Reconsideration
This whole thing with Anja moving out was very odd. She just decided, very calmly, without any prior incident, that it was time for her to move out. No anger, no hysterics, no confrontation. But she couldn’t be talked out of this. The only time she’d get upset is when we asked why, and then she’d get very sad, her eyes would well up with tears, and she’d tell us she couldn’t take it anymore.
I was concerned about why she would say she couldn’t take it, was it something someone said or did to her? No, it was that she couldn’t handle us getting her in trouble all the time.
Anja is hard to describe to people who have never lived with her for more than a couple of weeks. She has been a handful her whole life; I posted on a messageboard when she was barely a week old that she was going to be a handful. And that she was. As a baby, she cried about things constantly. Not colicky crying for no reason. There usually was a reason, she just reacted to it so dramatically. When I nursed her at night before she started sleeping through, the only way she would be able to go back to sleep was if she was holding my finger. If I took away my hand, she would start squirming, and then fussing, and then crying.
When she got a little older, she would start having tantrums, ones that were very hard to control. Ones where she would scream, not cry but scream, and she would throw herself to the ground, would hit herself, would hit us. These tantrums weren’t limited to the safety of our home, either - she would do these things any time we didn’t do what she wanted. It took a couple of years to stop her from hitting herself and screaming for hours on end about as small a thing as not being able to pick up the cat.
She’s always been very mischievous; sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s cool, but many times it’s stuff that isn’t OK with us. Drawing on her brand new dresser with permanent marker. Using a rubber stamp all over her rug in her bedroom. Wearing her feria dress on her bike and ripping it up. Destroying something Isak had been working on building. Picking up the cat by the neck. Writing in our books. Drawing on the back of important papers. Stealing our money to use in a vending machine. The list goes on and on and on and on. And she almost always gets sent to her room when she does something like this, and this does not make the princess happy. At all.
She usually gets hysterical, but lately whenever this happens, she screams about how she can’t take it anymore. How she can’t handle it, how she’s always doing naughty things and we’re catching her, and she can’t take it.
And so she decided the other day she was just going to have to run away. When we talked about it and she realized that pretty much wherever she goes, any family would have rules, she decided then she’d just move to the unoccupied housing unit next door.
We talked about her plan, and much like she has a plan for just about everything, she had this all thought out. She’d take her clothes and some toys with her, and when she got hungry, she’d just come back home and eat here. Great plan!
The draw to living on her own was that there would be no rules and she could do whatever she want. Which led to the discussion of laws. And how when you’re in the safety of your home as a child, you don’t really have to follow laws, but once you’re an adult, you have to abide by the big, important laws. Like what?, she asked. Well, like paying taxes and not killing people and behaving yourself. All that was completely acceptable to her but then came the final, crushing blow.
“And you have to be 18 to live on your own.”
The next day came and when I came home from work, I asked very nonchalantly why she was still living here, wasn’t she moving out today? She shrugged and said, “Nah. I’m not 18 yet.”
I guess we’ll go over all this again in 11 years - hopefully by then she won’t still be rubber stamping her rugs, or if she is, she’s selling them as art on ebay.
Dad
Sheeesh.
And you were such an angel.
Dan
11 years seems like such a short time. On paper at least….
Emily
Hey Karyn,
Just a thought — have you ever looked into some testing to see if she has oppositional-defiant disorder or ADD of some form? Some of the things you mentioned make me think about neurological issues — the impulsivity, the inability to stop herself from doing things she KNOWS she’ll get in trouble for, the over-the-top reactions to not getting her way…and I know you well enough to know that she is not just an over-indulged, spoiled brat who never hears the word no. Perhaps with the right therapy/counseling and maybe medication, the impulsivity to wreak havoc will be minimized. I know that prior to Ian getting on his meds for ADHD, he could go from zero to ballistic in 2 seconds flat and it took FOREVER to calm him down…now, he’s a completely self-controlled child…able to handle the bumps in the road without it turning into the Lifetime channel. And he is now able to control hiimself and not act on every thought that enters his head…good or bad.
