PunkChica
07-21-2010, 12:34 AM
Hey folks,
My partner and I both have PTSD along with accompanying depression and anxiety. Recently, as we have been battling a lack of income and varying forms of homelessness for months, his general psychiatric well-being has taken quite the nosedive. He has been more generally anxious than usual, so things that may or may not normally cause him anxiety are doing it right now.
We are currently in a situation where we are doing a temporary live/work swap with a very nice woman, who understands our particular kinds of mental health concerns, partially because she shares some of them. Part of the work that we are and will be doing for her is child care. My sweetie and I both love kids; we both have lots of experience with them, especially children with mental health and developmental disorders (particularly my fiance; the kids he's worked with have been in a more formal setting). The more we are around this particular child, the more we are seeing that he is very self-centered, even for a child, and that he has a very difficult time grasping the concepts of privacy and personal space. Again, I know that he is a child and, to some degree, these are normal child behaviors. But they're very extreme in this case. The little boy, who is 6, has been diagnosed with ADHD, is very intelligent, and even his mother has already discussed the fact that she can actually see him weighing whether behavior he knows is wrong is worth the punishment he may receive for acting out.
So, my fiance is currently the only male adult that this boy sees on a regular basis. Within a day or two of us moving in, he started referring to my hubby-to-be (AJ) as his 'new best friend.' He gets extremely upset if he is not able/allowed to see AJ when he wants to. He has exhibited some stalkerish behaviors already, such as running out of his bedroom every time our bedroom door opens to see who is coming out, or just waiting quietly outside our room or the bathroom when he knows AJ is inside, then ambushing him on his way out. At one point, when his anxiety was somewhat more under control, AJ asked the boy why he did these things. The boy apologized, indicating that he knew it was weird and undesirable behavior, but he has not stopped doing these things.
It doesn't help that when the child gets upset and does not like something you tell him, he will throw a fit.
We have brought the matter up with the boy's mother to the extent that AJ feels comfortable doing so, and while she has acknowledged the difficulty of trying to deal with her son and seems to be genuinely doing her best to keep him out of our hair as much as she is able when it is not time for us to be hanging out with him, she doesn't seem to have any further suggestions at this point.
So, here's the big question: Have any of you ever had to deal with a similarly difficult child when your anxiety levels are so high that your ability to deal with the intensity is next to none? Any ideas? We have nowhere else to go for the next 6 weeks, so we really have to be able to find a way to make this work, and I think we'd all rather AJ be as comfortable as possible during that time. I just wish we could somehow get the boy to see what his lack of self control is doing to my sweetie! Deep down, we're sure that he is a good child who means well; it can just be hard to see sometimes, and we'd like to think that he isn't torturing AJ on purpose. ;)
Any thoughts will be much appreciated!
Cheers,
Bri
My partner and I both have PTSD along with accompanying depression and anxiety. Recently, as we have been battling a lack of income and varying forms of homelessness for months, his general psychiatric well-being has taken quite the nosedive. He has been more generally anxious than usual, so things that may or may not normally cause him anxiety are doing it right now.
We are currently in a situation where we are doing a temporary live/work swap with a very nice woman, who understands our particular kinds of mental health concerns, partially because she shares some of them. Part of the work that we are and will be doing for her is child care. My sweetie and I both love kids; we both have lots of experience with them, especially children with mental health and developmental disorders (particularly my fiance; the kids he's worked with have been in a more formal setting). The more we are around this particular child, the more we are seeing that he is very self-centered, even for a child, and that he has a very difficult time grasping the concepts of privacy and personal space. Again, I know that he is a child and, to some degree, these are normal child behaviors. But they're very extreme in this case. The little boy, who is 6, has been diagnosed with ADHD, is very intelligent, and even his mother has already discussed the fact that she can actually see him weighing whether behavior he knows is wrong is worth the punishment he may receive for acting out.
So, my fiance is currently the only male adult that this boy sees on a regular basis. Within a day or two of us moving in, he started referring to my hubby-to-be (AJ) as his 'new best friend.' He gets extremely upset if he is not able/allowed to see AJ when he wants to. He has exhibited some stalkerish behaviors already, such as running out of his bedroom every time our bedroom door opens to see who is coming out, or just waiting quietly outside our room or the bathroom when he knows AJ is inside, then ambushing him on his way out. At one point, when his anxiety was somewhat more under control, AJ asked the boy why he did these things. The boy apologized, indicating that he knew it was weird and undesirable behavior, but he has not stopped doing these things.
It doesn't help that when the child gets upset and does not like something you tell him, he will throw a fit.
We have brought the matter up with the boy's mother to the extent that AJ feels comfortable doing so, and while she has acknowledged the difficulty of trying to deal with her son and seems to be genuinely doing her best to keep him out of our hair as much as she is able when it is not time for us to be hanging out with him, she doesn't seem to have any further suggestions at this point.
So, here's the big question: Have any of you ever had to deal with a similarly difficult child when your anxiety levels are so high that your ability to deal with the intensity is next to none? Any ideas? We have nowhere else to go for the next 6 weeks, so we really have to be able to find a way to make this work, and I think we'd all rather AJ be as comfortable as possible during that time. I just wish we could somehow get the boy to see what his lack of self control is doing to my sweetie! Deep down, we're sure that he is a good child who means well; it can just be hard to see sometimes, and we'd like to think that he isn't torturing AJ on purpose. ;)
Any thoughts will be much appreciated!
Cheers,
Bri