In Which Kittygirl Misses Dance Class Because Her Brother Has ADHD

As I've mentioned before, to my great surprise, Squirrelboy has been thriving in his first year back at public school. I pick him up most days (he can ride a bus, but it involves a transfer and a long wait and his school isn't far from Kittygirl's). Most days he bounds into the van with a smile and a story about something interesting that happened that day.

Today was the kind of day I feared might happen regularly during Squirrelboy's transition to public school. He was practically in tears as he slouched into the van and he declared angrily, "I have a ton of work to do and it's all due tomorrow!"

A ton of work translated as rewriting an essay he thought he had finished (he showed it to his teacher, who said it was week and recommended serious revision), finishing a presentation about Disney music that in theory should have been done in class (his partner didn't do any of the work), making some corrections to the digital poster for his science project, studying for a Civics test, and figuring out what to do about a group project for which one group member kept refusing to do his part and which was due, you guessed it, tomorrow. 

Squirrelboy spent the entire car ride home turning himself into a ball of stress over all the work he had to do. I assured him that, yes, it sounded like a lot of work, but that he had proven himself capable over the semester and that, after a short break to calm himself down, I was sure he could tackle the work. 

We arrived home about 3:15. I had to put dinner together so it could be put in the oven at 6pm and then Kittygirl and I were supposed to leave for her ballet class no later than 4pm. Squirrelboy took his afternoon ADHD meds and then decided he should set right to work (normally he takes a break of 20-30 minutes to let the medication take its full effect).

I sent Kittygirl to her room to do the 20 minutes of reading still needed to finish her reading log for the week, and set about to make cream cheese chicken pinwheels in the kitchen. Squirrelboy kept asking me if I could look at his work and I kept telling him that he'd have to bring the computer into the kitchen (at his school almost all work is done on a school-provided Chromebook). 

I was still working on the pinwheels when Kittygirl finished her reading. She came in to help me in the kitchen and Squirrelboy was struggling to even make a start on the project he was supposed to have finished in class. He practically begged me to come out and help him, but, by the time I finished putting dinner together, it was 3:50 and I wanted to leave for ballet in about 5 minutes.

This is when Kittygirl showed herself to be a good sister (either that or to be tired of having a commitment four afternoons a week). She offered to give up going to ballet class so that I could stay home and help Squirrelboy. I felt kind of bad, but she wasn't grudging about the offer and I knew that Squirrelboy might never finish his work if I weren't sitting by his side. I did consider bringing him to ballet, but the travel time would have cost him an hour of work time.

So I gave Kittygirl permission to watch a video in my room with the door closed and sat down next to Squirrelboy at the makeshift work station he has set up in the living room. It includes a larger monitor and a real keyboard he can attach to his Chromebook.

He was still a ball of stress, and I started by saying a prayer for him to have peace and to be able to look at his work in perspective and do his best. This isn't something I do regularly in my parenting, but I probably should. I then looked at his work with him and typed (which I do much faster than he does) while he worked his way through the assignment. He bounced ideas off of me, but ultimately the work was his.

The "in class" assignment took about an hour. Then Squirrelboy tackled the essay revision, which, in his words, was "easier than I thought it would be." Yet again, he bounced ideas off me and I typed, but the final product was his thoughts and words. That took him about half an hour. He corrected the few minor mistakes in his physics poster in about 15 minutes. He then had me look over an assignment for health which he had forgotten about in the initial stress induced panic (it's not actually due until the end of the day tomorrow). I pointed out some minor grammar and spelling errors, and he fixed them and submitted the assignment early. Finally, Squirrelboy looked at the group project that has been stressing him out. The teacher had extended the deadline out another five days, which means Squirrelboy can talk to him in class tomorrow about the dilemma that he has done his portion and the student who is supposed to do the final edit (the project is a podcast) has not even started and seems to be okay with getting a zero on the assignment.

Squirrelboy then took a break while dinner cooked and studied for Civics after dinner, which only took him about 20 minutes. He's been studying throughout the week for this test and just needed a final perusal of the unit concepts.

I'm really not sure whether I did the right thing by staying home to help Squirrelboy today. In the moment, it certainly seemed like the right thing. Squirrelboy absolutely has the ability to have done all the work by himself without me by his side. The typing would have taken him longer, but I think the work would have been of just as good quality.

What Squirrelboy cannot usually do at this point, however, is talk himself down when his emotions have escalated to the point they had reached today. Though in a very different context, his anger and stress was quite similar to what happened on fall break at the beginning of October (read the post from October 3rd if you haven't and you're curious). 

In terms of teaching my kids independence, as I talked about yesterday, I still haven't figured out the best way to walk the line of helping just enough versus too much when it comes to Squirrelboy and his stress induced near-breakdowns. At some point he needs to learn how to regulate his emotions, deescalate himself (or, better yet, not escalate in the first place), and sit down to accomplish whatever it is he needs to accomplish. 

I see that, but I'm not sure at this point how it is we're going to get there. In the meantime, I now know a lot more about what sets Disney songs apart from pop songs (Disney songs, for instance, normally have many more words and no repeating chorus), so at least I learned something interesting from today's experience :).