9-year-old keeps getting sick (for Sameer)

Age: 9
Height: 53 inches
Weight: Can't remember, but he's very tall and thin for his age.
Hair: Brown, was blonde when he was younger
Eyes: blue-grey-green

Chief complaint: Constantly gets colds, with cough and respiratory pain.

When did it start: This particular issue started a few weeks ago but he has been getting colds every year since he started school.

What aggravates: I will ask him when I'm able to, and see if he has more insight. It is worse at night.

What makes it better: I told him to try breathing into his stomach and he said it felt a little better. Being pampered seems to help, too.

Time of day when it is worst: In the middle of the night.

Symptoms: cough, fever, runny nose, nausea, tired, oversensitive

Emotional state when pregnant:
It was a deeply traumatic, emotionally painful time. I don't want to talk about it. I will if it's needed.

Drugs during pregnancy: Yes, I was working full-time at a construction job and had to suppress the fatigue that goes with pregnancy so I took caffeine and whatever prescription and over-the-counter stimulants I could get my hands on for the duration of that job, which was in the early part of the pregnancy.

Complications:
No

Started using first words around 1 year, walked at 1 1/2 years, teethed around 6 months, weaned at 2 1/2.

Has had vaccinations. Didn't notice anything unusual after them but I did not like the way the clinic handled it. They were forceful.

He's an only child.
He likes school.

Antibiotics: I don't even know; as I said, the other side of his family takes him to the doctor for every little thing. He took them for the pneumonia, recently.

Skin conditions: No

He's clingy, in general, and even more so when sick or upset

When playing with other children: Can get rambunctious. Wants to make a good impression, acts tougher than he really is. Talks tough. Boasts.

Feedback from teachers: It has all been totally positive. He's the smartest kid in class, he behaves well and pays attention, he makes good grades. But he talks a lot.

How does he treat animals:
He loves animals. There were a few issues when he was younger, when he would take out his frustrations on animals, but I think he has outgrown it.

Food and drinks he craves:
Macaroni and cheese, or any cheese-flavored snack food, or cheese in general. Pizza. Barbecued ribs. Clam chowder. Sweets. Lemonade, chocolate milk, gatorade.
Averse to: Vegetables, especially green ones. He's picky, and only likes a narrow range of foods.
Drinks: Prefers them cold but doesn't refuse them if they're not.

Chilly or warm: I think more warm, like me, but not as much. No excessive perspiration.

Very affectionate. Very sweet and loving.

How sympathetic toward others: He is neither callous toward others nor does he become troubled over other people's problems. Probably in the normal range for his age. He seems to be naturally diplomatic when dealing with people.

Music: He is more into other things than he is into music. He likes the Beatles.

This questionnaire is really long. I will finish it tomorrow. The basics are: When he is just with me he is clingy and wants to be babied, but when he gets around other people he seems very conscious of the impression he makes, and tries to seem strong and sophisticated. He talks constantly, and sometimes argues for the sake of arguing. Very affectionate and loving, but sometimes has a bad temper. Hard to discipline, he talks back to me refuses to do what I say, tries to punish me in return, the best approach is to reason with him without showing any anger or frustration. But it can be hard because sometimes he gets mad and starts breaking stuff or throwing things at me, and if I yell at him it escalates, yet it doesn't seem like the time for calmness. I cannot send him to his room, he won't stay in it.
He likes animals, especially dogs. He's sentimental.

Sleep:
Still won't sleep by himself through the night. I have to lie down with him until he falls asleep, and if he wakes up during the night he calls for me, and I have to repeat the process. He used to cry during the night and say that his ankles hurt, but he hasn't done that in a long time. When that was happening he would want me to massage them, he said it helped. He has nightmares sometimes about aliens, he says. He falls asleep fairly quickly, sleeps on his side, changes sides.

What does he like to do:
He's really into video games, not just playing them but he also knows a lot of trivia about the history of the industry, etc. He says he wants to be a game designer when he grows up. He likes to draw, and design stuff. He talks a lot, and is very eloquent and witty. Interested in science, and also likes mythology and fairy tales. Not particularly outdoors-y; content to stay home and watch tv or play games.

Sensitivity to criticism:
Yes, if he senses that I'm angry at him he gets very upset. And yet he sometimes does intentionally irritating things just to get a reaction, so it seems paradoxical.

Ok, done.

Behavioral problems: The occasional tantrum, as I mentioned. When he is in the middle of one he does not care the results of it, he will even break his own things. I can only punish him by taking away privileges, as I said, I can't send him to his room because he won't stay, but he thinks he gets to punish me back. I tell him what his punishment is, and he says, 'Oh yeah? Then I'll [fill-in-the-blanks].' So I have to keep raising it. But then after everything has calmed down, he graciously accepts whatever punishment he has deliberately brought upon himself. Because he knows what he did.

