The End

I think the worst part about the last few weeks is the sadness that I feel.  I never really went through an 'angry' phase, though I did feel a LOT of frustration.  Frustration at Will for not being able to tell us what was wrong, frustration at the center for not being able to stop it and frustration as myself (and Drew) for not being able to figure it all out.  As his parents, we SHOULD have been able to figure it out...right? 

The bottom line is that Will got kicked out of daycare.  We've always experienced ups and downs with his behavior since we went back to the center in the fall of 2010.  He was just turning 2 then so we attributed a lot of it to his age.  When things started to get worse, they moved him into the Preschool 1 classroom early...just to see if that would help.  It did for quite awhile and other than the occasional 'bad day', he did fairly well.  This past summer we started seeing the issues becoming more frequent as several teachers left and others were brought in to replace them.  We attributed those issues to the instability in the classroom...and again, the age.  By fall the teacher situation had settled down, but quite a few kids were moved up and the size of Will's class went from around 10 kids, to 17+.  Some of the bad behavior continued, but from my perspective...it was still 'manageable'.  Around Thanksgiving they implemented a sticker chart for good behavior just to see if we could make some improvements and he actually responded to it fairly well.  By X-mas we were seeing more good days than bad...and we even had days where he received 6 stickers!  That's a 'perfect score', in case you couldn't tell by my excitement...

Then everything went into the shitter.  I honestly have NO IDEA what happened.  The week between X-mas and New Years Drew's parents were in town and there were several extra days where we kept them home with us.  They did have some late nights and were thrown off their schedules a bit, but I can't say it was anything too drastic.  The days he did go to daycare that week were rough.  We thought he was just overtired.  When we returned to normal days after New Years weekend he decided to bless his friends and teachers with a new vocabulary.  One that consisted mostly of 'bad' words.  You name it, he said it...and if you reprimanded him for something or asked him to do something he didn't want to do...he would unleash a mouthful of every naughty word he could think of.  This lasted for several days before finally dying down a bit...  He still had outbursts...but it wasn't to the same degree as those first few days.  As the potty words decreased though, the physical responses started INCREASING.  Suddenly it was all about the hitting, biting and throwing.  We were receiving daily incident reports describing situations where he had hit another child, or bit them...or scratched them...etc.  This then lead to hitting, biting, scratching, kicking and throwing things at his TEACHERS.  Every day it was something new.  Never the same teacher, never the same time, never the same situation...no pattern...anywhere.  The Director and Assistant Director were asked to come talk to him at times and he responded to them in the same way.  Any authority figure could be his victim at any time.

2 weeks ago I had finally had enough.  The ONLY 'pattern' I could identify at all was the fact that a lot of his aggressiveness was occurring in the afternoons.  Was he just way overtired and overstimulated by that point?  Maybe.  At that point I decided I would take him to daycare in the mornings and then try having him home with me in the afternoons.  I wanted to eliminate that entire part of the day where things seemed to be escalating...in the hopes that the time he DID spend there could be a happier time for him.  The first couple of days went ok...but then he took all of that aggressiveness he had been dishing out in the afternoons and applied it to the mornings.  Every day things seemed to be getting worse and nothing we tried made any of it any better.  We talked to him every night, trying to get a better understanding of what was going on in his head...but he didn't say much.  When he did respond, he would change the subject.  The teachers and Director/Assistant Director also tried talking to him, but were usually met with a smack in the face...literally.  We tried bribes, threats, positive reinforcement...you name it, we did it.

Last Thursday Will took things to a whole new level when he decided to run out of the classroom and through the Great Room without supervision.  He was then deemed a 'flight risk' since it is a liability to the center to have a child escaping the classroom. This is when we knew we were nearing the end.  We were told that if he attempted to do this again, he would not be allowed back.  That night I met with a psychiatrist who specializes in child behavior and got a lot of good information from her.  I will share the details of our session in my next post since that could be a novel in and of itself.  Anyway, after giving her Will's background we established a weekly appointment for Will.  I saw a very small light at the end of the tunnel...about the size of a pinpoint...but hey, it was a light!  Maybe this woman could really help us figure this out?!?  On Friday I shared some of the information with the center Director and Assistant Director who were both on board with working together to keep Will there.  When I went to pick Will up at noon though, I discovered that he had had another horrible day.  It dawned on me then that whatever the psychiatrist could help with wasn't going to change things overnight and that most likely Will would not make it at the center that long.  It was then that the Director and I chatted and our final move was agreed to.  They would move Will up to the Orange room on Tuesday (today), to see if a change in rooms, teachers, kids, etc. would be enough to calm him down.  If it worked, great...if he continued to show signs of aggressiveness he would not be allowed back. 

I kept Will home with me all day on Monday...giving the center time to prepare for his Orange room debut and also giving me time to sell the idea to Will.  I wanted him to be excited to be a big boy and to go to the big kid room.  By Monday night, he really was!  Of course this gave me a little bit of hope...hope that I probably should not have allowed myself to have.  Drop off this morning in the Orange went ok and he seemed pretty happy.  I didn't get any calls all morning and actually thought I might get a good report.  When I arrived at noon to get him, the look on the Assistant Director's face told me everything.  Although he did have some good moments, he had a couple of incidents as well...including one where he smacked another little girl in the face and left 2 scratches under her eye.  This is when they told me that Will could not come back...

To be continued...