Calling Dumbledore

We continued yesterday's on-the-fly therapy approach this morning. We were going over Sissy's behavior chart[1]. Turns out, Sissy's biggest "red level" events revolve around PH. Most specifically, toothbrushing. We have officially appointed Toothpaste as one of the objects Lord Voldemort has put a part of his soul into which Sissy thought was funny. SCORE! Who thought I'd hit on something with Harry Potter specific DBT skills?

After we had our fun about it, I zeroed in. "Sissy. If you live to be 87 and you brush your teeth twice a day, that's a lot of toothbrushing you have to do in one lifetime. You need to get over it." She glared at me. "Yes. I said that. GET.OVER.IT. You need to make that choice."

Picking up the kids from school wasn't fun. Wonder Girl's parapro told me that she had extra homework for not doing her school work (chose bad classroom behaviors instead). Then Aspie Boy showed his butt in the front office area and the monitor/speech therapist was not pleased with his behaviors. I felt like such a dork of a mom, having my son's behaviors corrected while I stood there, helplessly. Sometimes, when the school staff do that I get anxious that they think I'm a bad parent. I know that's not the case. I tell myself that. my kids are challenged so my parenting skills are challenged every day and it's nice to have another adult advocate for me once and awhile. But on the outset, it still feels like I'm inadvertently being corrected too.

When Sissy returned home, from RTC, we opted to suspend formal RAD therapy for a few reasons.
#1 - We have IFI therapists and we don't want too many different therapy approaches to learn and apply
#2 - CBAY waiver begins this week with wrap around services which will max out my time allotments for Sissy's non-school related assistance
#3 - switching to Federal Medicaid means our RAD therapist will no longer accept our insurance (but of course, on Friday we learned it will be December before we hear if Sissy's even approved ... ) which means we'll have to use one of the therapists at the psychiatrist's office [2]

But I was disappointed because when Sissy went to RTC, her RAD therapist and I discussed starting a support group, something that never got off the ground.

Today, the RAD therapist called me, not ten minutes after I walked through the door. She was asking ME for advice for another patient. Wonder of wonders, I knew more than her about the services available locally. AND she wants me to go ahead and start the support group, verbally appointing me as chairperson if I am still willing.

*jaw dropping*

wow

when did I get to this point in my abilities as Sissy's parent to be helping others, let alone professionals? After today, this call from the RAD therapist was a nice boost to my morale on the heels of feeling like a hopeless schmuck. Who knows, maybe tomorrow I'll wow the CBAY team and IFI therapist with my savvy Harry Potter DBT plan. Wouldn't THAT be a wonder? Maybe I'm Dumbledore after all?


[1]BTW, if you want a copy of it, just email direct and I'll email the docx file.
[2]the RAD therapist has a master's and not a PhD. Medicaid requires a PhD supervisor at least. We'll have to switch to the psychiatrist's therapy partner.