Some Advice Please...

I took Owen to school the other day, as usual, and asked his teacher if I could come in and meet the speech teacher. She said okay, and I came in with Tess. As I did, I spoke to the other teacher, who when Erik asked her how Owen was doing she said, "how is Owen doing? How is Owen doing? I'm not sure how to answer that question." So I asked Owen's teacher what she meant by that comment. Then, it all came out. The teacher took me aside and said she's been having a difficult time with Owen and she's not sure this is the right environment for him. And slowly, my faith in the school system begins to crumble.

She told me that Owen has some behavioral issues, especially when he doesn't want to do something he will throw it (i.e., when he doesn't want to color, he throws the crayons). Then she said he will do things to get attention, like get up and run for the door, standing by it while the rest of the class sits and does the lesson. She said she finally started ignoring him and he stopped doing it. But, he has a difficult time with scissors and she and the OT thinks he needs clinical OT (well, duh, don't we all...it's their system that said no), and that she doesn't see any progress with Owen. She told me that he is operating at the level of a 1-1/2 year old. But, she said when it is something he likes, like story time or songs, he does well. "He's very smart," she said, which made me feel happy, all while I am thinking he's going to get thrown out of preschool for being basically Erik's son: smart, but not wanting to do the work when it gets hard.

So we continued to talk, and she told me that we need to start setting limits with him at home and not helping him with things. She told me that we need to expect of Owen what we will expect of Tess. "Look, I'm not telling you how to be a parent, but if you feel sorry for him and you continue to do things for him, it will not benefit him." She's right, but of course, I don't know how to address these things. First of all, Owen has been usurped with a new baby who is breastfeeding, and seems permanently attached to me, and second of all, he is three years old and is just now entering the "terrible twos." So, how do I discipline him?

Oh, and to top it all off, I have realized that he hears very little of what we are saying. The reason I know this is that I have been testing him by saying things soft and loud. When I talk softer, he only catches the one word I say loudly and repeats it. If I say the whole sentence loudly, he repeats it all. Now, I wonder, how much of his acting out is frustration because he doesn't hear us and when he does say things, we can't understand him because he learned the words with fluid in his ears?

I feel as if I have already failed at being a parent. The last two days, I have been trying really hard to insist he do things, like use his fork, pull up his underwear, etc, but I feel as if it's all about me bossing him around and I don't feel as if I can have fun with him. It's as if I have become the general, and I know he knows that things are different.

I just don't know: do I discipline him as a 1-1/2 year old, or do I discipline him as a 3-year old? And to be honest, how the hell do I know the difference, since he is my first child? Lately I've been wishing that he was the second child, so that I already had experience in this whole arena. To top it all off, I wonder if he will ever grow and get beyond this level of understanding. I see so many kids who are 3 years old and they seem like these little grown up people. Will Owen ever be that way? Am I fooling myself into thinking he will be more than he is?