I am in one of my periodically-occurring tizzes. I think I can trace at least some of the root causes of this one:
1. Rob going back to college, and some accompanying turmoil: he made a last-minute change in his housing plans that meant he suddenly needed some furniture, and then he waited until the last minute to choose some.
1a. Also the last-minute change in housing plans ITSELF is tizz-contributing.
1b. And he doesn’t yet know what he’s going to do about a meal plan.
1c. And it’s been hard to know how much to offer/remind/help, as the parent.
1d. I don’t want any advice on 1c. right now. (“I KNOW RIGHT??” is okay, though.)
2. There are like five phone calls I need to make. There is the stress of needing to make the calls, and also the stress of putting them off, and the stress of why is this so hard when it shouldn’t be.
3. We got a form from our insurance company wanting to know if William’s knee injury could be blamed on someone else. It cannot, and we already said so at each doctor appointment, where they verified that it was not an employer situation or whatever. The form required a LENGTHY online response, including sections on how many times in the past William had had injuries that could be blamed on someone else (NEVER), and how many times we had gone to court for such injuries (N/A!!), and had questions I couldn’t answer (such as exact date of injury) but also the form wouldn’t let me proceed without answering them. It was very frustrating, and then afterward I thought of something I answered incompletely so there will probably need to be a follow-up. And the whole thing is stupid because THE INJURY CANNOT BE BLAMED ON SOMEONE ELSE.
4. Henry is doing this SNIFFING and THROAT-CLEARING routine and it is hard to explain just how insane those sounds can make a person over time. Like, I do okay all morning, but shortly after lunch, when I have been listening to three sniffs per minute for six hours and saying “Henry, blow your nose” or “Henry, pay attention to your sniffing” for six hours, I can get screamy. And I can’t tell if he WON’T stop or CAN’T stop. I can’t tell if this is a tic/habit/compulsion or a physical issue that requires treatment. And I so so so don’t want to launch him down an invasive treatment path if this could be solved by him breaking a tic/habit/compulsion—but he isn’t putting much if any effort into cooperating with the methods I’ve found for treating a tic/habit/compulsion, so I can’t TELL. And then I think, “That’s it, I can’t stand it another second, I’m taking him to an ENT doctor”—but that means a series of phone calls (appointment, referrals) so then I don’t do it (see #2).
5. Henry is starting middle school. I’m not actually stressed about this, but I’m friends/acquaintances with a bunch of people whose firstborns are going to middle school, and THEIR stress is getting me agitated. They’re asking me a million questions I don’t know the answer to because none of those things turned out to be issues. I’m getting a taste of what it must be like to be friends with ME.
Sniffling makes me crazy; I could never be a teacher and be in a room full of it. Nope. I wouldn’t do any better with sniffing and throat clearing; it would make me offer lozenges, hot liquids, antihistamines, Kleenex, anything, ANYTHING to shut it off. Mostly it’s just an issue at work because at home I can leave the room, and I totally will. That’s the beauty of there always being some chore that could be done–no one else wants to be anywhere near it. (It’s sad that it sometimes comes to this, but here we are.)
I had to ask on our district moms’ page about how to accomplish something for my daughter; so many people thought it was a non-issue and it’s like they couldn’t read my post which said that there had in fact been an issue. Finally someone said, yes this issue is real because they ran out of Thing and had to order more, here’s who has the supply. It left me glad that another mom saved me from making a call, but still kind of mad that they let it just fall through the cracks for some of the kids. I wish I could feel completely happy about good outcomes when they happen, but that does not seem to be my lot in life.
I hate not being able to settle, and hope it gets better for you soon. Transition times are just hard.
Can I offer an OH I KNOW on the sniffling? (In my case, or the case of my child, not sniffling per se, but an thing that makes noise and I don’t know if it’s a sympton or a tic but it annoys me to NO END MAKE IT STAAAAAAHP.
My stepson has asthma. I get it, he is going to cough sometimes. I GET IT. But sometimes the coughing is only when he’s asked to do something. Like, he’s playing on his ipad and there is no noise coming from his mouth. Then… do your homework, C… cough, cough. Hey C, go put your clothes away… cough, cough. I want to pull my hair out.
If it’s a tic with your son and you somehow break it, please share!
#3 I worked for a company for 6 months that did this. It’s 3rd Party Subrogation investigation. The letters are computer generated and go out for specific injuries/illnesses that were selected by your employer or insurance company as being possible 3rd party responsility. I had to call people with cancer and ask them if their illness was caused by a car accident or workers comp injury. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of. I got cussed out a lot.
Zee,
Thanks for this explanation! My cortisol levels shoot right up when I get this kind of call, so apologies from all of us who are worried about paying a 50K bill out of pocket!!! We don’t have you, we hate the MAN.
