I'm here to update my post. It's been 4 weeks since I originally posted my questions and concerns about anxiety and at this point I am more than convinced that anxiety must be playing a huge role in all of DS3.2 struggles!
This week was the second week when the therapists took DS into their rooms alone without me. Until that point I was always there to at least make him feel somewhat comfortable. 5 weeks into school therapy and he's at a point where he's screaming and nervous just driving by the school, he's back to chewing on his security blanket, he's back to chewing on his clothes, he's back to hitting kids around him (we had an issue with this last year for couple months that we got under control in October and had no problems at all, he was perfectly calm around other kids since than, just not joining their play and now after a little incident during his therapy session last week he's aggressive towards any kid around him), he's even kicking and hitting adults when he feels threatened and to top it off, Tuesday this week when we got home from therapy he was so nervous he kept scratching one of his thumbs so hard he now has a huge bloody scab there not to mention how angry and unhappy he was that whole afternoon. Basically, a month ago I went in with a very happy boy and now I have a boy who's always on the edge and hardly ever happy
. We are also doing private speech therapy 30 minutes a week and he is fine there. When the therapist took him into her little room he did start kicking towards her and swinging his little fists but she got the point right away (I told her he had school therapy the day before), we took him into their gym and just let him run and he relaxed and just became a much happier child. This therapist clearly gets him. I didn't have to tell her anything and she could see right away (even during past sessions) what would push him over the edge and what would make him feel better. Yay for a non-pushy therapist!
But OMG! What do I do with the school therapy? We have 3 weeks (that means 6 sessions) left and I feel like every extra week of therapy there doubles the stress that DS is going through! My gut is telling me to just put his IEP on hold and pull him out NOW. Not even wait for the school year to be over! We want our happy boy back!
We'll keep going to the private speech during the summer since he is handling that one so well and may look into private OT in the same place. But when it comes to school I really feel like it's causing more damage than anything else
. Would you keep pushing through the school therapy if you knew how miserable your child was? Or would you pull out knowing he doesn't even really need to be there given he's still more than 2 years away from entering Kindergarten (if we'll even do Kindergarten with him).
