Little Drummer Boy

Max has been off his meds and solely on fish oil for six days now and has been doing remarkably well. Don’t get me wrong – he still has his moments. But they’re no worse than the moments he’s had on his medication.

Tired after his biggest blow-out of the day – the result of me trying to get him to do his homework, which consisted of reading for ten minutes – he came to me as I sat at my desk and fell onto my lap. He had taken his shirt off earlier – the tantrums are quite the workout, I imagine – and I started patting his back in a rhythm. “You make a good drum,” I told him. We were both enjoying the drumming and cuddling and he said, “This feels like stamping my feet.” I asked him to clarify, “You mean this feels good the way stamping your feet feels good?” “Yeah,” he said. “When I’m angry.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised by this discovery as Max has had his share of occupational therapy in the past and I had developed an understanding of how the body responds to certain sensory input. Long before his ADD diagnosis, Max was found to have sensory integration disorder. And the activities that comprised his OT – playing in a ball pit, hanging from a trapeze swing, pushing a heavy ball – all helped to make Max less sensitive to noise and less agitated by the sensations that upset him such as walking in bare feet and washing with soap. I knew that some kids, like Max, felt calmer and more comfortable in their bodies when they received strong sensory input, such as being hugged tightly, when carrying something heavy or when receiving joint compressions and brushing using the Wilbarger protocol.

But it has been a long time since that white, bristle-y brush was part of our daily routine. A long time since Max got excited knowing he was going to “play” with Mr. Dave. My mind has been so busy filling up with new information over the years (more than I’ve needed given our misdiagnoses) that I had forgotten what I already knew to be true: That strong sensory input calms Max down. That drumming on his back could be a new tool in our family toolbox for settling him down when he’s upset.

That Max realized it, too, made the discovery all the more exciting.