Sabotage

Today Ray took Jared to see Dr. Champagne because I needed to clean and make a cake for Zane's birthday party tomorrow. It was very hard for me to not go, as I usually have tons of questions and want to know specifics with everything discussed. But, since Ray can't really make or decorate a cake, he went... along with a recording device. The appointment was at 2pm and they didn't come home until 6:30pm! I definitely felt like I missed some quality question and answer time, but I'll go with him to his next appointment on Thursday.

Ray brought home a preliminary report for the first few tests Dr. C. administered. It looked like a foreign language to me, but Ray had an 8 minute recording of her going through it. That's all I got from today. 8 minutes... and not a single second of that was good news.  My heart aches tonight.

Here are some things that were mentioned:

• His ability to use words is classified in the "severe" range.
• His hands don’t work fast enough to get what he hears on paper. Also, if he sees it, he can’t put it on paper quick enough. That creates frustration.
• He doesn’t have enough memory to speak with words and process memory.  
• Regarding holding information - long term - he's significantly weak. It's not important to him, so he feels no reason to hold it.
• He is random and has trouble sequencing.
• He is right brained.
• Regarding looking at something and breaking it into parts, he's weak.
• He couldn’t see what was missing in a picture.
• He can't put enough numbers in sequence, therefore he can't have healthy reading (don't quite understand that one)
• He miscounts in arithmetic.
• He was fatigued and didn’t want to complete.
• He hates paper processing. This is cognitive ability.
• He’s stronger but he doesn’t have stamina to show what he knows. He just wants to play.
• There is a definite learning disability in processing. He doesn’t have memory to run things. His auditory is struggling because his memory isn’t strong enough to run it.
• He has strong verbal, but his hand doesn’t process. He struggles with seeing it and reproducing it on paper.

She recommended  Dr. James Lehman’s Cognitive Behavior Program so that Jared can take more ownership and do more. He’s capable, but he’s avoiding. When he doesn’t want to do something, he avoids. He sabotages it so he can get out of it. It’s a mechanism he uses and it’s working for him... but it’s not effective. With this program, we would work our way through the computer program and make notes and turn in the notes. If you do the notes, it's free, verses the standard $700. We will learn consequences and change our parenting style so it makes him take more ownership. It helps him to understand his boundaries and be more socially aware of what’s acceptable, instead of pushing boundaries to protect him in a regular setting.

My mind is swimming. I keep thinking, "Maybe he was too tired after the soccer match" or "Maybe he'd be better at these tests, if we reduced the time." It probably doesn't matter, because it sounds like Jared has the sabotage thing down. That's the underlying theme Dr. C. keeps using. My poor little boy has already discovered what mechanism he feels he needs to conquer this harsh world.

If your heart is broken, you'll find God right there; if you're kicked in the gut, he'll help you catch your breath.  Psalm 34:18 (The Message)