We are changing Gavins anti-psychotic meds starting in the morning. At this point I don’t hold out much hope for them to work. Honestly, I don’t hold out much hope period. However, my outlook will get better as I adjust to all the changes going on around me.

We have been in a power struggle with Gavin since yesterday morning over the oatmeal. All he has to do is eat a SMALL bowl in 15 minutes and then he’s free to have something else. That’s more then enough time to finish what we give him. Originally there was no time limit but that didn’t work cause he would just sit there all day. So we added the time limit as a motivation.

The problem is that he drags his feet and doesn’t finish in time. The rule was he has to eat the oatmeal in under 15 minutes or he has it again the next meal and doesn’t get to have anything else. Typically if he doesn’t finish the first time he will the second time. We will even extend the time without him knowing. This time it has completely backfired on us. He hasn’t finished any of them and we have been doing this since yesterday morning. We have tried to help him through this but nothing has worked.

In order for us to win the power struggle we would have to continue this until he “breaks” (for lack of a better word). The plan was that he would realize we wouldn’t back down and he would just eat the oatmeal. After talking tonight we are concerned he’s prepared to take this farther then we are.

I don’t know how bad a diet of oatmeal is for a few days but it feels like it has runs it’s course and is no longer effective. He finally finished his oatmeal tonight. He was waiting for the rest of his dinner (because he finished the oatmeal he could have a regular dinner as well). Elliott Richard was bouncing around with his imaginary Buzz Lightyear type blaster. Gavin doesn’t like Elliott Richard or anyone for that matter using their imagination. So he started in on ER and complaining that he was being shot. I told him that he wasn’t being shot and ER was just playing around like a 4 year old. Gavin just escalated. That lead to being sent to his room but before he would get there he had a major meltdown. He ended up being dangerous to be around so he was sent to bed (7’ish pm).

Since he was sent to bed he didn’t get the rest of his dinner. We did decide to bring him a bowl of fruit and veggies. That act on our part I think tipped the scales in his favor and he may have won the power struggle. We were concerned that he wasn’t eating and decided to give up the fight because it wasn’t worth risking his health. He never got what he wanted but at least he got something in him besides oatmeal.

As a parents who have jumped through every hoop, climbed over every mountain and swam across the ocean for there child and find nothing we are desperate to find something that works. I wish something would just click with Gavin and we could start moving forward. We have been spinning our wheels for way to long.

LT