Major Reward, Major Incidents

Yesterday, my son’s school had a special breakfast for all of the students that had no major incidents throughout the month of January. It was the first time Kai qualified.

Of course, we had no idea there was to be such an occasion. The school had told him but, like with almost everything that happens at school, he did not say a word about it to us.

The first we heard of it was when his social worker at school called us in the afternoon.

To tell us that he had two major incidents yesterday.

Yes, it is quite ironic that my son had his worst day at school in quite awhile on the same day he was honored for having his best month.

To add to the irony, the breakfast itself was what set him off on his bad day as it was a change from his usual routine. He did not want to go to the breakfast. He just wanted to go to his classroom where he is comfortable. He whined and protested and eventually did go to the breakfast. For a little while.

But, he was off to a cranky start to the day.

At lunchtime, when a new TA (teaching assistant) read a book with him instead of his usual TA, he got even more upset, and had his first major incident of the day. Does it really matter who reads with him? Apparently it does to Kai.

Later on, yet another change in his usual schedule led to his worst incident in a long time. He got violent, used angry words, and had to be physically restrained to keep from hurting himself and others.

It was an unusual day with so many changes to his schedule, but life is like that sometimes. How do we get him to deal with it?

Well, one thing’s for sure. We won’t have to worry about a special breakfast throwing him off next month.