Realizing Something Wasn't Quite Right

The next several years went by so quickly....Jackson went from not
speaking at all to being our little social butterfly! He's gone from
not attaching to any particular "toy" to his favoriteflinstone toy car
(or at least that's what we call it!). He shows a lot of emotion and is
the most loving little boy we've ever met...okay, we're biased!

A year ago, we decided to remove him from his in-home daycare to start a
full-time preschool in a larger city where we live. I remember being so
scared taking him there. The teacher probably thought I was a paranoid
mother as I spent a lot of time educating her and the director about
Jackson's background. I also pointed out that developmentally he was
behind his peers - and that was okay with us. Again, we stressed that
you could not compare him to his peers - he didn't have the same
upbringing. After all, he was institutionalized until age 2.

At first, I heard the greatest reports from the teacher when I would pick
him up. While he didn't have an interest in writing anything, he was
learning his ABC's and could recognize his name within only a few short
months...we were thrilled!!!! Then, the call came. I'll never forget
it. The Director of the Preschool had concerns about our son - he
wasn't standing in line, he would throw temper tantrums, kick chairs,
scream, say naughty words, and bang his head against the floor or wall.
While we had seen these behaviors at home, they were infrequent and
very manageable. In fact, I remember describing them to the preschool
teacher as behaviors of a 2 or 3 year old who doesn't get their way.
After all, Jackson was only 4 and so, because of his delays, he was
behaving like a 2 or 3 year old.

Things continued to get worse in the school setting. We took him to both our family practice docto
and pediatrician - both who said that there was nothing medically wrong with him that would cause him to act out. The pediatrician recommended a psychiatrist. Now, with all due respect and probably a part of our journey, I wasn't ready to see a psychiatrist who may spend an hour
with my son and prescribe a pill. I spent weeks researching regional specialists who may spend time treating children who were adopted from overseas. But, no luck. So, after a few more months, we removed him from preschool and placed him into another in-home daycare.

Time passed and we would ask the daycare provider if she was seeing the same
signs that the preschool reported. She mentioned thatoccassionally, Jackson would have "bad days" - like other children and they would consist of the temper tantrums, bad words, etc. But, then either with redirection, time out or ignoring the behavior, he would settle down.

So, here we were...parents who wanted so desparately to help our youngest son, but yet were confused as we didn't see the same magnitude of behaviors the preschool saw. In all honesty, we just blamed it onoverstimulation in the classroom and too many children. We would wait until fall to see how he responded to kindergarten - which consisted of a much smaller class size than his preschool.