"Ouch"

One day, when our older son was seven, he approached me in the kitchen after school.

"Ouch," he said.

"Where do you ouch?" I asked, knowing full well that he would not be able to respond to my "where" question. He was still working on the five w's (who, what, where, when and why). "Uh-oh!" I said. "You ouch!"

"Ooouuuuch," he continued.

I started to investigate. Pointing to his stomach, the usual culprit. "Ouch?" I asked.

"All done," he said. No. Not his stomach.

I kept looking.

His face was fine. Feet, knees and legs were fine. I took his right arm in my hands and pulled back the sleeve. My heart sank. On his forearm in bright red was the imprint of his teeth. Further up his arm were bruises. There was a bruise on his shoulder.

I felt sick to my stomach.

Our son had not up until then been an aggressive child. At that point, any type of "behaviors" that school was trying to address were aimed more toward walking and attending--sitting for any length of time and being able to walk in the hall without breaking out into a sprint to a different direction.

How did he get the bite mark?

For him to bite himself, there was an issue. For there to be bruises on his arm, there was an issue. I ran to his communication log, his collection of daily notes which ran back and forth between home and school. No mention of what might have brought about these injuries.

"Oh, buddy!" I said to him. "I see! I see your ouch! But, I'm sorry I don't know what caused it. Mama will find out. I'm so sorry!" I felt helpless. Our son was trying to tell me about something that happened in his day, yet he didn't have the language. I can only imagine how awful that might have felt.

"Ouch," he said.

I pressed for communication over the next day and learned that he was no longer responding to the methods used by the teacher. In an effort to avoid work, he was throwing himself onto the floor, kicking at walls and at aides in his path. His size was an advantage, and they were growing weary of him.

It was his second year in that classroom. The first had been outstanding. The trick was to keep the momentum (or something close to it) as he grew and changed.

These "behaviors", I was told, must be shaped. They were not acceptable. I was unsure. If these were "behaviors", why did I not see them anywhere else? I viewed his actions to be communication. After all, he couldn't voice his opinion. Couldn't the program be changed to better suit his needs? No, I was told. They had changed all they could. He was the problem.

How is any child a problem?

"Ouch," he said to me again one day not long after the first incident. I looked at his leg. It was bruised. I grabbed my camera and began to document all of the marks.

I wanted to cry, but I didn't want him to see. I wanted to scream, but I didn't want to scare him. I was held hostage by the circumstances.

Nothing of usual course happens very quickly within the school district. Our son is nonverbal. His teacher was a good teacher. And, yet, he was coming home with bruises. This was not normal. New to school "behaviors", we had to work through the proper channels.

"Ouch," he said to me another day. More bruises on his wrist. What was going on?

I checked the communication log, and my world changed. That was the day I learned that, in his school less than one minute from our home, our seven-year-old had been pinned to the ground in a hold by five adults for more than 45 minutes.

Why didn't they just call me?

In the gym and unable to process the noise, he had thrown himself to the ground in rebellion. They were unsure how to move him. There were children on the other half of the room, and the adults feared that our son could be a safety risk. In our state, if there is a question of safety, unless otherwise specified in the child's paperwork, he can be placed into a hold.

That day was a loss of innocence for our son and his parents both.

"Ouch!" he had said to me and this time brought my own finger to point to the marks on his wrist.

Hell hath no fury like the mother of a nonverbal child who comes home hurt from school. No one. I no longer entirely trusted a soul with the care of our child.

For the record, please know that my husband and I respect educators. Indeed, we need educators because we cannot further our children in life on our own. At the same time, we also recognize that sometimes, for whatever reason, the method of teaching stops working, or the chemistry is no longer good--or maybe in some cases the chemistry never was good.

Courage is listening to the child.

"Ouch" was the simple yet heart-wrenching word from our son that forever changed the game in what documents travel with him as he moves through the educational system in our area.

To all of my fellow special needs parents, I encourage you to educate yourselves on your local guidelines regarding the use of restraint and seclusion with the ones you love.


This entry was written in response to the letter prompt "O" in the Blogging A to Z April 2012.