Patrick's school thinks he has autism.  I went to a meeting on Friday.  I made it about 10 minutes and balled my eyes out for the next hour and a half of the meeting while they went over how poorly he did on all his tests.  I think it was reading and vocabulary comprehension..he got a 1% so 99% of childen do better than him on this test.  Through my tears I accused them of calling him a moron in politically correct terms.  They were very sympathetic and reassured me that that was not the case.  I left convined they were wrong.  well, today, I am not so sure.  After the meeting on Friday, Jim, decided that one way to help Patrick would be to have him eat better.  He brought him to the store and BEGGED him to try some yogurt.  He did and now he's eating two a day.  He is also on two separate vitamins. 

Well, last night was worse than usual.  He would NOT sit still and he did all the things they accused him of in that meeting.  He perches on his feet, sticks his tongue out alot, and just alot of little stuff like that but I guess it all adds up to Autism.  They even want to bring in a man from a special school for autistic children to evaluate Patrick to see if the school would be good for him.  I can't stomach the idea of him having to go to a special school.  I came home convinced I wanted to home school and talked to Jim about it in detail.  He would NOT budge.  I even contemplated home schooling Patrick without his permission...he's not here when the bus comes, so I would just keep Patrick home, of course Jim would find out eventually. 

About three years ago this came up for the first time from an individual who was tutoring Patrick in speech.  I did extensive research and found out about a casein and glutein free diet that parents of autistic children have put their children on and have had success with.  Casein is in dairy and at that time, Patrick existed on milk.  We went through 3 to 4 gallons of milk a week and most of it was on Patrick.  After that meeting,  and my research, I took Patrick off the milk and he started eating food.  The next week the specialist came in to see Patrick.  After being there a few minutes, she asked what I had done different.  She said he made eye contact with her right away and seemed like a completely different kid.  I told her about taking him off milk which reduced his casein intake.  I was so excited to know that this made a difference.  Since taking him off milk made a difference, I never pursued changing his diet any further and the subject of autism never came up again. 

My instinct is that the reason Patrick was so bad last night is that he has been eating alot of yogurt lately (which we thought would help him nutritionally).  There is absolutely no research supporting this diet, but now I really want to put him on it full swing.  Am I jumping too soon.  My 'mom' instincts are flying off the chart and I really feel this might be a key to helping him.  The specialist from long ago gave me the number of woman who had put her daughter on the diet.  I called her.  We talked for about an hour.  She described it like this.  The casein and glutein causes some people's bodies to produce histamine which causes the body to go into a "drug-like" state.  I'm not sure if its from the additional histamine or from your bodies reaction to the histamine by producing anti-histamines to combat the additional histamine.  This would give a sense like you or I have after taking Benadryl.  I've gone on forever here.  I just wanted to get anyone's opinion on this. 

I'm wandoring if he does have a physical, neurological problem (like the school people suggested) is it right to punish him when he can't sit still to do homework?  It's not a behavioral problem, it's a physical problem.  His body NEEDS to be stimulated constantly.  If we shouldn't punish/spank for this reason, then how do we approach making him sit still and do his school work?  I might go to the library today and see if I can find a book on the topic.

write again soon. love,

terry