So the boys’ last day of school was a mixed bag.
It started out well enough.
Jonah was nominated for the “Principal pride award” for the school year (two students in each class are nominated by their teachers). We got to see Jonah receive his.
Here’s what Jonah’s teacher had to say of Jonah…
“Jonah has shown impressive growth in reading and writing and math. Jonah always puts forth his best effort and demonstrates that he is ready to learn. He has shown that he can make strong connections with his classmates and is a leader in his behavior in the classroom. We are all so proud of Jonah and look forward to seeing him flourish in 5th grade.”
(We may also have been a bit proud of him. 🥹)
Jonah was so excited to receive his award.
He was excited for school to end and summer to start.
He was excited as he sprinted home, racing through the front door.
But when Jonah got home, he started getting anxious.
He immediately slammed the door, leaving me outside trailing behind him.
He would not allow me to open the front door after him and yelled at me, “Daddy, don’t use your fingers!” (To open the front door.)
Bugs might fly in, you see.
Sometimes house flies get in and Jonah absolutely CANNOT abide any flying insects in our house.
So in Jonah’s mind, he HAD to open the door for me, and immediately slammed it as soon as I walked in.
He started darting from window to window, looking at the sky.
He nervously picked at his lips and chin, peeling skin until it started bleeding.
He wasn’t looking out the windows for potential trespassing bugs or worried about airplanes flying overhead (this has been an issue in the past).
Jonah was getting anxious because the clouds outside began to cover the sunshine.
He started yelling at the clouds…
“Go away, ‘cloudy!’”
“No ‘getting the sun’, rain clouds!!”
“RAINCLOUDS! STOP!!”
Unfortunately, we live in the Pacific Northwest. “Cloudy and rainy” are part and parcel of our particular climate the majority of the year.
Why does it cause Jonah particular anxiety NOW?
Because with the conclusion of the school year it means, logically, it is now SUMMERTIME.
And summertime means “sunshine.”
The absence of sunshine (and ESPECIALLY the possibility of RAIN) reinforces the idea that it “might not be summertime yet.”
Which it is SUPPOSED to be right now.
So, anxiety.
And if the potential for “bugs in the house” or potential for “rain outside in summer” wasn’t enough, Jonah’s tablet went from 100% to 99%.
Disaster.
What’s the big deal?
Well, in the past, we have had iPad chargers that stopped working, so when Jonah would plug his tablet in to recharge, the battery life would just continue to dwindle, until the iPad died completely, while still plugged into the wall.
And it’s happened with more than one charger so nobody can be absolutely sure it won’t happen again.
So when the tablet is plugged in and the battery life STILL sometimes goes down to 98% or 97% with no reassurance that it will go back to 100% again, Jonah cannot deal with it.
So with all the anxieties about “all the things,” Jonah had a meltdown.
It was mainly directed at the clouds covering the sun, but it was fueled by the anxiety of just being “home” and dealing with “life”.
Jonny was also having tough time enduring Jonah’s meltdown and started yelling at his brother.
“Jonah stop screaming!”
The hardest part of parenting multiple neurodiverse kids is when the anxiety of one child directly affects the anxiety of another.
Jonny cannot abide a Jonah meltdown. His anxiety will go through the roof.
(Long car rides have been “fun” in the past.)
So Jonny started reacting to Jonah’s meltdown by yelling at Jonah to stop screaming and “shushing” him.
Which, of course, made it worse. Jonah then directed all his anxiety at his brother and Jonah started screaming at Jonny to “STOP SHUSHING!”
I told Jonny he should go upstairs to his room and have a snack until Jonah calmed down. Separating the boys is sometimes the only way to manage their escalated behaviors.
Jonny can get “hangry” and needs to be nominally fed to deal with “life” in any sort of sane capacity.
But Jonah was also not okay with THIS solution either.
You see, Jonah’s “routine” when he gets home from school is typically to “play ‘goat game’ (a video game) with Bubba” for about half an hour each day.
Logically, Jonah’s next “activity” in his mental after-school routine was to “play goat game with Bubba,” but THAT could not be accomplished if Jonny was busy eating upstairs in his room waiting for things to be settled downstairs.
So Jonah started screaming at Jonny to stay downstairs.
“NO ‘GOING TO YOUR ROOM!!’”
Jonny was upset, frustrated and hangry, so I sent him upstairs to decompress until he felt calm again.
Part of that strategy was obviously to let Jonny cool down, but more of it was to get Jonah’s attention and aggression off his brother…
Jonah can sniff out a redirection and will absolutely transfer his aggression to whatever method you try to deescalate his anxiety.
If you give him a stim toy or a comfort item, he will throw it or rip it or do whatever he can to destroy it.
If you try to put a movie on, he will throw things and scream at the TV.
(Thankfully, it was only pillows thrown at the TV this time and the TV didn’t break.)
But if you do something Jonah doesn’t approve of… like sending his distraught brother to his room in that situation, then YOU are now in the line of fire.
Jonah came UNGLUED.
He closed-fist hit me right in the face.
I stood there and took it.
I informed Jonah in no uncertain terms that “Daddy does not like being hit and to not hit or hurt Daddy again.”
Jonah started screaming “ALL DONE DADDY IS ANGRY!”
When my kids lose control emotionally, it is my job to be their “touchstone.”
If they lose control, and I ALSO lose emotional control, it will end in catastrophic physical or emotional damage for one or both of us.
I’ve found there is a point as a parent, where I have to extract myself from the situation in order to keep my emotional response in check.
When Jonny was an infant, he was so colicky, he would sometimes cry 8-10 hours straight through the night (No joke). One time, after hours and hours of screaming, it got to a point where I felt my emotional composure start to break down. I started cussing my own child out under my breath. At that point, I simply put Jonny back in his crib and walked away.
We were almost 45 minutes into the meltdown and I had nearly hit that point with Jonah.
So I disengaged and walked away.
Jonah collapsed into tears halfway up the staircase, part of him wanting Jonny to come back downstairs, and part of him wanting all of the anxiety-causing chaos downstairs and outside to stop.
I just sat on the couch, waiting for the anxiety to abate.
After a few minutes, Jonny emerged from his room. Jonah was no-longer screaming but was still laying on the staircase trying to re-regulate his emotions.
Jonny came up and wrapped his brother up in a big hug. They stayed like that for several minutes, while Jonah calmed down.
“Okay, Jojo, Bubba is sorry for being upset. Bubba is all better now. Do you want to come play ‘goat game’ with me?”
Jonah sniffed and dried his eyes.
“Okay.”
And it seemed just like that, a switch flipped for Jonah and he and Jonny started playing together like nothing had happened.
The boys left me there on the couch, absolutely drained.
I needed to emotionally regulate MYSELF.
Half an hour later, they emerged from playing video games. Jonah saw me and decided to hide in the downstairs bathroom, locking the door behind him.
He wanted “happy Daddy” and not “upset Daddy.”
I apologized to him for raising my voice and told him “Daddy is happy.”
He apologized for hitting me, and went back to checking the weather through the windows every other minute.
😔
Thats how we started our “summer break.”
So if somebody could please inform the weather in the Pacific Northwest that it’s supposed to be “nice and sunny” right now…
…and inform all the ‘house flies’ in the world to not visit our house this year…
…and inform the tablet to stop dropping below 100% when plugged into the wall…
…That’d be great. Mmmkay?
—Sincerely, an exhausted Ausome Parent
#ausome