It's Great Being 10 Years Old!

John is having a great summer here at Campground Oz, we live at camp during the summer.  We hate going to town, and love the relaxed environment that we have here.

John loves being 10 years old, he feels he has more freedom and can do more things independently.  He has really taken off this year.  He has finally started swimming on his own although he knew how last year. He was just so scared of everything that he was afraid to try.  He was swimming on top and one of my dearest friends gave him a swim mask and now he is swimming like a fish.

He also decided to ride his bike which has been a battle for about 3 years.  He was telling his friend how to ride his, so I said "John that sounds like good advice you should try that yourself".  He then went and got his bike, got on it and rode it!  I was amazed, I was yelling "He's riding his bike, John your doing it"!   It has been a great summer here! 

John has not had any melt downs and in fact both children are doing well.  I am sure there will be many adjustments in November.  I wish we could be here all year round.

Hope everyone else is enjoying the summer, enjoy your children they grow up very fast.

They think they are adults

Ahh, teenagers.  It takes a great deal of tolerance to raise them, patience, and the ability to let things go.  It is always good to remember that the next day starts anew, and you get to start over and try again.


It is amazing how soon they want the privileges of being an adult, but not the responsibilities of an adult.  It is very hard for them to see why they can't have those rights.  It takes a lot of patience to finish raising them, without wanting to  throw your hands up!


I feel our society has given our children too much freedom and they grow up so much faster than we did when we were younger.  Our children are still not mature enough to handle the outside world.


I have raised one teenager already and I have two more to go.  God will give me the strength I hope to finish the job, for this one is a lot different from my oldest.   He has no sense of time no matter what I do, to help him remember what time it is, I guess that is part of the ADHD.


One more thing to remember is that every child is different so what worked for the last teenager is not going to work for the next one.  Sometimes by the time you figure out what approach to use they are grown.


Oh well, we will get through it, for God never gives us more than we can handle.
Good Luck to all experiencing raising a teenager.  I wish you peace, patience, tolerance, moxy and the ability to let go of their mistakes.

Summer

I apologize for the long pause since my last post.  We are now in campground land until October.  I love it here, it is very relaxing.  The children have a great deal of freedom with a less restrictive environment.  The boys are doing great.

  I will be home schooling both children in school this year through Treca academy.  John is still excelling and will be restarting school in July, he is currently in the 5th grade at the half way mark.  He will pick up where he left off, that is the beauty of Treca the children can work at their own rate.

I hope everyone is enjoying the summer as we are and having a chance to relax.

Ahhhh Spring is Here!

It has been a very long winter here, and I am thrilled that the weather is finally getting warm.   I love getting up in the morning and hearing the birds sing.  It has been rainy here but at least it is warmer. 

We are now getting ready for camping.  It is time to pull the stuff out of the attic, and clean the camper.   I love camping and so do the kids; we have really missed it all winter long.  Camping is just a different style of life, it is hard to explain unless you have experienced it.

We have a permanent site and I just can't wait until we are there, ready and camping again.  My life is more relaxed there and not as stressful.  It will be a little different this year because John will still be doing Treca a couple hours a day.

 Home schooling is going well.   John will be moved up to 5th grade in 2 weeks, and possibly 6th by the end of the summer at the rate he is going. He really is excelling, he loves the independence and less distractions. Kieth will be doing summer school with them for he can catch up on what he didn't pass, and get a jump on next year.

We will be leaving shortly today to set things up, the season is finally here!  Yeah!  We made it through the long winter.

Spring Break/Vacation

We have been on vacation for a few days.  It is hard to maintain a normal schedule when you are on vacation.  You are trying to see new and interesting sights and schedule all of it into a few days. 
Normal routines are very important to maintain stability in the life of a Bi-Polar child and a ADHD child, but very often normal routines end up getting thrown out the window due to the pace of fitting everything in.

 My bp child also has OCD which only complicates things a little more.  I have found that it helps to plan an activity every other day and to leave room for adjustments to be made if the need occurs.  It is important for  parents to be flexible and understand that the vacation will run smoother when you are open  to adjust activities if the children become too anxious or overwhelmed. 

It is equally important to let the children have a part in what you will see and the planning of when the sights will be seen.  Having a flexible but planned activities helps the children to transition easily and to know what to expect next.  We review the schedule the night before and plan what we will wear, what time we need to get up, when we will be leaving etc.

Always remember it is not how much you can fit in, but the quality that you experience it in.  You should be able to  accept that things don't always go as planned, and that is okay.  The most important thing is that you are getting the opportunity to be together as a family and get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

 Our vacation has went fairly well due to the fact that although we are very busy trying to fit everything in we are still taking time to relax, rest, and enjoy the time away.   We are having a great time and having fun.

Home Schooling

I am now Home schooling John through Treca digital Academy. It is not the path that I wanted to take, but I knew eventually that  it was the road we would be on. 

Treca has a wonderful program which allows John to work at his own pace.  Treca works within a 12 block system in each subject, you can not move ahead until one block is completed.  John is completing one block  a week, this is not normal speed for students.  He will probably be moving into 5th grade by next month, I feel that Treca is a good choice for him for they will continue to challenge him.  The Public School was not able to challenge him academically and this sometimes caused him to become bored and frustrated.

I made the choice to home school him because the  public school system was not able to accommodate John's special needs, they did not feel he qualified because he has high academic scores.  The school system did not want to label him as having a emotional disability.

It is always very complicated when your child does not fit into the "normal" standards that most children do.  I often feel that our society expects all children to fit into a square hole and when your child does not fit into this standard they are not able to accommodate you.   I believe that our society feels that we should all fit into a uniformity and when we don't there is a concern.

Along with home schooling you still have to maintain your child having social functions for they can learn how to interact appropriately with others.  John is involved in boy scouts and through Treca he will be going on field trips. 

I have also found out through a variety of concerts of different types of music that Jazz seems to calm his rages.  Music can very often soothe are souls.  John is still on the same medications, but at times they make him very tired.

We will keep trying

It is very hard to write this entry for I am very discouraged.  John is again having to try yet another medication.   I had so much hope that we would not have to go through the adjusting and re-adjusting to another medication, but so much for that.

John is currently taking the following vitamin supplements:
2400 mg. of fish oil
375 mg. of choline
1000 mg. of B12
1000 mg. of vitamin D3
100 mg. of magnesium
Daily multi- vitamin

Unfortunately vitamin supplements was not enough to maintain John's mood stability and temperament.
John was suspended from school for 5 days last week.  A group of children in his class was calling him names, and John was not able to slow down his thought process to the point of him getting help.  He became very angry and tried to stop the children from calling him names, he then totally lost it.   John had to be removed from the class and picked up from school.   The doctor advised me to try vyvanse 30 mg.  the next day and then .5 of resperdol with the vyvanse the following day.

The first day of vyvanse he could not sit still or stop talking, and he had extreme dry mouth.  John did not go to sleep until 3 am in the morning.  Today (day 2) is better he does not have the dry mouth.  The uncontrolled talking has stopped.  I feel the resperdol helped him to calm his need to constantly stay moving some part of his body.

It is not easy to be a Bi polar child and equally it is not easy to be the parent either.  It is very hard to just watch your child have these concerns and not to know how to help them.  I feel mothers of Bi polar children  are very strong, caring, understanding, and have a over flowing amount of unconditional love.  We will keep trying, trying, and trying.
We have God in our corner and will not give up.