Monday, February 10, 2020

Placebo

I wonder if I should have told Olivia’s teacher that we were putting her on medication and then, you know, NOT given Liv the meds right away. Just to see what happened.

See, I think maybe the medicine is working but not necessarily in the way we think it should work.

I think that knowing she’s on medication, it’s making me and her teacher both more patient with her.

That’s not really fair to her, is it?

Let me give you tell you a homework story (there are already so many of those but this one is different):

We sat down to do social studies homework. Olivia told me that they’d been in groups that day in class and each student had read aloud a paragraph of the article we were using to do her homework. She pointed out that the members of her group didn’t make her read aloud. Ha. That’s my girl.

So I read the questions on the back of the article than turned it over and read through the article to find the answers. I’d ask Liv if she agreed with the answers I’d found, she’d nod and then she’d write the answers.

She erased maybe three times over the course of the five questions that required full-sentence answers and three definitions.

Let me repeat, she erased maybe three times.

This is the child who has been known to erase the same number five times before I lose my stupid mind and scream at her to, for the love of Pete, STOP ERASING!

So, was this non-erasing event due to the Lexapro taking affect in her brain, letting her relax and not NEED to erase every other letter or was it due to my patience and kindness and loving attention that kept me from being a raging bitch and hovering over every single word she wrote?

Maybe we’ll never know.

But whatever the case, it seems to be working for school too.

Her teacher writes me a little note each day just reporting on whether Liv had a good day or a rough day.

Since starting the medicine, she’s had good days.

In fact, her teacher reports that she’s completing her work each day and has, in the span of a week on the medicine, moved up a level in reading.

Is it her? Is it us? Is it a combination of the two?

I don’t know and I don’t really care. I’m just glad FOR HER that her days are calmer, better, that the people around her are kinder and more patient with her.

1 comment:

Kate J said...

So glad you are getting a positive result!