I’m gonna lose it, or DH is at my dad if he tells my child to “shut up and listen” one more time. My five year old has sensory and likely auditory processing disorder and ADHD. Sometimes we just have to say things more than one time with him having eye contact for him to register we are talking to him. And like 2/3 of the time he’s “not listening” he’s not doing anything wrong. Yesterday he was bouncing a balloon when I said once it was time to go finish the dinner he was interrupted during by my mom to help her feed the fish and he had the tv blasting.
@theletlers, ugh. I'm so sorry. My niece is ADHD and very high strung on top of that. Any type of change just completely unhinged her. It takes a different kind of patience and discipline to work with them, and is a learning experience. All around. When she does the bouncing thing, I call it pogo sticking.
@aisukurimsarang it’s definitely a different mindset. For several years I’ve worked with individuals with developmental and cognitive disabilities. So many of DS1’s daily habits or annoyances to most just truly don’t bother me. Like the need to twirl objects, or the jumping, and even a lot of times the noises. We’ve had mixed reviews from some doctors about having him evaluated for being in the spectrum and we’ve considered it. He should have started kindergarten this year so the plan was just to ask the school about which evaluations they felt were worthwhile so he could get a few accommodations in place for him (an extra break, taking tests individually, etc) and not even all for his benefit but for all of his classmates. I’m totally cool with my kid laying on the floor wearing headphones for pressure to take his test and hopefully pass with an average score. But I’d feel badly if he was the distraction for other kids in his class taking the same test.
There are just so many times he’s just so immersed in whatever he’s doing he really doesn’t hear us giving directions. But DH and I don’t discipline him because he couldn’t hear us, but once he did he responded. But my dad just thinks we’re too easy on him because we don’t punish him every time he acts on his impulses, or interrupts someone, or is having a meltdown because of a sensory overload. (Precovid!) there were times we would tell him it’s okay to not be in a big family picture right now, or it’s okay to take your plate to a room and eat by yourself instead of at a kids table with 15 other kids being loud. I’ve had many a shopping trip where he sits in the cart under his blanket because there are too many people in the store, or we just leave because the meltdown is too intense. With time and finding the right coping skills we’ve been able to work through things, but he’s still only 5.
@theletlers if I ever heard anyone (especially a grandparent!) tell one of my kids to shut up and listen I would lose it. Esp if they have problems that cause them to be fidgety. Poor kiddo hearing that, and I’m sorry you have to deal with that behavior from an adult!
My pediatrician recommended that I take my 4 year old to the optometrist because her vision test wasn't perfect. I did some research on the subject and most doctors think it's unnecessary for toddlers to go to the optometrist if they are testing a little near sighted or far sighted since their vision will most likely get better in a few years.
Anyway, we ended up going to the optometrist this morning and she had to put eye drops in DD's eyes to dilate her pupils. DD HATED it. She screamed and said they hurt "spicy drops" and we ended up having to hold her down and open her eye lids (what the optometrist recommended) to get them in. This was soo heartbreaking. DD used to love going to the doctor/dentist and never used to cry when she gets shots, but now she thinks all doctors are bad. I am so upset that I put her through something so traumatizing for not a legitimate reason. The optometrist recommended that I schedule routine visits with her (even though DD's vision came out fine) and in my head I was like (yeah, no).
Anyone do routine optometrist visits for their little ones under 5/6?
@aguamala I’m sorry she had such a traumatic experience. I don’t have any advice with the eye doctor, but I do want to say that I can empathize as I’ve had to hold both of my twins down at the dentist, multiple times (like laying on them 😩), for like an hour each. We had to switch dentists they saw at the end of it all.
