Blah-blog

I have a jig-saw puzzle in the middle of the living room floor. Every time I look at it I feel drawn to fill in more pieces, but I'm resisting that siren song right now. I know that if I start easily an hour or two will go by and I risk feeling I haven't accomplished much.

Haven't I though? There is the practical experience of persisting and finding order in chaos. There is the experience of looking for little distinguishing nuances within blandly similar regions, and finding that each gradation has an important contribution to the whole. There's the lesson of feeling overwhelmed, but noticing that little efforts over time reduce the mystery.

Is it worth a few hours with only a few pieces successfully placed? (For someone like me, who does tend to get overwhelmed quickly by details, this puzzle is really hard. Thank goodness it's only 500 pieces.)

It is one of four that I snagged from my neighbor's "Free Or Best Offer" pile out front of their place. Since Scott's learning and understanding remind me of a puzzle--more forest-y than trees--I thought it might be beneficial to him. Beneficial to him, beneficial to Us, since he's the kind of child where meaningful conversation usually slips out in tangent to some other activity. It wasn't long before I realized this puzzle was way beyond him, and by then I had enough investment in it that some stubborn pride has kept me going.

I'll be very cautious before opening any of the others.

I have a veritable box of puzzle pieces spilled around me, and I'm wondering if I'll be able to piece them together.

One of them is Scott. A few days ago I got a phone call from a mother whose child used to be in Scott's classroom at the first elementary school, before I pulled Scott out and took him to Trillium. This is another very active boy. His mother said that Skyline is not working for her child and she's exploring alternatives and so thought of me. Her son's teacher had raised the "M" word, medication, and she firmly said, "I am NOT putting my little boy on Ritalin."

This reminds me of how heated the debate can be over the use of medication to treat attention deficit and hyperactivity in children.

Still, the whole issue reminds me of a puzzle, and I feel overwhelmed. It makes sense to me that if our consciousness is mediated by biochemical processes in our bodies, that the deficiency of a certain molecule may create a gap in a crucial function, such as memory, or the ability to persist in attending over time. I'm not at all ideologically opposed to the use of medication in children, though I sure wish we were further along in refining our understanding so it's not such a blunt instrument. I took Scott's pediatrician's word for it, that ritalin has been subject to years of long-term studies, and that it's safe and effective. I started him on it just about a year ago when it was clear that he wasn't functioning well in the alternative school setting either.

Still, I feel nagged at having 'read the cliff notes' about the medication issue, and not piecing together my own puzzle from the ground up as to its risks and benefits. I'm overwhelmed at the prospects--just now I googled "ritalin use children" and found 1.3 million hits (and top of the list are "ritalin death" results).

I did see an improvement in his ability to attend. He seemed to have more of a solid core, a centralized Presence. He is definitely not a zombie, but he can tolerate periods of stillness longer. His reading has improved.

But with the beginning of school, I'm uncertain. I feel like I need to find another parameter to explore adhd and formulate effective responsiveness to it. I really liked Gabor Mate's book Scattered (Scattered Minds, in Canada), and need some kind of follow-up. I'm at the beginning of seeking another pediatrician, since I've felt this one is not responsive in a timely enough manner to my questions, and does not provide an atmosphere that invites the development of questions and discussion.

I just realize I'm temperamentally unsuited to raising a child with adhd. I tend to be agenda-driven, and have an expectation that when I apply pressure a child moves in that direction. Connor responds fairly compliantly to this--Scott just seems to spread out. If the boys are toothpaste, Connor oozes right out of the tube opening; Scott merely expands in all directions. This impacts everything from getting out of bed in the morning to getting to school to doing homework in the evening. I begin to feel like a drill sergeant, because I need to remind him at every step what the next one is. It's hard to not feel irritated, and outright angry with him. Last night it took a half an hour to read 5 pages from a book, because every word, every picture, reminded him of something else he wanted to talk about. But he was reading beautifully, and far more fluently than he would have a year ago.

