A parent asks our group: Help! My 5-year-old son has SPD, PDD-NOS, and a severe separation anxiety disorder. When I drop him off at school he has frequent meltdowns (kicking, hitting, biting, etc.). Other than the initial transition, he does fine for the rest of the day, is never aggressive, and is a very well-behaved kid. We have periods of time that things will go better but it is short-lived and we end up right back where we started. Are there any techniques that any of you have used with schools, teachers, etc. to help ease that transition? We have tried several gentler techniques where we start off the day together in a quiet separate room and a teacher comes to get him and then he leaves me (instead of me leaving him) to go to class, which I have seen the most progress with. However, it never seems to be a permanent solution. His teacher is recommending a rip off the band-aid technique where I just drop him off and immediately leave and they just deal with the meltdowns. From every professional I have talked to in the past, this method works well with most neurotypical children but is not recommended and can worsen anxiety for a child who is not NT. Do you agree? We have worked really hard over the past two years to reduce tantrums and get him to express himself verbally instead, and much of this has been accomplished by controlling triggers - separation is his worst trigger. I am afraid that the technique they are wanting to use is too much for him and I dont want regression and the meltdown behavior to become his typical method of dealing with anxiety. This technique just goes completely against what my mommy-gut is telling me. Any thoughts or recommendations from parents who have been there would be greatly appreciated.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 17:53:14 +0000
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