Leaderboard

Hi Newbie, I have a couple thoughts on getting the compliance/participation. It seems that often our kiddos' "fight or flight" reaction is hypersensitive-hyperactive and beyond their physiological control, so anything that might trigger it is going to get you into the battle zone rapidly and unwittingly. So, preparing ahead by thinking about how to keep kiddo soothed will help. So, if you've had to resort to calling the police, your going to have to prepare in the future on how you can make the experience 5x more fun/positive than however "bad" it seems to him. So, while in a normal situation being over the top accommodating would be looked at as encouraging bad behavior, here you are dealing with a brain on fire that doesn't work normally and can't be expected to handle even minor stress well. With our kiddo, when we started this mess, I took him to buy a small lego set after getting his blood drawn. He's Lego crazy, so this helped. Little did I know how many blood draws were to follow!!! But we have kept up this tradition and he earned larger Lego sets (or playmobile) when he had other procedures like IViG, MRI, EEG, etc, etc. Often he will pick out the gift ahead of time so that you can use the anticipation of something good happening immediately after he does what you want him to do. I hate to think how much we have spent on Lego, but it has REALLY helped him cope and find an "upside" to the whole mess. One other thought, these kids often secretly blame themselves for being ill/behaving badly and it's very important for their psyche to externalize the illness. So, you might want to share that you know it was the PANS itself doing a number on his brain that made it so hard to get into the car to go to the doctor, but that you understad that it was not "him" misbehaving. So, you are going to devise a plan to help fight the PANS/Bad antibodies/or whatever you call "it." You can get his input or surprise him. For example, I'm imagining a colorful gift bag with balloons attached and perhaps some small (dollar store?) gifts and kiddo gets to open the first one when he is buckled in the car. I'm sure you'll know what your kid is likely to respond to positively. Lastly, giving kids lots of opportunities to feel "in control" in this crazy situation if helpful to them and the situation. So, choices like, "Do you want to wear or not wear your coat in the car?" Would you like the radio on or off? Do you want to take the ipad or not? They need empowering in this difficult situation...Hugs, hope something in this helps...