Band-aids and gloves had to cover his hands. He had scraped  his hands at school. This was too much for a highly sensitized 7 year old. Recently returned from a very humid, wet, Darwin.

Flying back to Adelaide’s dry weather. A scrape on the hands. He had somehow decided that he would cover his hands with band-aids. Lots of band-aids. Many packets costing a small fortune. The school spoke to me several times about the use and amount of band-aids. Could he please bring his own supply as they needed to keep a supply for other students as well. The band-aids were wretched after some days.  He would not want me to change them. One day I  found that the sticking plaster was caused a rash on his skin. A skin irritation.

This was not helping at all. In a problem solving effort I thought I had come up with a brainwave. I would substitute the band-aids with gloves. It was a comedy of errors. This seemed like a good idea but  turned out to be another hole to fall into.

He loved wearing the gloves. He wore them non-stop for 3 months. I could not buy just any old glove with a mixed fabric material. The material had to be cotton. It had to breathe.  His hands got sweaty from wearing the poly-fabric gloves and he did not have the will to explain this to me.

I finally got his gloves off of him to find  his skin peeling . I was not going to sit by and let this phobia he had hurt him so I changed gloves. I realized the material used to make the gloves was making his hands sweaty. It was impossible to  find cotton gloves anywhere. In an effort to dry wet gloves we used a blow dryer. (I’m starting to dig another hole unbeknownst to me! O.C.D. routines were rearing up it’s head).  The hair dryer  had a warming effect on the glove also.  It seems that he also thought he had horrible hands possibly because they felt extra sensitive. An extra teacher was called in at the time to help him understand how he was feeling. Constant wear of gloves poses a few problems when it comes to washing the darned things.

I didn’t understand what was happening only that I wanted him to be comfortable. Then it seemed to occur that because it had grown cold during the winter months that the gloves had to be warm when he put them on. They were dried in a certain section of the house before he put them on to go to school. (Another localised routine). This went on for quite some time  or there would be loud protestations from Junior. Well, requests to dry the socks started happening at school! The hair dryer – oh the hair dryer! I just determined I would not put up with it any more and I told him that I was not going to do it any more. He screamed and shouted at me. I feel defeated.  I decided not to assist the set routine.

I did not want him to stop using his hands so we started on the path of challenging him to work his hands and fingers on the piano. Hopefully music will do the trick. Now years later he plays some beautiful pieces on the piano. Thank goodness something has paid off! Piano