Girl, I am feeling ya and my stress levels were rising just reading about it all.
Hugs!
My insurance company sent me many, many letters and forms trying to figure out if they could make someone else pay for my cancer treatment. I got so sick of it that I finally wrote a note on the form that said, “Nope. I had the bad luck to get cancer at age 41, while self-employed, and you have the bad luck to be my insurance company. I do not qualify for Medicare or Medicaid and my husband is also self employed and on my policy so we do not have co-insurance.” They did pay for all of my treatment in the end.
I am very familiar with the circle of dread making the phone call — put off making the phone call — get even more stressed about the phone call. Good luck!
OMG! My sister is going through this right now, with coverage for rabies vaccine after her kids got exposed to a wild animal. They asked her to check and see if the people involved had LIABILITY insurance. Eff off, insurance people!
My son, who is exactly Henry’s age, also is prone to noises that drive me crazy and make me wonder if they are tics or symptoms. With him, I come straight out and say “hey, you’re doing this thing” and explain that I’m trying to decide if it needs to be checked out by a doctor. Drawing his attention to it repeatedly and asking if it’s a symptom (is your nose actually running or do you just feel like you need to make that noise) is usually enough to break the habit. It hasn’t stopped him gulping every time he swallows though, and now my husband won’t eat next to him because it drives him up a wall. Any suggestions for how to teach an 11 yr old how to swallow quietly?
Similar question, any suggestions for how to teach a 38 yr old how to swallow quietly…
Or how to teach a grown man how to chew with his mouth closed. I’d be interested if anyone has any ideas on that.
Or how to teach a 48-yr old how to not speak with food in his mouth? While yelling at the kids for doing the same?
My son has just started middle school, which is 6th grade here. I am really unsure how to act right now because I want to give him more freedom and independence, but he is still just a kid that doesn’t pay attention to details. (“I don’t need to dress out for gym until next week.” “Ok, but I put your gym clothes in your backpack to take to school today just in case.” “Hey, guess what? We dressed out for gym today!” He is feeling out a new situation, just like I am, so I guess we will just figure it out as we go along. It is very disconcerting going from the elementary school where we knew the ropes as well as all the staff to a bigger school (with bigger kids!) where we don’t know anything.
Middle school teacher here- any time he says he doesn’t need (item) that you think maybe he probably might need, he needs it. :)
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called home about student chronically not having their (item) and gotten “oh, he said he didn’t need it today!”. Surprise, any time he has my class, he needs (item). It’s item-use class! Can’t participate in class without it!
“I’m getting a taste of what it must be like to be friends with ME.”
Oh my – too funny! I’m sure we can all relate!
I feel like this will be my most-relaxed school year ever. My kids are in 11th, 10th and 7th grade. Nobody is in a “big” year, nobody is going to a new school, nobody has any big events this year. It’s the calm before the storm for sure – as the following year I’ll have a senior and an 8th grader (which is an annoyingly big deal at my kid’s K-8 school – so effing annoying!)
You hit the sweet spot!
UGH. Insurance. Insurance Companies. UGH. I seriously get ragey just hearing about other people’s dealings with them. And I haven’t really had big issues like some have. It just offends my sense of justice, like they are supposed to help and provide a valuable service and they just make already stressful situations so much more stressful. It’s wrong.
This. YES. UGHHHHH!
#5! I have 3 high schoolers and find I don’t want to be anywhere near the elementary school where I have 2 kids, due to other parents whose firstborns are there . I then feel guilty about it …. like oh dear, I should
care more about their first-time issues but no, MY mind
Is all wrapped up high school.
I got one of those letters after I broke my wrist last fall, and it made me anxious because I was at a dance studio and didn’t want to get THEM in trouble but I DID slip on their floor but I was dancing big but but. Anyway, I filled it out and never heard more about it so I think it’s just one of those annoying followup things they do.
The simple answer for Henry is just to start him I. A morning dose of children’s Claritin and see if it helps. My son suffered this for years and it turned out he’s just allergic to nevada. He takes Claritin daily which helps a ton. When the sagebrush blooms he also gets allergy shots.
However the most helpful of all was just getting the saline nose wash at Walmart and having him wash his nose. The ent says they get sinusitis and post nasal drip. This causes the noises.
I agree with this as a low-risk, potentially problem-fixing thing for a sniffing kid to try. Children’s Zyrtec or the generic equivalents will also work.
Yes to this! Ragweed season is starting and many people are allergic to this. Turns out my six year is too, which I realized 2 years after I constantly asked him to blow his nose and stop clearing his throat during the months of August and September. Duh. Not sure why I didn’t think of this sooner. Anyway, Flonase over the counter nasal spray and children’s Zyrtec are completely taking care of the issue now! :)
I wish I could give you a hug!
