Reply to Currently on a miserable beach vacation with 4 yo

Forum Index » Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities

Reply to "Currently on a miserable beach vacation with 4 yo"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Op here. Some of the tips above that have really helped:

-just accepting that DS is going to fight me on everything (getting out of the ocean, putting on sunscreen, putting on clothes, etc.), so instead of negotiating and trying all the things we always do that don’t work (first/then, bribes, choices, etc.), I just accept that he’s going to scream and force him. It suxks but is better than all the negotiating/cajoling/bribing/pleading

-mourning the vacations I want to be able to take but can’t

-hearing about others nightmare travel stories has been so helpful!!!! Thank you for sharing!!

We’ve already done all the obvious baseline things before I ever posted here (prioritizing sleep and meals, first/then, timers, visual schedules, exercise, sunshine, dropping expectations, taking turns, screens). I’m realizing more and more that I just have a very different kid. The things that work on “normal” kids don’t work on him. At the heart of it is that he does not seem to understand things in the way a normal kid does and that breaks my heart into a million pieces. Just thinking he’s more disabled than we wanted to believe and is less capable than I thought. But he’s only 4, there’s hope that he will keep developing. But also….he may not. All of this is so hard.

Thanks everyone for being with me on this vacation. Now that we have a nanny service I’m half hoping for a travel snafu tomorrow so we can extend!![/quote]

Happy to hear things are leveling out a bit! I’m curious, though: how did he do with the nannies? Was it OK simply because he wasn’t being asked to do anything he didn’t want to do? What did the nannies do with him in a hotel room for that period of time?[/quote]

Op here. He does great with nannies and babysitters. They haven’t just stayed in the hotel room-she took him to the beach, the pool, the park, and to get ice cream.

I guess the answer must lie in something in our parenting. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I feel like we are in a permanent power struggle and I cannot get cooperation from DS in any context or situation. And yes, I’ve read Janet Lansbury, Dr. Becky, the Kazdin Method book, the Explosive Child. I listen to the podcasts. DS wants to continuously do things that are unsafe and I have to stop him and then it’s just pure meltdown/resistance and it’s hard to get out of that dynamic even when I try the Dr. Becky connection type techniques. I’ve tried asking our nanny what she does and emulating it but it never seems to work. Maybe it’s my personality? I don’t have a ton of patience and I get overwhelmed quickly. [/quote]

I know for me when my son was that age I often responded in fear. Fear of how disabled he was. When I accepted him and made peace with the fact that he was acting like a kid with a disability and didn’t react, it’s better. I think the child care providers don’t have the same emotional reaction we do, and the kid is somewhat anxious/on alert - their parents are gone and they need to stick with this person.

Op, so much of your sons issues sound like they stem from receptive language issues. When we aggressively treated my sons seizures - he had fibstabt spiking - his receptive language improved. I’m guessing you’ve tried this, but just in case.

Also, 4 is brutal for delayed kids. It’s like 3 but longer and harder, because the kid is developmentally a toddler. It will improve.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics