My son

[Guest guest]

Hi. My name is Janet and I am a stay at home mom of 4. My son is nearly 6 now and has been having alot of trouble the last few years and we have just now started the testing process. I am not certain he has aspergers yet but he does appear to have alot of the symptoms.

It is getting very frustrating for me as a mother. I send him to school and constantly worry about what he is doing and what is going on there. His behavior is so erratic and he is hard to get under control. I sometimes feel I will lose my mind....

He can be the sweetest child to me and his baby sister and then there are the other times when he is so hard to deal with. The worry is constant and even when I do sleep I dream of him and it's so nerve wrecking. I find myself crying at odd times and overwhelmed to the point where I don't know what to do or where to go.

I have family whom could be a support system but mostly I hear how bad he is or how out of control he is, as if I didn't already know this. I don't do alot of out of the house things because I worry about his reactions to things and to how others will react to him if he starts acting his normal self.

Normal for him is constantly moving, climbing, making noises repetitively, jumping, etc. My older boys had imaginations but he is constantly in another place and I have to really hold him still most times to get him to focus on me and what I'm saying.

He also has angry outbursts which make me feel like a horrible mother. My other children have/had temper tantrums but with him it is so much more.

He actually punches himself in the face, slaps himself, calls himself names, thrashes around, slams his head and face into the wall. Most of his anger is directed at himself but occassionally spills out onto others. A couple of weeks ago his 13 year old brother wouldn't do what he wanted him to do so he threw a small plastic chair at him and missed. Instead it hit his baby sister in the face and cut her head. It wasn't bad but bad enough. He felt badly and immediately apologized to her and in the same breath said "I didn't mean to hurt you, I meant to hurt Kaleb."

I am at my wits end here and the waiting for results part is agonizing. I just want to know what I can do or where I can go from here. I don't want to see him hurt himself or someone else because of these issues. I am afraid that he will seriously hurt someone. Probably his baby sister. He doesn't ever do anything to really try and hurt her but when he is diving off of things he doesn't pay attention to anyone else. And there are times when I have had to stop him from doing these things with her in his arms. A few weeks ago he dove off the bed with her and I couldn't stop it even though I tried. She landed on her head (the top) and bent her neck back. After the initial crying she was fine but it sure was scary. If she had hit just right she could have broken her neck. This terrifies me.

None of my other children have these issues. My oldest son has ADHD but nothing like this. He was just extremely hyper as a child and now he's mostly just ADD.

I know that I just have to wait for answers and help but just talking about it with others whom know may be able to help. No one around me understands... Thanks for listening/reading my little tirade.

Janet The New Busy is not the too busy. Combine all your e-mail accounts with Hotmail. Get busy.