Hello and welcome to my blog of being a parent to 3 kids who have special needs. Let me tell you about us and my children and the needs that they have.
My name is Mandy, I am 31 years old and I have been a SAHM for the last year. I love being home with my kids as I get to teach them new things and see them learn new things. I am currently pregnant with baby #7 (but this will be our 4th birth as we have 3 babies that are up in heaven right now), we are having out first lil girl, who is due to make her entrance on December 26th, but at the rate that things are going, she is going to be here before that. I have 3 lil boys, Matthew is 10, Jackson is 7, and Aidan is 4, he will be 5 at the end of November.
Matthew was diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety, depression and ADHD, so when it comes to handling him, sometimes it's not the easiest thing. His anger will get the best of him and sometimes we have to take a different approach to him and how we handle everything. Because of the issues that he has, when he was in a public school, the kids found out about it and would push Matthew's buttons to where he would finally have enough and would take matters into his own hands. He had told the teachers and the principal, but that didn't seem to matter to the school. Instead they labeled Matthew as the bully when all he was doing was standing up for himself. This year we took him out of school and I now homeschool him and it has been better for him in the long run. We are able to take breaks as needed if he starts getting frustrated or he is having a hard time concentrating on something.
Jackson was diagnosed with sever ADHD. When he was in school last year the teacher didn't know what to do or how to handle him because his ADHD would cause him not to be able to focus on his work in school, he was always getting up out of his seat and bothering other children and could not pay attention in class. Same thing happened to Jackson that happened to Matthew. Kids would pick on Jackson because they all thought that he was different and there was something wrong with him. They would tell him that they were his best friend and then turn around and say that he was stupid and they would never be friends with someone who is stupid. This was all coming from Kindergarteners!! There is no way that a child in Kindergarten should be talking to other kids like that. So just as we did for Matthew, we pulled Jackson out of school and are now homeschooling him as well. It has also been helping him out more as he is having an easier time when it's just one on one instead of a class of 25 kids or more.
Aidan has recently been diagnosed as developmentally delayed. When we took him in to see his dr he agreed with us, he is not where he should be at all. He is still talking like he is a 2 year old. His dr put in for a referral to get a speech evaluation, physical therapy evaluation and a occupational therapy evaluation done. So far we have gotten 2 out of the 3 evaluations done. His speech evaluation put him at the age of a 2 year old and his physical therapy evaluation put him at about the age of a 3 year old. He will be doing speech therapy and physical therapy to hopefully help him bring him up to the age that he should be, but as we have been told now by 3 different people, this is something that he may never grow out of and he may end up being mentally the age of a 2 year old. When it comes to handling things with him, we have to mentally keep reminding ourselves or even reminding each other that even though he is almost 5 years old he is mentally the age of a 2 year old and we have to choose the right way to handle the situations.
It's not easy dealing with 3 kids who have all of these needs and it can be really draining, but I wouldn't change anything for the world. These boys are everything to us and there isn't a thing that we wouldn't do for them. Yes it is hard to deal with from time to time, but we always manage to find ways to be able to work through everything and to be able to help our children learn coping skills and how they can manage certain things. There is nothing that we wouldn't do for our children. It has put a strain on our marriage from time to time, but even we are able to work hard through it all and get past everything. We are a strong family and together all of us can push through anything.
I hope that you enjoy the blog and follow us through this journey of caring for children with special needs and hopefully you as well can learn some of the coping skills that we use to help our children with their day to day living.
