Shrink My Kid

I have a really high needs kid. Allow me to describe high needs, for those who don't really understand the distinction between a "typical" kid (who still has much higher needs than, we hope, an adult) and the kid I wound up with.

He virtually shot out of my body, violently, causing a far greater level of damage than is typical even for a first child. He latched on within minutes and began nursing voraciously. He would practically drown himself in milk, he sucked so hard, leaving me with blisters and him with milk coming out his nose. His digestive system was underdeveloped. That meant he threw up constantly. Projectile vomiting after every feeding. After which he desperately wanted soothing. Nursing is soothing. See the cycle?

"Let him cry...don't overfeed him" some of the "experts" told me. "If he's vomiting, he needs more nutrition, plus the milk will neutralize the stomach acid and prevent damage to his esophogus" others said. Most of them, when I brought them my baby, who screamed 20 hours a day, between nursing and vomiting as if he was possessed by a greater demon (not shitting you, 6 inches when he was lying on his back), simply said: "This is your first right? Babies spit up. It's to be expected."

So here I have an infant who vomits constantly, sleeps a grand total of 4 hours out of every 24 and who I have to nurse every 20 minutes or so. Yeah, we both smelled of baby puke. Despite the fact that he was bathed twice a day and I showered regularly.

It doesn't end there though. At 5 months old he said his first word: "book" imagine how proud. (damned if we can shut him up, now). At 7 months old he displayed a fierce temper and several other hallmarks of Autism.

This temper didn't really abate. When he lost it, he LOST IT. I have suffered many a black eye, split lip, bloody nose or bump on the forehead from his early temper tantrums. Nothing the "experts" had to say worked, even a little. Most attempts to distract or "trick" him resulted in a redoubling of tantrum.

He was terrified ofanything automatic. The doors at a grocery store, elevators and escalators, riding in a car, the baby swing. It all reduced him to panicked cries consistantly until he was nearly 6 years old.

Water was horrifying to him. Strange adults terrible, strange kids even worse. Groups of people would have him running and hiding in genuine fear.

"He watches too much TV" The experts said, despite me exhausted repetitions of the fact that he didn't watch any TV. "Children that small have to eat very specific diets...it's pesticides/processed foods/sugars/dairy" other experts said, despite the fact that breastmilk was the only dairy he consumed up to three years old and all his food was organic, unprocessed and homemade. If it was sweet, it was because I mixed in bananas or applesauce. His birthday cakes were sugarfree banana bread and homemade organic frozen yogurt.

Today he exhibits far fewer symptoms of autism than 2 years ago, but it's been a long, hard road to get here. He's still got a temper on him, but he knows better than any kid his age I meet how to keep it in check, and I have to say, when he DOES lose it these days, while he still loses it completely, I can hardly blame him for losing it in the first place. We deal with the ACTIONS he takes when he's angry, rather than the anger itself. It seems to be working well.

His teacher tells me he's cooperative and helpful. Damn, I think I must be sending her the wrong kid or something. But dammit I'm proud of that. (now if only he was cooperative and helpful at HOME).

He's still a REALLY wierd kid. I mean, his odd knows no bounds. His mind works in bizarre ways, makes leaps that are, at the same time, unbelievably advanced and yet still wrong. He doesn't really understand how to interact with people beyond the ways he's been "trained" to interact. Conversations don't "flow" for him, that's clear in his speech. He still doesn't really make eye contact and he would still rather play alone than with other kids.

When I look at just how FAR he's come though, so far that the last shrink suspected he might be well on his way to outgrowing his autism, I feel great. That is, of course, shattered by nosy adults who assume that he's wierd because of something I'm doing wrong. We still hear about how damaging sugar and television are (incidentally, he's gotten a lot better since I eased the fuck up on both of those things...we still have to be careful about "overdoses" but a bit of each doesn't seem to do him any harm at all). I still hear that he's not very social because of having been homeschooled, no matter how often I tell people that he had opportunities to play with other kids EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK for the first 5 years of his life and that he only got less socially phobic when I cut that down to 3-4 times a week.

People refuse to believe that the "expert advice" isn't worth thousands, so they keep referring him to shrinks who tell me to do exactly what I've always done and then bill the province (or my MIL) thousands of dollars for the advice I got out of a book on child development in grade 9.

Incidentally, the jury is still out. We know that Basil is either wierd a) because he's overparented or b) because his needs are neglected. Thanks "experts", we'll keep that in mind while we keep doing what is OBVIOUSLY working.