I'm a Slacker

I have not been able to bring myself to post in a while. Being the Suzy Sunshine that I am, I don't like to post when I have nothing but complaints.

My life seems to have been nothing but traveling for work and trying to figure out Sam's behavior lately. While Sam has always been intense, which comes with occasional bouts of poor behavior, he's been completely out of whack lately. His teacher, patient as she is, even seems to be getting frazzled.

Sam is now one of the kids in the class who has to have his behavior tracked in two hour increments in hopes of keeping him under control. I don't know what the underlying issue is, but he's been in trouble for hitting, punching, kicking, pulling hair, throwing sand... You name it, he's tried it.

Now, I'm not the type of parent to try to find excuses as to why something might be wrong. HOWEVER, I am somewhat gratified to know that his teacher seems to think Sam is "following the leader." Meaning he's not the instigator when problems arise, but he sure as heck tags along for the mischievous ride.

Considering his change in demeanor seems to have come of fairly suddenly, we're taking it pretty seriously. Not only do we not want him hurting other children (obviously) we're nervous that there's some other reason for what's going on. He has grown out of everything he owns in a short amount of time, so the most innocuous answer is that he's having a major growth spurt that has him off kilter. Being an adoptive mom, there's a very small part of me that wonders if RAD is rearing it's ugly head. I sure hope not, seeing as we've seen no other evidence of it up until now.

We need to take Sam to the pediatrician anyway, so we're going to ask (our adoptive dad doc) if he thinks there's something else we need to be doing. In the meantime, I'm poring over a book called "Raising Your Spirited Child" and hoping that I find some sort of wisdom to make life a bit easier at our house!

Heaven help me when I have two kids to worry about!