Morning Program.

I always meant to write a blog about Rawley's morning program with the Child Treatment Centre but never got around to doing it. Now that the program is coming to an end in 2 weeks I will fill everyone in.

It has been and incredible experience and Rawley has had the chance to work with different doctors and nurses on behavioural skills, social skills, anger management and family and peer relationships. We are so blessed to have been able to get Rawley into this program and I can see he is growing as a person already.

He has showed that he can have control over his body in certain situations. It is incredibly hard for him to do it but he can do it. He has been able to get some of his impulsiveness under control and learned a lot about respecting others.

They have done a lot of testing with Rawley at morning group. His academic scores are very high; between the 72nd and 99th percentile. That means that his skills are better than average for his age. One thing they did notice was that his internal processing is in the 90's and his external processing is only in the 70's. This is a little unusual and may be why Rawley gets frustrated a lot at school and at home when trying to communicate things. Most people score pretty evenly with internal and external processing; meaning they can figure something out in their head and express it. Rawley can process a lot in his head but cannot always express it in words, actions, feelings.... I am sure we can all imagine how frustrating that must be for him. Learning this about Rawley certainly helps understand where some of his frustrations come from.

Rawley will be going for some academic testing next. They are going to focus solely on writing and spelling. This is one area at school that he struggles with. We have been so confused by it because he can read very well. The teacher says he is one of the 2 top readers int he class yet he is the furthest behind in spelling and writing. This testing will determine if there is a learning disability. Once we know that we will be better able to help him in class. Hopefully get him the support he will need to succeed.

They are also going to do some sensory testing with him just to make sure.

Another thing we have kind of stumbled across is the idea that he may suffer from anxiety disorder. The doctor had mentioned it to us on his last check up. It makes sense now that we think about; Rawley has always been a worrier. He stresses about a lot of things and we quite often have to tell him, "Rawley we are the parents and we will take care of you, you don't need to worry about that". This may also be why he is always chewing the skin on his hands and feet. If we find out that is the problem they may give him a low dose of and Celexa. The nurses were telling me that they have seen it do wonders in children who suffer from anxiety but we will cross that bridge then we get to it.

I am sad that Rawley will be done with morning group in two week. It has been good for his self esteem, he enjoys going and always has a good time. I have also enjoyed having the parenting support they offer. The Positive Parenting Program I have been attending has given us some new parenting skills that seem to be working. It is a work in progress and always will be but any help we can get is appreciated. The nurse has made it clear to us that Rawley is a lot of work and he always will be more work than the average kid. However, the extra work we put in will pay off for him in the long run. She could not be more right. Sometimes working with Rawley is absolutely exhausting, but when we put in the hard work we do see results.

Anyway, overall the help that has been available to us for Rawley has been amazing and we are so much better off because of it. There are people out there who care and there are systems out there that can help. Thanks to a wonderful family friend that not only pointed me in the right direction but even got me the phone number to call. You have no idea what a difference you have made in our life.