Day 20- Kindergarten Part 1

Kindergarten was by far the worst year we have had with Tanner. I am not sure why the year was so hard. He did have a lot of changes right before he started school so I am sure that had something to do with it.

His older brother took five days to be in the principal's office when he started school. It took Tanner three. I got my first call and knew it was going to be a year. After about three weeks, I was in the office talking about the track we were on and he was headed to DAEP (Disciplinary Alternative Education Program). That's when we took serious action.

The first thing I did was call our pediatrician for an appointment. He put Tanner on Adderall (which was the same medication his older brother was on at the time). That worked for a while, but then we decided to up the dose to get a little more control out of it and that sent him into a frenzy.

Severe depression, a five year old who cried on the smallest things. I remember one time we were sitting at supper eating hotdogs and his fell apart. He sobbed uncontrollably for several minutes. I finally had to make him a new dog for him to calm down and eat. Kids were making fun of him as school for crying and unable to control his anger at them, he started beating them up. Most of his incidents were happening during the PE or Music period and we could not figure out why?

We started seeing a psychologist who worked with his pediatrician to help find a medication for him. The doctors believed it was ADHD just like his older brother. I told everyone that's what it was, but deep down inside I knew we weren't getting any better. There were too many factors that weren't adding up. I was just so overwhelmed, I didn't know where to go.

In November, we seemed to have things lined out again. His teacher and I were in constant communication to make sure that days went smoothly. And I was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Then came Christmas....