I am truly sorry for all the conflict and I’m sure angst it causes you and B.
And I’m not offended if you don’t post this comment…
Hugs,
Emily
Dad
She has the traits of many of the other Behlings (Karyn’s side). Medicate? There are far-reaching side effects of medicating children, not the least of which is that it isn’t a temporary treatment. It’s a “rest-of-her-life” solution. I would have been medicated, my dad would have been medicated, my son would have been medicated, and who knows?…even my daughter might have been medicated, and not one of us would have ultimately been allowed to join the Navy. They are funny about hiring drug addicts, and to think of it any other way would be denial. If you can deal with all the crazy antics, they grow into outstanding, productive adults.
Medication may be appropriate for some unusually destructive cases, but not one of us fell into that category. Just be careful not to start something you may not be able to stop.
Krustina
You know me, and here’s my 2 cents. This could be a very commenty post because everyone has their opinion. I agree that medicating kids is not good, although I can also say I haven’t done any real research, it’s just obvious to me. But your friend may be onto something so maybe just explore your options. Sometimes it’s just mineral imbalance and maybe it is also just that she is a special kid, not special as in “retarded”, but she thinks differently, more outside the box, than the rest of us, and therefore must be handled differently, whatever that might be. And the most successful people in the world tend to be like this. Walt Disney, Bill Gates, Ted Turner (and ALL the Behlings). I wonder what her triggers are though that send her into a tizzy. For real, I don’t know what I’m talking about but those are some thoughts. Because great minds think alike you probably already thought of those things.
Jill
I remember finding little scraps of paper where my son had written “I hate myself” because he could not control his impulses….and was always getting in trouble. BEHLINGS=ADHD, and no, she does not have to be on meds, there are MDs out there who use more conservative treatment for kids. Prescription drugs are no guarantee…although I clearly remember the first time he took his Ritalin….we actually SAT at the table, had EYE CONTACT, and he carried on a conversation without having to run off!
Kids who are diagnosed with ADHD are usually very bright, and very impulsive. They suffer socially from this chemical imbalance. And by the way…Todd….what’s wrong with NOT being in the NAVY? I seemed to have survived without enlisting.
Emily
Just to keep people from being alarmed….I absolutely was not advocating just sticking Anja on medication to ‘fix’ her. I think that if a a NON-medication path — therapy/diet/counseling/whatever is effective, then that’s definitely the way to go. With my son, we tried these things for over a year — dietary restrictions, we had him in occupational therapy and working with counselors at school — and he was still having trouble not ’spinning up’ emotionally and not acting on every impulse that flew thru his noggin. That’s the only reason we finally relented and decided to try the medication just to see if it would produce the results that we needed from him…and it did. His dosage is really low (only about 1/2 of what is recommended for his age/weight…but I refused to go higher), and it has not changed his personality, his curiosity or anything else about him except that now he is able to focus in class, able to think about consequences of actions and choose not to act on an idea that he knows will get him into trouble. And we never have to remind him to take his medicine…HE tells us. In his words, he says the medicine ‘keeps his brain from telling him to do bad things’. He still as active, spunky, and mischievous as ever…and if that ever started changing, I would pull him off the medicine in a heartbeat.
Karyn
Interesting discussion here…
I’m glad to have both sides of the debate represented here. I think both sides are vital to make any decision. We did talk to Anja’s pediatrician about her behavior and she put in a consult for her to have a full evaluation done. I do not want her on meds at this point but I do want to find out what we can do to help her, including counseling for US to learn how to best parent her.
Karyn
There you go, Aunt Jill, now you’ve gone and done it. Here we actually managed to have a civil debate about treatment of children with ADHD, but the Navy comment? Ooooooh, you’d better watch out!
Dan
Aunt jill, Ill give you $1000 if you could ever do a push-up.
Aunt Jill
OK, let me make this clear, I am VERY proud of all of my family members for your service to our country. And Dan, you better start writing that check….I successfully completed one push-up.
Karyn
But you have to do it when **I** am there.
Dan
Thanks Karyn. I dont even have a checkbook….or $1000 for that matter