It makes me wonder what factors there are to consider in adhd, in the ability to attend. Is there a kind of learning style that is linear, where one idea is foundation for the next, and so on, so that attention is the string of the chain that links the ideas together into learning. This certainly seems to be the style that most schools teach to, and the tests measure--what is going in...what comes out. The picture in the puzzle emerges because the pieces are given in a certain sequence and are adjacent to one another. Perhaps this is where medication has it's most value--to hold one's attention long enough to see the continuity between the pieces. Scott seems to take in and assemble understanding differently. He seems to link a couple of connections at random in one part of the puzzle, then another few in another part, and over time I see that something, some kind of pattern, is emerging. But in the day-to-day, it looks like he's not 'getting it'. Maybe this speaks to a whole different kind of learning style, and medication has much less return for this style. It holds his agitation level down some, and helps him be patience with stillness, but is it really giving bang for its buck in terms of helping him make connections?

I realize I feel really alone in my struggle to comprehend him and find ways to be more effective with him. I need more support, but I'm not sure what kind of support I'm looking for--so that complicates my efforts to find it.

I sympathize with his attention issues. I wonder if making sense of the world is like a big unwieldy puzzle for him too.

There are a lot of tricky issues that have taken a back seat, but they nag at me, and I feel paralyzed. Instead of one big puzzle box spilled all over my floor, there are four or five. The effort to inform myself seems so much. I'm troubled by the tea parties, and their message that Obama is taking our country in a totalitarian direction. My father sent an article from the Investor's Business Daily publication that he gets. Its basic premise is that Obama wants to set up a 'Democratic Dictatorship' (now how's that for an oxy-moron?). Death-panels, Smeath-panels--the Democrats want to hold power to make life-or-death decisions over all of us!

It's peculiar when the right wing wears the cloak of liberty, because it seems at heart they are loyal to a kind of authoritarian mindset. It seems this group was silent in the face of surveillance over Americans, mining our data, authorizing torture, using the material witness act in unprecedented ways to lock people up without recourse, sometimes for years. The only outcry this group gave was against those who revealed and questioned these practices.

Their assertions have a peculiar internal logic that I feel I can't quite just turn my back on. I'd like to follow them up, and see how much is based on fact, how much on distortion of fact. But I just don't have time.

A couple other issues I yearn to make sense of are: Iran's nuclear program: in just the past year I've learned that Iran had a weapons program, but suspended it years ago...Iran is years away from having a bomb; Iran could have a bomb within a year. Iran has a facility that was undeclared until last Monday. Proof of further deceptiveness, or well within the rules? Has Obama painted himself into a corner in his efforts to engage Iran? How about Afghanistan? Has he painted himself into a corner there? Which really does make sense--get serious about protecting the population from the insurgency--or give it back to the Taliban? Isn't that what got us into trouble years ago and culminated in 9/11?

The part of me that loves order wants to put the puzzles together. But I'm daunted by the prospect of where to start, what sources to use, and the spectre of hours going by while trying to find the pieces that match.

Update

Shortly after publishing I was waiting for another program in my laptop to open and was staring at the photo of the puzzle on my blog page. I noticed a gap that had been bothering me, and I also noticed a piece lying right next to it that looked like it was a match. I'd stared at them for a long time yesterday. I got up, and sure enough, Bingo. That piece happened to be a watershed; at least 10 others easily found their homes. Of course, this was in the course of a half hour. I guess the lesson is I need to take a picture of a problem and post a blog about it, and it will "all fall into place".

Swimming Lessons

Today is week 2 of daily swim lessons for Scott.
I think his level of progress at this point in his life as compared with Connor's may highlight the extent to which he is hampered by attention issues. This even in accounting for the normal differences of temperaments and abilities in siblings.

