hearing the words aggression

I walked into clinic to pick Noah up from his morning therapy session yesterday, hoping for a better day than Friday. He has had a rough week in therapy. Could be from being sick the week prior and having to get back into the routine. Maybe he’s still not feeling so great. Who knows. The mysteries of nonverbal.

Anyways, I turned the corner and saw a bright red, freshly marked scratch down Noah’s therapist’s neck. I immediately thought I must have missed that during drop off and somebody else’s kid did that. Not mine. But I knew. I knew it wasn’t there before, and more than likely, my little guy did it.

I crouched down next to Noah who was laying on the floor, not unusual for him, and within seconds a consultant come over and crouched down next to me.

You know that feeling when you’re younger and you’re in trouble, and you’re about to have a stern talking to. That’s what I felt. And I just wanted to pretend like this wasn’t happening. Then I heard words that I never thought would be associated with my kid — aggression.

“Noah has been having a hard time with transitions and complying with non preferred activities. We are seeing some new behaviors and some aggression. We’d like to get ahead of this while we can...” and I don’t even remember what she said after that.

Aggressive? My kid? My sweet, beautiful, innocent, wouldn’t hurt a fly boy is being aggressive?

I know I can see the positives here, if I dig really deep. One being that this is communication. Not appropriate by any means. But teaching him “first/then” and how to respond appropriately will undoubtedly lessen his frustrations. But these things take time. And so much practice and patience. And I just wish I could snap my fingers and he could be fluent with his talker or PECS and he could just tell me what’s wrong. But he can’t.

I know deep down my kid isn’t aggressive. I know we are lucky in that area. But Noah just gets so frustrated when he doesn’t feel understood. And in this case he didn’t want to sit on the potty, and I guess he didn’t know what else to do. But gosh is this just so hard sometimes. Just another layer to our journey, and our lives.

But on we go with meetings with bcba’s this week and new behavior plans. Finishing Noah’s PECS book and being back on track with CBD oil and the Nemechek Protocol are all encouraging. So maybe, hopefully, this will pass.

I don’t know if it will, but what I do know is that at the end of his therapy session Noah and his therapist hugged each other so tight that I know this is going to be okay. And that we are so blessed to have these incredible people in our lives.

People who see all the amazing Noah is. People that see all that he can do. People who will try new and different approaches.

I know Noah is such a smart kid, and he is so capable. He understands so much more than outsiders may think.

I know this will be okay. Because we’ll never give up on this little guy. Not ever.

I know my kid isn’t aggressive. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say hearing those words took my breath away.