Meltdowns, Stubbed Toes and Water Guns

 
What a super busy week it's been.  I'm so exhausted, I can hardly see the screen to type.  Hmmmm, what do I need to give me a little jolt?  Organic, GF Peanut butter cups.  :D  At least that's what I'm telling myself....it works for me.

Today was Kaden's last day of camp.  We had a great BBQ Family Fun Day to end the week.  Well, it ended it alright, he ended up having one of the worse meltdowns ever.  


My heart was in my throat the whole time.  After 20 minutes or more of screaming, hitting and punching himself, Skylar scooped him up and restrained him as we walked to the van.  Once there we couldn't leave for almost 30 minutes.  When we finally made it home I gave him a shower because he was covered in dirt and black stuff from the parking lot.  His knees and hands were cut up and swollen.  Not to mention Skylar's face from Kaden's punching.  :(  
 
A few hours of relaxation and love from Homer helped settle him down to the point we could talk.  I love Homer, as soon as Hurricane Kaden entered the house Homer ran straight up to him and Kaden immediately started petting him.  Later today we had Homer give Kaden pressure.  It seems to help when Homer does this and we talked about what happened at the church.

Basically, a child took his water gun 30 minutes or so before we left.  Mahala did get him another one right away.  But, to him it was still rolling around in his head.  And the transition from leaving to go home overwhelmed him and he was upset that it was taken from him and he couldn't enjoy it till the end of his play time.  It didn't matter that there where dozens of other water guns.  He wanted his original water gun and he couldn't find it amongst the water guns on the ground.  The Kid basically took it from Kaden, played a minute and then left.  While Kaden melted down there was no reasoning at all with him.  He darted off into the parking lot and I was so scared.  He was trying to hide.  That's what he does when he melts down...screams, hits himself and hides.  If he can't hide he will bang his head and rock back and forth.  

There were probably 45 kids playing and about 10 or so parents and a few staff members.  They all witnessed this outburst and I wished I could say at 7 Kaden cares who sees, but in the moment he has not a care about anything except what he is fixated on at that moment.  
I always worry when he does this in public, I can only imagine what people think.  Like our therapist said, Kaden has no physical signs of a disability.  So, it's shocking to see him behave like this.  

I'm trying to make sense of all this, looking for ways to prevent another meltdown and trying to educate him.  If this child would not have taken his water gun he would have still melted down.  Except he would be screaming about the hamburger being too hot or the tag in his shirt has been bothering him all week.  The other day he stubbed his toe and went off because he said if Dad wouldn't have cut his toenails too short a few days prior his toe wouldn't be bleeding right now.  And he goes on and on for sometimes HOURS!!!!  So, honestly it wasn't the water gun...Kaden needs to learn how to self regulate his emotions.  It's a process, a journey and expedition.  Please keep us all in Your Prayers, he is such a Sweet, Kind, Loving boy!!!  As a matter of fact 2 days ago he talked to me about raising money to build churches.  So kids all over the world can hear about God.  He told me that was what he wanted to do when he finished school.  I know he could too, he can achieve anything I told him!!!