What an emotionally draining couple of days. When I picked Beth up from school on Monday her teacher asked if we could have a meeting on Tuesday morning. She said that Beth had been calling out in class and being disruptive. She’s also been really defiant and rude at times, telling the teacher off for shushing her. We’ve seen the change in her at home too. Monday night she had Minka (the dog) in her room with the door shut. When I went in there to see what she was doing she had a squeezy bottle of honey that she was putting onto Minka. I must have just caught her as Minka wasn’t sticky when she came out. Beth was still up at 11 that evening when she came into the bathroom saying that she had to wash the honey out of her hair. I said it was tough, she put it there so she’d have to cope with it and sent her back to bed.
I got to school on Tuesday at 8.30am and Beth’s teacher organised Beth to go into before school care. We ended up having the meeting in the principal’s office. They were concerned that these moods are so out of character for Beth. Where in the past we have been able to jolly her out of her bad behaviours now she seems almost depressed. She’s not joining in with the other kids as much as she used to and is constantly being disruptive. The principal made a point which I hadn’t thought of. This behaviour has escalated since Beth started her period, 3 months ago. Coincidentally it was also the time we started seeing the naturopath though I don’t think that would cause such extreme behavioural changes, especially for the worst. Thinking about it made me realise that if Beth had inherited my hormonal imbalances that that could be the answer. We also decided to implement a reward system on an hourly basis so that she could see that at the end of each hour there would be a consequence for her behaviour. Her teacher reported to me at the end of the day that it had been a good day and that she would draw up a chart and tick each hour off.
On behalf of Beth I went to see Dr Mark in the afternoon. He said that in these cases, if she was 2 or 3 years older he would suggest putting her on the pill for a couple of months to see if there was any change. At least that way we would know if the changes were due to hormones. However as she is only 11 he was loath to do this and suggested that I see the developmental paediatrician that we haven’t seen for a while. I got home and called them only to be told that there are no available appointments until the 21st of January! Unbelievable. I was put on a waiting list but told that there’s 20 people ahead of me. I was nearly crying on the phone. There’s no point in us going somewhere else as if we are a new patient the waiting lists will be there wherever we go. One of the frustrations in my support group is that nobody has found a really good paediatrician that they can highly recommend so I guess it’s better the devil you know. IÂ think it’d be easier to cope if I didn’t have Bridie’s moods to deal with too. I’m feeling pretty frazzled and drained at the moment. I think I’ll call the doctor and see if there’s anything else that he can do.