And….someday, could we talk about how friends interact? The listening, sympathy/empathy, I get it way versus the I’m going to match your story with my story way?
I hate tizzes. I’d be very tizzy with only one and you have five! Im sending you my hugs!
I also love “I’m getting a taste of what it must be like to be friends with ME.”
If you are in the mood to share/offer advice, can you let me know more about the methods you have found for treating a tic/habit/compulsion? We have something going on at our house, too, that I always assumed required a PROFESSIONAL OPINION, which I have procrastinated seeking!!
So! We started on this back with Rob, who had a number of tics (twitching his nose and upper lip, blinking hard, twitching his head as if to get bangs out of his eyes but he didn’t have bangs in his eyes, coughing, throat-clearing). The most helpful stuff I found was by stumbling upon “habit cough.” There are quite a few useful ideas, such as: explaining to the child that it’s a habit/urge and not an actual need to cough; explaining that the excessive coughing has caused irritation that creates a cycle of needing to cough, and the coughing needs to stop to let that irritation heal (you tell them this WHETHER OR NOT IT IS TRUE); having them challenge themselves to go longer and longer between coughs; giving them lozenges or having them sip water “to let the irritation heal” (in cases where this is not true, it’s a ruse to get them to go longer without coughing); etc. This worked for Rob with some of his tics; others seemed to just need to extinguish themselves. Rob added another technique, which is that he flicked his wrist every time he coughed, trying to build a negative association with coughing; he says he thinks this worked well, but of course the kid has to be willing to do it, and I feel a little uneasy about it.
Thanks!! :)
I also laughed at “I’m getting a taste of what it must be like to be friends with ME.”
So good Swistle. I hope all these things get resolved quickly.
My oldest refuses to blow her nose because “it doesn’t even work” so she just sniffs nonstop when she has a cold or allergies. It’s infuriating trying to figure out how much of it is that she doesn’t know how to blow her nose because she won’t TRY under anything but extreme pressuring by mom and dad. Even then, she’s not really trying. Or how much of it is anatomy? I remember, as an infant, it really WAS nearly impossible to clear out her snot, via the little bulb thing or a Nosefreida or anything else. Way harder than with my other kids. Does she need nose surgery? Am I yelling at her for something she can’t control? WHO KNOWS.
(I mean, probably not. There’s a history of congenital hearing loss in my husband’s family so all the kids go to the ENT periodically for hearing tests/checkups and I have made him look in her nose before and gotten nothing but a shrug. Not super helpful, doc.)
I have a kid who somehow squeaks when she drinks. Weirdest noise. Can’t stop it. Drives me crazy. Hope her future life partner is more understanding than I am.
She will find someone who thinks it is adorable and live happily ever after. Preferably out of your earshot.
#1 – I KNOW! Mine is looking to move out in about 3 weeks…has he done ANYTHING to prepare? No. I figure I won’t have to say “I told you so” when he finds himself sitting in a dark apartment with no furniture, no electricity or internet.
#2 – I feel you; I hate the phone. What sometimes works for me is to write it in with my To-Do’s and when I’m really productive and am scratching items off the list left and right, the urge to scratch those phone calls off the list to be truly “done” with the list is strong. Now, to be honest, this only works for me sometimes.
#4 – Again, I feel you (for many reasons *looking at the people I live with*). How about offering up Benedryl? It may be he has allergies?
1c. I can’t figure out how much to help/remind as the parent of a 13 and a 10 year old, let alone a college kid. I think it’s one of the hardest balances we face, partly because families all do it differently and different stuff works well for different kids (maturity levels, stubbornness, rebelliousness, etc) and the right balance keeps changing through their lives and it’s just HARD. I always feel like I’m running really fast down a very steep hill and about to fall over my feet in a big ugly mess. I really feel you here.
Rushing to the comments because Oldest either had a mild cold or his ENT was aggravated by the extremely poor air quality plus soccer practice (skipping right past my anger that they even had practice in this air) last week and MY GOD THE SNIFFLING. How can one be 15.5 years old and not know how to use a tissue?? I’ve never felt less guilty about going to the office and leaving a kids home – the sounds was killing me
Unrelated irritation: Youngest’s school changed aftercare companies. Fine. Except I had to fill out an absolutely absurd number of online forms all of which required me to answer every question even if it wasn’t relevant. I swear it would have been faster to apply Youngest for college. I’m still not sure I filled out all the forms right and fear random issues on Monday, the first day of school. Bah!
my 9yo does the coughsniffle and has for years and i guess at least someday he’ll move out