Sensory regulation issues
Anxiety, with OCD component
And this was a kid who already had significant asthma and life-threatening food allergies until age 5!
Along the way there were concerned teachers. We had kept an eye on the attention piece and fine motor difficulties ever since preschool. He had, unbeknownst to us, already experienced multiple “depressive episodes” (which we mistook as an extra sensitive nature) by age 6. But it was the first grade teacher who completely ignored him who served as a catalyst for his emotional breakdown and shut-off.
That year, we spent months looking for the right key to open his mental cage. That led to the many specialists and, to some extent, the thieving of time from my other children. I’m still grieving that.
Little Man is now 11 years old and in fourth grade. We gave him an extra bridge year between kindergarten and first grade to allow emotional and some physical development to catch up with intellect. His highest time of risk will be in the teen years. Many of the therapies we have put into place are with the future in mind. Self-medicating is a huge risk for children with mental health and/or ADHD/ADD diagnoses if they don’t get a handle on it sooner. The other places where depression leads are never far from our minds. My own struggle with anxiety and depression has taken me to dark places. I want my son to know hope and understanding.
Our mornings during transitional times of year are long, hard, and slow. He is highly intelligent, but his mind needs help waking up and his emotions are often dysregulated, which correlate to his high need for physical activity and sensory stimulation. My very polite, compliant, and sweet-natured boy suddenly has an inflexible, anxiety-ridden, stuck mind needing help with the most basic executive functioning skills. When all interventions are in place in that most delicate of balances, we make the bus. Behaviorally, we have to decide in each instance if his response is due to the disability combo meal or general disobedience. The line we walked fairly well with our oldest two children is significantly blurred with Little Man—and they notice and feel understandably resentful of that at times.