One of the tasks I set myself is to learn more about ADHD, and the nature of the diagnosis. He scored high on a behavior checklist. So is a diagnosis confirmed? I need to consider whether it would be useful to have the consultation of a child psychologist, or perhaps a neuropsychiatrist. Then I need to find out if our medical insurance will cover such a consult. I can't remember, I never can remember, our password for our online account to verify coverage. It's amazing what an obstacle this can be. This means I need to steel myself for a lengthy time on hold. I need to make sure the boys are occupied and don't require my attention. I need refreshments, fortifications. I need to get my ducks in a row for questions to ask once someone comes on the line. When my boys are occupied I'm reluctant to let that window pass doing chores. I want to be blogging, or writing in my journal, catching up on the news. So when there is a good opportunity to take care of phone-calls-for-information, that is in conflict with my good opportunity for some Time For Myself.

Another task I've set for myself is to look into medication. His pediatrician says there are three classes: the "straterra's", the "ritalin's" and the "adderalls". Nice that there are only three. I need to examine the mechanisms of how they work, the positives and drawbacks, the potential side effects. I need to seek out blogs of parents of children with the diagnosis and receive the wisdom of their experience. I need to talk with friends I know who are teachers.

With schools on their summer vacation I've lapsed in my resolve to accumulate this knowledge so I have a footing to base some decisions on. I've given myself a break since the need is less apparent, and less urgent, with him out of school.

Interesting how predictable it is that mentioning Scott having attention issues will elicit the admonition: "Don't medicate him!" My feeling is that it doesn't serve Scott well to oppose medicating out of ideology--it is a requirement that I research it first and see where the information takes me. If I'm persuaded that medication is the best route for Scott, then he shall have it.

When Connor was nearly 7 he was jumping off the high dive at our local pool in St. Louis. He was independent, safe to wander the pool grounds at will. He had had the skills for a year to swim in the deep end of the pool.

Scott, at nearly 7 is repeating his second level of swim classes. No matter how many times he is reminded he is not able to bring his arms out of the water in a full circle for more than about 3 cycles. He can't remember to keep his tummy up and his chin back when on his back. He is fascinated with how well he can see underwater when he has the goggles on, and so often when the teacher is talking he has his head underwater, looking around. Given the person that he is, it seems he requires a narrow set of circumstances where he can learn, and these are not present in this class. His teacher is excellent, easy-going and flexible, which is a huge plus. However, there is a child who requires much hand-holding and nurturing or she will dissolve into tears. A good deal of class time was spent on day 2 in such hand-holding. Another circumstance that isn't favorable is the proximity of another active, impulsive boy. Scott gravitates toward these children, and they toward him. Then they form a volatile combination because their attention becomes fixed on each other. Their priority is not to learn from the teacher: it is to best each other. So while the teacher is talking they are jockeying for position. Rather than swim across the pool, they watch the other's progress. If the other is pulling ahead, they will stand and leap forward in order to pass the other, leapfrogging across the pool in this way. It is all about winning. If one is behind he will claim he is 'not playing' as the other gloats over his 'victory.' If the teacher reprimands one, the other will taunt, "HA-ha!" When the teacher is holding the needy child's hand, reassuring, cajoling, the boys are splashing water at each other, jostling, getting reprimanded.

I can see where other children in the group (the rest are girls) have made the connection between what they do with their bodies and how that propels them across the water. I can see they are beginning to build on this and refine it; how they are gaining mastery. I can see how Scott has not yet made that connection of how to make his body engage with the water and pull him through, and how he can enhance this.

That was my reminder today that I need to follow through on my goals to get the information I need to make some decisions in the attention arena. Back to the Harrison Bergeron analogy--assuming that what for most of us would be easily ignorable extraneous input is equivalent to the jarring alarms and interruptions for a person with ADHD, reducing or removing such alarms would be very welcome for a person trying to think. Perhaps medication does just that. Perhaps the greater wrong would be in withholding something that can mute the strength of distraction.

I also recommended to Lizzie, his teacher, that she put as many girls between these boys as possible.