Psychologist

Tomorrow morning we see the Psychologist. It has been going OK, last week was very interesting. I had given Akila a piece of gum as we were walking down the hall to the Dr.'s office. After a few minutes with the Dr., Akila told me she swallowed it and wanted another piece. I told her at the end of the appt. she could have another one. She didn't like that answer and started to slap my hands-she was sitting on my lap.

She kept on insisting on new gum and I said no, which made her very mad. It was good for the doc to see a tiny glimpse of how mad she can get. And it was a tiny glimpse. She continued to slap my hands, ignore anything I said, ignored him when he was trying to get her to settle down. I told her she needed to go sit on the other chair if she was going to be hitting and mean. She wouldn't listen. The doc suggested I stand up, which I did. Didn't help. He then had me step into the hallway until she could calm down and agree to follow my directions. After 4 attempts on her part to have me return to the room, it finally worked. I came back in and asked her to sit on the chair for one minute which she did with some serious attitude and head rolling.

As she was sitting there for her minute, he asked me how often she responds like this, 50% of the time, 1/3 of the time, or what. I said over 80% of the time. He asked what kind of consequences we have tried, time outs, loss of privileges, etc. I said we have tried almost everything to little avail. Time outs don't seem to work very well. He said this week we will work on time outs, because they can be such a useful tool.

Now, understand that I really like this guy and feel a decent connection. But, hello, time outs and FASD don't go too well together. We do them, don't get me wrong. But they by no way seem to help change her behavior. It just gives me, and her a chance to calm down and redirect-sometimes. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out what to say to him tomorrow when I am taught how to follow through and give a proper time out. Barf.