a timeframe. He knows what he needs to do, but in the moment the "high" of the behavior is too rewarding if that makes sense.
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How do you keep your day on track when one child is derailing things? Particularly lessons you do with everyone together? Background - one of our kids requires 24/7 supervision right now and has a "home base" seat at the kitchen table. I can do other independent or small group work in one of the bedrooms with other kids but still have a line of sight on him. That works well when he is being disruptive. Our lessons for everyone are tough to do when he is having a hard day. One of the lines I have drawn for myself is that we can't keep disrupting life for the other kids because he is difficult to work with. (Realistic or not, who knows, lol!) He actually likes schoolwork most of the time, but once he is set off he will sit at the table and talk garbage about all the other kids while they are working or playing. We have an open floorplan so I can't work in the living room while he is in the kitchen. Doing family lessons in the other room without him makes him more upset, but is the most fair option for the rest of the kids. Alienating him from the family is really something I'd like to avoid though. He does enough of that on his own.
And on the individual level, how do you do schoolwork with a child while he is yelling at you? I've been telling him I will wait until he is being respectful and calm to work with him. It doesn't help the behavior. It triggers him more, but at the same time I literally can't do the work while he is in crabby patty mode. We've been doing this consistently for months. The only thing that works is waiting until he is back to himself, but riding out that wave is tiring. And less gets done during that time than I would like.
I'm not sure if I'm looking for "permission" to do family work without him, or for more ideas of how to get things done, or what. We are so close to having a workable routine for all these kids, but we lose whole days here and there when I am focusing on this one child. Days get harder and harder to make up with nine kids in the house.
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We lived in PA a few years ago so we needed to get that same clearance done for our adoption paperwork. It was brutal. Remembering all the names of people you've lived with at each address was so tough. I was more worried about messing up the PA clearances than Interpol!
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This is something I've been thinking about for a while and the talk about clicker training and ABA on the other thread reminded me of it. Is something learned through behavioralism of equal value to something learned traditionally? Do my kids seated at the table because I have plied them with raisins for good sitting lose out on something compared to my kids who are sitting because they have decided they prefer the atmosphere when everyone isn't climbing on the table? I understand the idea that deep down *everything* is behaviorism, but what about the value of the cognitive discussion? "I want to do this because of....something more elevating and enlightening than chocolate chips and raisins."
I think some of my feelings on this stem from why I appreciate classical education. I want my children and my family to be better for the things they have learned, better people. Good people. Is it okay if they are acting like thoughtful members of society if they learned to do it for mini marshmallows? On the other hand, are the motivations of great men and women intrinsically more valuable than high fives? (I think so, but why?) Or will practicing respect and kindness for rewards eventually lead to being able to further explore why those are good and admirable traits?
From a practical standpoint, some of my kids have severe and profound delays. Things that work, work. Questioning motivation is a luxury when we are talking about skills they would not have otherwise. I'm still curious about the value of training methods compared to teaching techniques as a whole.
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She might not be eligible for an IEP. This is what our state documentation says about IEPs. I am sure they are not the only state. I have no idea what they do about educational neglect (esp. if it's for a public school student who hasn't been homeschooled), but they don't have to give an IEP...
"It is the determination of the team that:
The determining factor for the child's poor performance is not due to a lack of appropriate instruction in reading or math or the child's limited English proficiency. For the preschool-age child the determining factor for the child's poor performance is not due to a lack of preschool pre-academics.. YES NO
The child meets the state criteria for having a disability (or continuing to have a disability) based on the data provided in this document. YES NO
The child demonstrates an educational need that requires specially designed instruction YES NO
If the response is NO to any question, then the child is NOT eligible for special education. If the response to all three questions is YES, then the child IS eligible for special education."
She might still have a disability. I know someone who was in a public school setting and a 2e dyslexic. That person was almost this far behind. (This person caught up with outside intervention and a change of home settings.)
I could see a school saying it was lack of instruction upon initial enrollment, but after two years? The school has skin in the game now too. They are legally required to be providing a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). I'm not saying some schools wouldn't try to avoid the extra work, but she is certainly eligible for services. I have teenagers with severe delays and other special needs who are reading a bit below that level. That is a wildly low percentile placement.
I would fight tooth and nail for an IEP now, before the summer hits, to have services lined up for next year. If you do it now those services cannot be changed by the school without agreement by the student's representative, even if her scores go up from the tutoring over the summer. To me it sounds like she is really going to need that extra help going back next year, and it would stink if you guys work so hard that she is just at the line where she still needs help but doesn't qualify. She certainly qualifies now though, and they can't change the IEP without permission after it is in place! Find an advocate and fight for it if the school is resistant.
