The Running Man

Jax has been having a difficult time at school lately. He’s been running away from his teachers and has generally been disorganized and defiant.

On Monday, Jax escaped as he was getting off the bus and ran into the lane where other busses were driving past.

Yesterday while outside playing, he ran up a hill behind the school into a business parking lot. When the teacher finally made it up the hill behind him, she found him playing in the middle of the parking lot.

When they got back down the the play area, Jax ran the other way into the school parking lot. When the teacher caught up to him she told him to look at her face and see how scared she was. She told him “When you run away from teachers you could get hurt and that’s scary. Do you want to get hurt?” Jax nodded yes and giggled.

After that, the teacher took him inside where he ran down the hallway and up the stairs as the she was taking off her coat.

His teachers and therapists have been very proactive and helpful as we try to figure out what’s going on. He has two schedules at school. He is in a small special education class two days a week, then the entire special education class is included in a mainstream class for the other two days. Maybe that schedule change is too overwhelming for him?

He has been running for Steve and I a lot more lately, too. Two days last week, Jax ran away as he was getting on the bus and ran out into our (very) busy street. HEART ATTACK! At first, we thought he was just trying to test his limits with mom and dad, but now that he is showing the same behavior at school, we think there is something else going on.

His teacher told us that some of Jax’s behavior is typical 3-year-old stuff but that he “takes it a couple steps further and when you try to explain why it’s dangerous or ask why he did it, he doesn’t seem to connect the reasoning to his actions.” This could be attributed to his receptive speech delay or maybe if he’s trying to avoid some sensory input he might not even be aware that he did anything!

It’s a mystery and a scary one at that. This behavior is not safe and it’s making me very worried.

We finally got an appointment with a behavioral psychiatrist (after being on the waiting list for 3 months). That appointment is on Friday and hopefully they will be able to help us figure out how to keep Jax safer. I hope this doctor knows how much pressure there is for him to help us!! 🙂

In the meantime, we have fun!