The tantrums are brought on by not getting his way, or sometimes just from getting tired and cranky. The last major one was because he wanted to play video games on the tv but had to wait for the grown-ups to finish watching a movie. The movie ended up being really long, and he just decided it was too long and blew up.

There are some peculiar behaviors. Can't explain right now. Will try tomorrow.

Maybe smoked meats in general. He likes bacon and pepperoni.

Birthday October 17.

We are nowhere near mountains or ocean; he has been to the ocean once in his life, he was 3, so it's hard to say. But his sicknesses seem to mostly come in winter so it seems like the cold weather aggravates it.

He fears being alone to an unusual degree. He has to always be with someone. Would not entertain himself at all until about the last year or so; I could not put on a movie for him and do my housework or whatever. He would follow me around. It used to annoy me, because I like to have a certain amount of personal space, to have my own thoughts. But if he sensed that I was annoyed he would cling even tighter.

I will have to send some of the family history privately, rather than posting it on a public forum like this. He is a wonderful child who was born into a very horrible, toxic marriage. The divorce was hard for him at first because he is sentimental and wanted us to all be a family and love each other, which was what I wanted too but it could not be, and it was heartbreaking to me that that was his model of what families were like. Before the divorce, the screaming would upset him and he would cling to me for shelter. I wasn't always as good of a mother to him as I should have been, because my nerves were completely worn down from being yelled at for hours every day, so I would snap at him and not really have any attention to give. I'm doing better now and we have a very good relationship but I feel really bad about not really being there for him during the early years.

Also after the divorce I had to get rid of the family dog, and he still cries whenever her name comes up.

He's amazingly intelligent and wise and has the conversational skills of an adult. But he is argumentative, seemingly just for sport. He picks holes in what I'm saying, in what seems like a petty way, even though he knows what I mean. I feel like that trait extends to other parts of his personality, but I don't know what to call it. It sometimes seems like the opposite of how I think children are supposed to be. I think of children as being able to suspend disbelief and go along with things, as having an open mind and a sense of innocent wonder. But he isn't like that. He's critical, argumentative, skeptical, cynical, and sarcastic. Not in a mean-spirited or unlikeable way; it just seems unusual in someone so young.

He plays games with me sometimes that I don't know what provoked them, when I don't think I have done anything that warrants his anger. He likes to play 'Look What You Made Me Do.' He has done this since he was about 4. There are many variations.

One variation is that he will deliberately misinterpret something I say and follow my instructions in an overly-literal way so that he hurts himself and can blame me for it, or some other such mishap.

Now, again, he knows what I meant in these situations, but if he CAN interpret it in a way that causes trouble, he WILL. It is disingenuous. And so is the arguing, sometimes, and that's what bothers me about it. I want to snap him out of it, and force him to just be sincere.

But as I was saying: When he is playing the 'Look What You Made Me Do' game, he will hurt himself or break his own things just so he can blame it on me, and sometimes I don't even know what he's trying to punish me for.

He's also very physically rough with me, and hurts me sometimes. I don't think he means to, but I don't feel like he's trying hard enough not to, either. He pounces on me and kicks me in the head and grabs me around the neck from behind and jumps up and hangs from it and chokes me. I tell him every day not to do these things but it never sinks in. When he was younger he would run up to me and crash into me.

He seems restless. He's always moving. But he never wants to go out and get exercise.

Doesn't like to bathe, seems indifferent to his state of cleanliness. I ask him, 'wouldn't you feel better if your hands [or whatever] were clean?' And he says no. I have to drag him and actually wash them myself.

He seems ambitious. He's always talking about businesses he wants to start when he grows up, all these big things he wants to do. Whatever project we're working on, he wants to make it big right away. I try to get him to slow down and do the thing just for the joy of doing it, but he's already thinking we're going to break into the business (of whatever creative project we're working on at the moment) and become rich and famous.

Fear of and fascination for volcanoes since early childhood. I've actually had to reassure him that we're in no danger from them where we live.

Ok, good, I think I already have that. Thanks.

Can you give me some indication of what to look for or what questions to ask? He has not been really sick again in the few weeks since taking it, but he has a sore throat and a runny nose.

Behavior has been about the same but not bad. No major tantrums. Still avoids washing whenever possible, and starts nonsensical arguments based on semantics.

The most worrying thing is that when we are walking, he runs ahead and crosses the street without looking first, or so it seems to me. When I tell him don't ever do that, he dismisses it like he knows better than me.

Or he'll turn it into a joke: He was getting ahead of me and I said, 'Wait for the light,' and after I caught up and crossed the street he just stood there, saying he was waiting for the light. At that point we were right in front of our building, and I knew he wouldn't stay out alone, so I just went on in.

He has been fearful lately, at night. He follows me around and physically clings to me like he did when he was younger. I asked him what he was afraid of and he said he didn't know. I asked him to describe the fear, and he said it was like something scary was going to happen.