I’m at my wits end. I apologize for the lengthy post.I love my 4YO more than any human in the entire world so this makes me incredibly sad every single day to see him this way. He’s completely out of control and his dad and I are at a loss.Backstory: NICU baby with a very slim chance to live. He did and from the exterior you’d never know he wasn’t supposed to live. On the inside, I believe that he is having a great internal struggle.He was the easiest baby of all time. We lucked out. When he hit nearly two, everything fell apart. We haven’t been able to go on a family vacation without meltdowns the entire time and his dad and I stepping on eggshells and living in anxiety waiting for the next meltdown/tantrum. However, he was always excellent for his daycare program and they adored him. Fast forward to the pandemic, and I’m getting teary posting this part because I know it was so hard on all kids and I saw it in mine. He wanted desperately to hang out with people. He used to be very social and want to play with his friends all of the time. Seeing him desperate for human contact of someone his age was terribly sad and explaining that we couldn’t go play at his friends’ house or even the park (our parks shut down at the beginning of the pandemic). Then being at home while his dad and I had to pick up the pieces as small business owners each with our own businesses (both in the event/restaurant/hospitality industries) and try to parent him. It was complete and total chaos and I cannot imagine how traumatizing for him.Schools opened up in our area with the requirement of masks and we had no choice but to send him with no childcare and two businesses. It was not an ideal situation but we thought it would be helpful for his overall well-being since he was so social. The pandemic changed everything. His teacher voiced concerns at the first parent-teacher conference. He wouldn’t approach other children. Wouldn’t deal with transitions well or just simply wouldn’t respond at all. Behind in fine motor skills. I was thankful she voiced her concern as she suggested we consult with an OT and a speech therapist. The OT told us he has a sensory processing disorder and suggested a course of treatment. He’s been in OT since January and I’ve only seen his behavior get worse. He was just now able to get into speech therapy and I’m hoping this helps. They suspect he has issues communicating what he would like to communicate. He understands perfectly, but finding the words to explain or answer is really difficult for him. This understandably leaves him frustrated.I have OCD and remember acting this way as a child because I felt things weren’t “just so” and I suspect that is some of what is going on as well. It’s a 5-month long wait which is par for the course in our area to see a child psychologist so we’re just waiting for our appointment months out hoping that we get in earlier off of a cancellation list.There are possible reasons like pandemic trauma, OCD, birth trauma, etc. The bottom line is that the present symptoms are so bad his dad and I have both had mental breakdowns. He prefers his dad over me and wants his attention 24/7 and for him to “do this do that do this this exact way” and flips out when 1. He doesn’t explain what he needs and is frustrated we can’t read his mind or 2. We put our foot down and do not cave. It’s a delicate balance. We don’t want him to turn out spoiled and thinking he is entitled to everything he wants but we also don’t want him to feel neglected/unheard. So we either give in and it’s only 5 more minutes until the next balancing act or put our foot down and he starts to spiral. He’ll repeat what he wants over and over and over again and will stop listening to us. We stay as calm as we possibly can during the spiral and it doesn’t matter. We’ve both lost our cool and yelled during the spiral and it doesn’t matter. We’ve tried every approach besides physical harm which is a hard limit for us and always will be. (Please do not comment on this if you spank or hit your kids. Just simply move on. I don’t have enough left in me for a debate). We’ve tried distracting, diffusing, explaining, asking, we’ve tried everything. Nothing stops the spiral.Baseline, he’ll repeat himself over and over and over again and we will respond and he keeps repeating himself and won’t tell us the response he’s seeking from his questions or statements.Several times recently, it’s spiraled so bad, he will tear through his entire room. Throwing everything. Tearing photos off the walls. Hitting us. Kicking. Biting. Scratching. And I just go into pieces uncontrollably crying when he starts getting physical and he won’t stop.He rejects me as a substitute with his dad and I am also battling an illness that does not allow me to watch him on my own a ton, it’s also hard to have anyone else watch him because he spins out of control and i don’t trust anyone to be able to handle it when we hardly can. We asked his OT, teacher, speech therapist and his pediatrician if they thought he may have autism and we need to change course of treatment and it’s been a resounding “no” so we’re just at a loss with no answers.What’s so sad to me is that it seems like he cannot enjoy life as a carefree toddler and we know he can be so silly and be the kid having the most fun in the room as we’ve seen him do on his good days and days in the past. He is the funniest child who enjoys jokes and pranks played on him and playing jokes and pranks on others and I’ve just seen this less and less.And I am exhausted. His dad is exhausted. And we don’t know how to make it all the way to the psychology appointment. Every day since the beginning of the pandemic feels like groundhog’s day. We just want him to not feel so stressed and sad and be able to communicate his needs and be carefree and happy.Any help or insight would be greatly greatly appreciated.EDIT: grammatical errors via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/33dCJl3
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