What's Wrong With My Kid?: A Letter For Every Parent With A Tough Kid

It was 3:53 PM on Friday afternoon when the call came in.

"Mrs. {COB}, Please come to school and pick up your son, {Thing 1}."

My heart sank. I have memorized the school's phone number and whenever I see it pop up on my phone I get a knot in my stomach. He is four.

I started this blog for a couple reasons. I wanted to be healthier. I wanted to give my kids a shot at being healthier. I wanted to help them develop good habits. But deep down, covered up by better sound bites, was an idea that a better diet might alleviate some of Thing 1's troubling impulsive behavior.

Since he was a baby it seemed like he was just a little left of center. I would see families having a picnic where the baby would stay on the blanket and eat because it was meal time. I would see kids playing games and sticking to the rules of the game. I saw many kids pick up common baby toys like teethers and stacking blocks and instinctively know what to do with them. And I saw kids have tantrums because they wanted something that they could not have.

Thing 1 didn't do any of these things. Setting up a blanket in the park was the best way to make sure that he would never come near it. That was almost an invitation to run as far away as possible. Thing 1 has always struggled to play along in structured play, not liking certain rules, or wanting to hijack the game altogether. My husband and I always joked that Thing 1 didn't play with toys, rather he explored them. A bunch of stacking rings became rings on his fingers, the post of which would become a hammer. A teething ring might be bitten until it burst because he wanted to know exactly how hard you had to bite it until it broke. And tantrums would have been welcomed! Thing 1 would simply shout cruel dissension and continue doing whatever he wanted to do. You were not in charge.

Over the years I have discussed his behavior with the pediatrician. Everything seemed to be age appropriate. We had good times and bad times. Not necessarily in equal proportions. But there were good times! Over these years we have both increased and reduced screen time, increased and reduced outdoor time, given time outs, made sticker charts, tried yelling, tried being firm, taken things away, encouraged rewards, tried redirection, tried Magic 1-2-3. And nothing has consistently worked. He gets bored of sticker charts. Plus he was too impulsive to save up for the big treats that make sticker charts succeed in the end. He couldn't care less that you take away his favorite toy (there are so many others). He can't seem to visualize a reward that isn't in front on him. He is sometimes bothered by the yelling and other times it goes in one ear and out the other. Talking to him calmly and quietly does exactly nothing.

He has burned out every caregiver we have ever employed. DH and I are exhausted by it. And every doctor, friend, family member and teacher has all sworn that he seems bright and perfectly normal, albeit feisty. Some felt that I was blowing things out of proportion. And I kept looking at other kids. Other kids looked like kids: children growing and developing. And then I looked at my kid, a whirlwind of motion and intelligence, of willfulness and dissent. All the while with a sad soft look in his hazel eyes, like he was trying to make sense of all the chaos around him. Everyone else's children looked so organized, while my Thing 1 looked so disorganized.

When Thing 2 was born, DH and I marveled how he was so normal!! We would talk to him too sternly and he would cry. Thing 1 has NEVER done that. We gave him a learning table. Thing 2 happily played with the gadgets and buttons. Thing 1 had taken the legs off the table and pried the batteries out of the back. Thing 2 watched and learned and stayed close to us. Thing 1 always seemed to be head first into everything, running into traffic...

When I arrived at Thing 1's school last Friday afternoon, I wasn't sure what to expect. In the last 6 weeks I have gotten troubling phone calls from his teacher 2-3 days a week. His behavior is defiant. He likes to take attention away from the teacher. He is not responding to their redirection attempts. But he is not overly aggressive. He isn't angry when he does these things. He has lots of friends and taking control of the class seems to be delighting him. The school had said that some of his behavior, while age appropriate, has happened too frequently. Some of his behaviors have upset his classmates. Some of his behaviors are inappropriate for a school setting, even if they are age appropriate. Perhaps his behavior is age appropriate for a child who still spends his day at home.

They then suggested that we seek the aid of an expert.

As a parent, nothing can describe the feeling you get when your child's school asks you to take your child to a psychologist for evaluation. Nothing can prepare you for that moment when your closet fears that your child might be different are publicly validated by an expert in child education. And no amount of "It's the schools fault' or 'he will grow out of this' will help.

As a mother I feel crestfallen. I feel vulnerable. I feel like a failure. I keep searching for the right way to phrase things so that he will understand and start following rules. I continue to search for the right punishment that will motivate without damaging him. I continue to look for the right reward that will keep him going until a task is done. Yet my child feels like a Rubik's cube. I don't understand how he got this way and I don't know how to sort him out. He simply is who he is.

So please, every parent out there, when you see a child tantruming in public, don't assume that you would know how to fix the situation. If you see a parent lose it in public, don't assume that the parent doesn't have love for their child. Don't automatically assume that the parent fed their kid crap, didn't set boundaries or kept them up past bedtime. Not all tough kids are the result of bad parenting. There is so much we don't know about the parent-child interactions we witness. Does the child have sensory issues? Is he under developed in certain behaviors during this one phase in his life? Or is it more complex, has everyone in his life overlooked a diagnosis like ADHD because the child is bright and does have friends? Is he a kid who has fallen through the cracks? Is he too young for a certain diagnosis? Given all this, is it fair to pass judgement on the other kids at your child's school? Can you really know what's best for any child that lives outside of your own home?

But also parents, take only your fair share of the credit for your child's good behavior. Your good parenting most certainly shapes your child, but some kids are easier to shape than others. Some kids simply are harder to parent, they require more vigilance and effort. Perhaps, in parenting, the ends do not define the means.

So parents, stick together, offer encouragement. Don't talk behind anyone's back. And if you have a tough kid, hang in there. It has got to get better.