and here i thought we were having a good rest of the week...

[miraclebean]

So I open up my Email tonight to find this from Bean's homeroom teacher. She also has him for a total of three classes. So his first three periods are spent with this teacher. She has been the most patient, the most willing to work with him. But, she's done...

Hello,

Bean went on the field trip with us, but I had to keep my eye on him.  Unstructured

Comments

[indy_skies]

i occasionally read about your struggles with your child through the community bipolar_survival and i empathise with you as my parents had to raise a bipolar daughter (me) and an ADHD son (my brother) but i have to tell you that you are doing your son a disservice by not medicating him. he will only continue to be disruptive in class and become socially isolated. my parents are teachers and they deal with children with severe illnesses whose parents refuse to accept that they need medication and my mother has always said it isn't fair to the kids as their behaviour makes them socially unacceptable and even worse they fail to thrive as students and learn what they might if they didn't have to fight their illnesses. another option would be some sort of "special schooling" for bean where he wouldn't have to comply with social norms and standards but that can be costly and may not be what is in his best interest. i won't make a habit of commenting in your journal but when you criticize teachers for your own decision to make things harder by not treating your son's condition i have to call you on it. teachers are there to pass on knowledge to a group of children not to "parent" and "ass-wipe" children who are becoming behaviour problems.

[miraclebean]

we are trying to get him meds. the medical system is not always very responsive. I've already gone the road with poor pdocs that just write scripts and don't moniter and gauge. I'm trying to get him into a program that specializes in children like Bean. I can't write the scripts myself and just throwing him on anything, which in the past has made his behavior, moods and overall quality of life worse is not the solution. I'm not opposed to meds. I just don't want him being a fucking guinea pig. It has to be done thoroughly and right. For god's sake he's only 12. Not an adult. He's still developing.

I appreciate your feelings that I may have been harsh. But, what is found in this journal is only a snapshot of life with Bean -- including my interacitons with the school. His therapist and medical doctor are even frustrated with the school's lack of response.

And I agree, there shouldn't have to be situations like this. But there's a lot of feet-dragging going on -- one that's making the situation worse and not better.

BTW, if your parents and my parents hadn't polluted the damn planet with PCBs, there'd be a lot fewere cases of children with learning disabilities and behavior disorders.

[indy_skies]

mental illness from pollution... could be. i was also born two months early and in march... both i've read can be connected to the development of an MI. i wish i knew why or how it happened/happens. i want to have children some day (soon... i'm almost 28) but i worry about passing on bad genes.

i noticed that bean is now on meds. good to see he is on the lowest dosages of both meds. i have personally been on both of those, but as an adult, not a child. i used to work with "at risk children" through my local boys and girls club and one bipolar boy took risperdal (same family as seroquel). risperdal is supposed to be excellent for aggression/agitation in children. canadian pdocs use it widely. i've been on it myself (again as an adult) and i found it was less sedating "zombifying" than seroquel. my symptoms started at 16, and prozac was my first drug... i found it really helped.

i understand your concern about the "guinea pig" nature of the psychiatric profession. i have been on more meds than i can count. luckily i now have a pdoc that is not over medicating me... but it took years.

good luck with his school. i guess i forget that not all teachers are as good as my mom (i know i'm biased, but my mom is one of those teachers that everybody want's their kids to have.) my mom has worked with all kinds of children and kids with IEPs etc. if you have any questions feel free to ask and i can always pose them to my mom. my mom is also the kind of teacher that takes professional development courses in child psycho-education issues and brain issues. (my brother has a brain injury actually.) keep in mind though that we are canadian... so wouldn't know all the ins and outs of your son's school system.

ps: i'm sorry if my original comment to you was rude. i was not doing well myself last week... not that that is any excuse.

enviromental poisioning is only one part of it ...

[miraclebean]

but it's the preventable part...

There's been much discussed within the medical and education community regarding how particularly PCBs and mercury have most likely increased the national levels of children not only with ADHD, but other learning disabilities and behavior/mental health problems. See here for a snapshot:

http://www-tc.pbs.org/odyssey/odyssey/toxics_kids.pdf

http://www.healthyenvironmentforkids.ca/english/resources/fulltext.shtml?x=153

http://www.protectingourhealth.org/newscience/learning/2003-02peerreviewlearningbehavior.htm

I wish there were more teachers like your mom. I often muse that I'm moving to Canada. Our northern neighbors do seem much more concerned with education, health and, well, the caring of our species at large.

apology accepted. /hugs.