For some weeks oldest has been in play therapy and it seemed to be working wonders, his behaviour was improving, he was more responsive and less aggressive and we were hopeful. Then there were bank holidays and we missed weeks and things took a turn and everything went awful for a little while. He was fighting at school, biting other children and even spitting. Going to collect him at the end of the day was turning into a nervous wait as we hoped the teachers wouldn't need to report a new incident to us each day.
The he had his next play therapy appointment. His therapist was amazed as he was finally able to show her just has tightly wound up he always seems to be, it is like his is constantly deciding between fight or flight and it means he is really volatile in they way he behaves. She finally understood why we have struggled with him and why we insisted that we needed support with him. I could have sung Hallelujahs when she said this to me after his last session.
I was lucky that I did manage to get him to open up to me one afternoon. After a truly terrible day at school he came home in a foul mood so I explained to him that mummy was sad and that his cuddles would help, He sat on my lap and snuggled for about 10 minutes. I told him that I knew something was making him grumpy, that he wasn't going to get into any more trouble (he had enough of that at school) but that I wanted to help him to be happier. We talked about hurting other children, how it made them feel (he knows it makes them sad) and how it makes him feel - he was able to tell me that it felt good, he felt big and strong (I interpreted that to mean in control). I asked why he hurt them and the answers kept coming back to him trying to get them to do as he said, he wanted to be in control of the game/activity.
It felt like a breakthrough.
We cuddled some more and I talked to him gently about nice plans for the next few days and then we moved on to the next thing (he reading book, tea and then Beavers) and he seemed a lot brighter but it remains with me that I don't know how to help him with his disparate need to be in control of absolutely everything that he can be in control of. I know his early life was chaotic and that he was completely out of control and that this is impacting him now. We do give him as much control as we can - he controls what clothes he wears (within reason such it being a school day), he controls whether he eats or not and we try to let him choice meals as much as possible. He chooses what teddy he sleeps with, his PJs, bedding, towel, flannel. It is hard to give him control when his routine is is security blanket and whilst we have some flexibility we still need to stick to it as much as possible.
At the moment it feels like all we can do is carry on doing on what we are doing and hoping that the therapy helps the more sessions he attends. I just want him to be happy.
