Parenting 101: Behavior does not Cause Reactions!

I am reading an interesting book about play therapy. Attachment is an ongoing issue around here. These little ones brought some baggage with them and attachment seems to be the only way to unpack and organize it.

I know all three would benefit from formal attachment therapy, but at what cost? I realized that in order to get even one or two of them in regular therapy, it would necessitate giving up T-ball for the boys. With school, there are simply not enough hours in the week; we barely scrape by as it is, timewise, during ball season. So then comes the necessity of deciding which will benefit them more, play therapy or "play ball."

This book, The Parent Survival Guide: From Chaos to Harmony in Ten Weeks or Less, offers me a chance to do both. I am in the stages of assembling my kit and making my plans, so "special playtimes" haven't started yet. The Captain, on the other hand, is undergoing some sort of new metamorphosis that is not sitting well around here. He has become extremely stubborn and has realized I will not physically make him do anything so is experimenting with simply not doing anything at all -- and or having a giant tantrum -- when I get too directive with him.

I, on the other hand, no candidate for parent of the year, am trying to remember to use the reflective technique the author, Theresa Kellam, teaches in the book. Basically, I am to narrate his behavior, without sarcasm, meanness or irony in my tone. "Oh, you are laying on the floor," "You're pretending you can't hear me," etc. Once I've done that, the next step is to narrate his feelings. "You are angry because I said you can't watch TV."  This part is trickier than it sounds because I don't honestly always know what precipitated the behavior. In that case, it has to be simplified to "you are angry, you are afraid," etc.

It is very hard to remember to do this when a child is pushing my buttons. When I can remember, it works very well. It takes some self discipline too; my first impulse is to push back. A mark of adulthood is having the maturity to regulate my behavior. It seems so obvious but it is so easy to blame the child for my reaction. I cannot control my emotional response but I can control my reaction/behavior. To me, the real irony in all of this is that this is exactly what we are asking our child to do and hoping to teach them. Your emotions/feelings are real and valid; nonetheless, you have to control your reaction.

I have said all this as much to remind myself as to enlighten you. So step one is for me to get very good at the technique just described and, step two, is to gather the tools I need for the therapeutic playtime and implement it as soon as reasonable. I am aiming for getting it started during spring break.

This is a good book with sound principals and no "tricky" parenting. I recommend it for anyone in the trenches.

You Can't Hurry Love

A few days ago during nap time my phone rang and Sunshine, reading the caller ID, yelled, "It's The Captain's school."

"Hmmm," I thought, "time for the ARD review already?"

Not quite.  The Captain, it seems, had been falling apart at school.  Can you say, "Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, BING!?"

This child could be a cover model for a story entitled,  "What to Expect of Your (Former) Foster Child."   Poor boy.  I'm sure that his teachers, who at least on one occasion have read my blog, have wondered why we call him "The Captain."  Because up until now, at school he has been an angel.

Here in the trenches, we know he is a perfectly normal boy and a fairly bossy one, at that.  At school, though, he has been wearing that halo.  Then, like clockwork, he began to test their true love for him.  We will never be sure what has caused this sudden rash of testing -- it could be the natural progression of relationships in the life of a fairly broken little boy.  However, we strongly suspect that it is closely related to the now very obvious pregnancy of one of his teachers.  He's been through 3 pregnancies with his birth-mommy;  it's a lot for a little guy to take on.

I've had the opportunity to discuss this with his teachers on a daily basis now for several days.  Yes, I said every day.  God bless his fabulous teachers.  They love him and have great compassion for him which is certainly helpful when a defiant 3-year-old is systematically tossing your library into the middle of the room.   On Monday, though, I felt perplexed.  I thought we'd had a couple of real breakthroughs over the weekend.  I'd taken care that he was as well rested and well fed as he could possibly be.  And yet, another break down.

As I hung up with his teacher, and started making lunch, I pondered possible interventions.  Suddenly, I found myself humming a Motown oldie, "You Can't Hurry Love."

"I need love, love
To ease my mind.
I need to find, find
Someone to call mine . . .
But how many heartaches
Must I stand
Before I find someone
To call mine?  . . .

No, love, love,
don't come easy
But I keep on waiting
Anticipating
For that soft voice
To talk to me at night
For some tender arms
To hold me tight . . .

You can't hurry love.
No, you just have to wait.
She said, love don't come easy,
It's a game of give and take."

Thank you, Diana Ross and the Supremes.  This could be the theme song of his life.  Thank you, Holy Spirit,  for reminding me once more, that although this precious little spitfire has been in our home for a whole year already, he's spent two-thirds of his life being moved from one caregiver to another and having his little heart broken over and over.  He's still un-moored.  So it's not terribly surprising that he's coming a bit unhinged.  You can't hurry love.

Trauma

Because we love The Captain, Tink and The Blitz so much, it's easy for us to forget their past.  They have been here 11 months in actual time, but it seems like they've always been a part of us.  They, however, can not so easily escape the reality of their early lives.

They have different ways of showing their stress.   A couple of weeks ago we were preparing to make a trip to North Texas to celebrate Grandma Clair Simmel's 100th birthday. 

As we were bustling around, packing suitcases, loading the car and shoveling breakfast into everyone, The Captain was stressing.  He kept dictating the movements of his younger siblings and intimidating the dog.  At every turn, he had a tantrum.  I kept pulling him aside to reassure him that all was fine, we were just going to Gram and Grandpa's all together and he would be okay.

  Paul missed most of this excitement as he was off on an errand.  So when he returned home to witness the Captain ordering The Blitz around, then getting sent to sit on the steps, then dissolving into a fit, he said, "What is going on with him?"  I postulated that every time we go somewhere, he thinks we are leaving him there -- that he is getting another new home.  Dear Hubby sat down by the distraught boy and said to him, "Are you worried that we are going to leave you somewhere?"

He nods mournfully.  "No, honey," daddy says.  "We are your forever family.  We are all going to be together forever.  We are leaving together and staying together and then coming home together."

That fixed it temporarily.  He needed to hear it from Daddy.

The Tink handles her stress differently.  She tinkers.  She gets into things, she drops things, she sasses, she refuses to eat or wants to eat all the time.  She was a little sass-pot at the in-laws house.  I mean sassy.  She dropped her milk cup 50 times.  She touched everything she got near.  She walked around with her hands on her hips.  She refused to say "please," or "thank you."  (To her credit, she never once wet her pants!)  She doesn't tend to outright misbehave, she just constantly pushes the boundaries.  This is how stress (or worry) shows up in her.

We got home Sunday night late, well after bedtime.  We popped them quickly and efficiently into bed and they all went straight to sleep.

Monday morning I was bustling around a bit getting The Captain ready for school.  As I threw on my shoes to take him to the bus, Tink grabbed my leg.  You have never seen a sadder face.

"Are you leaving me Mommy?"

"Oh, honey girl, never ever will I leave you!  I'm just putting brother on the bus."

"Okay Mommy."

And then her joyful play resumed.  Simple as that.  No sass, no cup dropping, no touching everything in sight.  Just normal life.

These two will likely not have conscious memories of their other homes.  They were pre-verbal when they got here, so those memories will largely be inaccessible and inexpressible to them.  The trauma of those moves and broken attachments, however, remains in their subconscious.  Sometimes that's heartbreaking . . .  for all of us.