Different "triggers"

[airial95]

We've identified many of my sons "triggers" as it relates to tantrums and his OCD - touching his trains, others touching doors he has to go through, etc... But I was wondering something weird - is it possible for a certain person to be a trigger?

 

There is a little boy in Broderick's class who's on the spectrum. For over a year (about the time of our initial onset of symptoms) the two of them have been oil and water. If this little boy even gets two close to my son, Broderick goes absolutely nuts. Screaming, flailing, hitting, kicking, biting, the whole nine yards. This little boy is also very physically agressive with the other children and adults in school. He's left many a battle scar on my son - but I know my son isn't always innocent in their scrapes either. This little boy, partly because his parents initial insistance that there wasn't a problem, and after the diagnosis insisting it's not that bad and only doing the bare minimum of interventions (behavior therapy 1 hr a week) has been suspended from school SEVERAL times. (yes - they suspend 2 year olds at our day care - we're lucky, as bad as my son is, he's never been suspended!) Anyway, his teachers a few months ago started to notice a pattern, while it's been their policy for a while to keep them as seperated as possible, they started to notice that when the other boy wasn't there, Broderick's behavior was always noticably better. He had a great week all week at school last week (including one PERFECT daily evaluation - that's never happened before!), while the other boy was suspended. On Monday, he was back, and Broderick was a terror at school - all 9's on his behavior scale (that's the worst). While there was confirmed exposure to strep as well, most of his issues revolved around that little boy. We found out he was finally kicked out of day care yesterday, so it will be interesting to see if Bummy gets any better at school or not.

 

But it just seems weird to me. Has anyone else see this, where a specific person sends your child over the edge?

[lynn]

Well, for almost my child's entire school life he has always had one "enemy" that he always hangs

around with and who he claims he hates. I think it is very likely that this is an OCD thing, that

he has to have someone to have a love hate relationship with. Very strange.

[thereishope]

Maybe that little boy is a strep carrier. Makes you wonder. Or that boy knows what upsets your son and purposely does those things to upset him.

Edited August 4, 2010 by Vickie

[airial95]

Well, day 2 without him and another great day...really makes you wonder!!

 

Vickie, I've thought about the carrier thing too...

[EAMom]

Either he is a strep carrier (heck, maybe his autism/behavior issues are from PANDAS!). It's also possible that this little boy stresses out your son, opening up his BBB.

[kimballot]

When my son was in day care he had the hardest time with two particular boys - those were the ones he always hit and bit. When he got old enough to have language, we learned that those were the two boys he liked the most! I think it was his OCD (like Lynn said) that made him target those boys and do the thing that was his toddler version of a compulsion - hit and bite. (once he got old enough to talk he told me he had to bite people because if he did not bite he felt like he "could not breathe")

 

- I also agree with the possible strep in the other child idea. I was reading your post and also wondering if the other child had PANDAS.

Edited August 6, 2010 by kimballot

[airial95]

After our initial dx, I pulled his mom aside and spoke to her about PANDAS because I thought the same thing. Her response was basically, thanks for the info, but there's nothing wrong...he's just 2, boys will be boys, etc... It wasn't until day care suspended him for like the 5th time or something and theynflat out told them he can't come back unless he gets evaluated that they finally did something. He came back with a autism dx (which also makes sense, the kid was non-verbal too). But even then, they've done the bare minimum of interventions because they're still in denial and think it's just a phase. It makes me very sad for that little boy....but I'm still happy he's gone.

 

Yesterday was day 3 with a fantastic report for my son!