@aguamala ah that sounds awful! DD1 is considerably far sighted and was referred to optometrist at age 5. She was trying to cheat during her eye exam at the pediatrician. 😂 Anyways, they didn’t do eye drops for her. I was so worried that they would. As a 32 year old, I JUST learned this year how to tolerate eye drops and I knew I wouldn’t be able to force them in to her eyes if I needed to help. She has been a couple times now and we’ll see them on a regular schedule. I wonder if you do take her back, if they can skip dilating her eyes? I have very limited understanding of eye doctor things, but I was under the impression that they used a machine to look at DD’s eyes that replaced the need to dilate her pupils.
@aguamala I’m sorry, that sounds tough. We took our littles like a year and a half ago when they were 1 and 4, but they had free exams through the Indiana University school of Optometry because we had participated in some studies with them for eye studies. But DS1 HATED it and we haven’t gone back since because nothing seemed like an issue and he doesn’t really seem to have any issues at this point.
But if it helps, we need to go have some more dental work done and they already informed me that they want to use a board to strap him down for the next one. I called every pediatric dentist in our insurance plan to see if any of them can just sedate him to do all of the work in one visit, but none of them will, and it’s insanely expensive to go out of network to do the work. He knows this is happening too so that doesn’t help.
@aguamala that sounds awful! We’ve taken DS twice now, when he was 3 and again just before he turned 4. They’ve never done the drops. We didn’t have any sight concerns but he went through a phase where he blinked a lot, then a while later squinted a lot, and another time started crossing his eyes. He has a lot of sensory issues so we wanted to verify that was all that was going on, but even with all of that it was a pretty easy appointment.
@aguamala I had to do this too with my now 5 yo. It started when he was 4 but we had to see an ophthalmologist and it was awful the drops. He had to go back again this year and I was really hoping they wouldn’t but they did and it sucked all over again. He doesn’t associate all doctors/dentist with it though. It was all an expensive waste of time honestly, he flat out won’t wear his eye patch and the glasses they gave him literally make him so blind he can’t read and walks into walls and is dizzy.
DD1 doesn’t really wear her glasses either. They’re for distance and we knew she needed help seeing the board at school. Now that she’s homeschooled, she’s like “oh, the board is close to me!” 😂🤦🏻♀️ She also claims that she doesn’t need glasses, even though she’ll refer to her good eye and bad eye. “All I have to do is squint my bad eye and then I see fine!” Yes dear. Thus the glasses. We did find her some cute ones online that she’s more excited about, but she still only wears them when I ask her to put them on. Sometimes she acts like she struggles to see when she’s reading so I’ll tell her to grab her glasses and then the dramatics begin.
@aguamala poor thing! I hate drops too. No routine eye visits here for my son but sending a hug because it is so hard to see your LO hate a doctor visit like that..
My 10mo has been on the wait list for the child care facility at the base I work at since may 2019, when I found out I was pregnant. They called today. 3 hours after I accepted new job, and 2 hours after I put in my notice and 1 week before I lose my eligibility. #Thankyou2020.
@BuckeyeNut05, very good news. This commute is not as good as the job I'm interviewing for tomorrow. I just loved the 150 a week cost for child care on post!
@aguamala I'm sorry your dad is not understanding/more patient. My dad is similarly impatient. I'm a little anxious about he's going to react to having a 2 yo running around, being the nut that 2 yo's typically are when we visit at Christmas. He was not patient with me as a child either. I will flip out if he tells me kid to shut up though.
Re: Random Vents
Anyway, we ended up going to the optometrist this morning and she had to put eye drops in DD's eyes to dilate her pupils. DD HATED it. She screamed and said they hurt "spicy drops" and we ended up having to hold her down and open her eye lids (what the optometrist recommended) to get them in. This was soo heartbreaking. DD used to love going to the doctor/dentist and never used to cry when she gets shots, but now she thinks all doctors are bad. I am so upset that I put her through something so traumatizing for not a legitimate reason. The optometrist recommended that I schedule routine visits with her (even though DD's vision came out fine) and in my head I was like (yeah, no).
Anyone do routine optometrist visits for their little ones under 5/6?