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She has been in the public school system for two years, and is still only reading at a second grade level? I know kids fall through the cracks, but if she has been getting any kind of reading instruction (and with those scores she has to be eligible for an IEP) and she isn't reading well yet, I disagree with the school's "no LD" assessment. I think knowing what is going on there is going to be helpful for you to make forward progress with her.
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I do have help, so I can't vote on part 3 and it won't let me submit. A friend comes over about once a week and we pay her $25-ish a visit. Mostly she just does the bathrooms, but the bigger benefit is that my house needs to not be squalid when she stops by. For us, we started having her help because our family had grown by several members in a short period of time. It wasn't because of homeschooling but because I was adjusting to caring for twice as many kids. Now that things have settled down I could do the work she does, but I honestly wouldn't have the motivation to make the house presentable if someone wasn't coming over. Plus I know the extra money helps her family.
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Yes, we deal with this kind of thing all the time. Our most recent was a notice from the insurance company saying they can't cover my recent hospitalization because the hospital didn't say why I was there. It was an "ill-defined condition" so not eligible for insurance coverage. LOL I was giving birth! It was even a scheduled induction and they had all the paperwork ahead of time, so it wasn't like I just walked in and popped the baby out in the hallway while they scrambled to get my info! (Which is what they were afraid would happen if I went into labor on my own and needed to travel to the hospital.)
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And for what it is worth, my parents sure the heck weren't on drugs. The insinuation that the problem is drugs for most poor families is just brazen and untrue. Sterotyping poor people is nothing new but that doesn't make it kind or acceptable.
I am another person who mentioned drug use. I'm sorry if that was offensive. That wasn't my intent. I was referring to our local school district where my son attends preschool, not everyone everywhere. In our area, drugs are a problem. One of my son's friends on the bus lost a parent to an OD. There are constant arrests for heroin, meth, hydrocodone, etc. and a lot of the people being arrested have kids. I mentioned the drug use to say that some kids locally are hungry whether they have good parents who are working hard but struggling or not good parents who don't take care of them. Either way I want the kids who need it to get food. I just want them to stop giving it to MY kid.
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If my child had severe allergies to peanuts or such, I'd never send her to daycare or school. It wouldn't be worth taking the chance. It also isn't fair to schools and daycares to have to cater to every single allergy that a child might have. It is amazing they can feed the children at all with all the different allergies... but I also don't agree with the person on here who makes the entire family not eat certain foods because one child is allergic (not deathly allergic) to them. At some point that child will have to face situations where other people are eating what they can't. It's call REAL life. It's better for them to learn how to deal with it at home and before becoming an adult.
Okay, this baffles me. My husband and a couple of my kids are lactose intolerant. Not the same as an allergy, but similar enough. It is WAY easier for me to cook one meal everyone can eat than cook something separate without dairy. Why would I wave cheese in front of my child's face to toughen them up for the real world?!
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One tidbit from the article prairiewindmomma posted:
"She still remembers a child from a few years ago. His mom would bring him to school each morning and sit with him as he ate a free breakfast in the cafeteria. The mother would pick from his plate, eat some of the food and hand pieces to two other children in a stroller."
Yeah, we don't have hunger issues that need to be addressed. All is well. Nothing to see here.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article300126/Educators-see-benefits-of-universal-free-breakfast-program.html#storylink=cpy
I live in a poor, rural area. There is a definite need. Some is parents who want to take care of their children but are struggling, and frankly some of the need is crappy parents who spend all their money on heroin. Either way the kids don't deserve to go hungry. I don't want kids to be hungry. I still can't help but feel like I'm being punished when my son's behavior is completely out of control on the days the school gives him food we don't want him to have.
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How is offering breakfast at no cost to all kids harmful?
I can say without exaggeration that 3/4 of the discussions I have had with my son's preschool teacher have involved the elementary school's meal policies. A young kid with poor impulse control, drinking strawberry or chocolate milk 3x a day, being given the sugary carby food the school supplies because he wants what a lot of the other kids are eating even though we pack meals...disaster. Now, some of our problems are specifically the way this teacher and school have handled things. The setup of the program encourages it though. It isn't life or death for us but it is a giant freaking pain in the rear.
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Can I follow along? I've been trying to figure out whether or not talent searches will still be offering it or what alternative they will be using. The EXPLORE had been part of our plan but now I don't know what we will do.
How do you let go of constant messes kids make?
in The Chat Board
Posted
I wish you luck. I left a couple kids playing quietly for an hour, and came back to a bed upended and the mattress removed to make a tent. My two biggest rules are snacks need to be cleaned up after and no dumping clean clothes on the floor where they get dirty again. And even those don't always get followed.
It sounds like part of your house is clean. I'd protect that as clean territory and stay there as much as possible so you don't have to see the rest. ;)