A mother's heart is so tender towards her children. We can easily be hurt. I have a cupboard with photos, memorabilia, and scrap booking supplies. I am not an avid scrap booker but do try to do a nice one for my kids on birth through 8th grade and then do one with them on their high school years. Anyway I opened a drawer to put in some photos and found a book Taz had made at school. It must have been this last year because I've never seen it and he stuck it in there to save for himself. The front cover had a large photo of him holding up a book. The title of his book was his birth mom's name. He has a big smile and looks very proud. For some reason it pierced my heart. Silly. I know they have a birth mom. They will always be tied to her. She is a part of them. Even though they have a lot of anger toward her, one thing we learned in therapy is that a part of them will always love her too. My point in this story is this: We don't always know why we react the way we do. I will be mulling this over and trying to figure out why that photo hit me the way it did. Our logic and our hearts don't always cooperate. That is the good thing about Beyond Consequences parenting. It causes us to take a look at illogical reactions and figure out what is going on within ourselves. Staying regulated our selves makes us better parents and for me I feel a whole lot better about myself when my mouth stays under control. Lying really sets some moms off. It is not one of my triggers but other behaviors are. I'll let you know when we get there : ) If it is a trigger for you stop and ask yourself if you were lied to as a child. Really hurt by a liar. If so you need to work through those issues, maybe we your therapist so you can parent a child who is a liar. It is a large part of what goes on with our kids.
Ok. Lying itself. I will probably add on to this as the day goes on so if this is a topic you need more information on check back. If you have things to add leave the address and I will add your comments on and give you credit. Here are some things that work for Family Gregg that she left in her comments yesterday. Thanks! Reactive Attachment Disorder
Here is a post I wrote previously on lying that has a couple of links to professional articles on lying. lying and RAD
And I want to end with the Bryan Post information I gained from the videos Bren lent to me. He says to "Ignore the lie and pay attention to the child." Let's face it the child is NOT going to say "Yes. I lied." They are going to become dysregulated and blow up. So instead he says to calmly say to the child "I love you. I am never going to leave you. You are safe." Hug them and walk away. Wait until a time when they are calm and go in and talk about lying in general, not the one specific lie. Such as: "I am really hurt when you do not tell me the truth. It tells me you do not feel safe enough with me to be honest. I want you to feel safe enough to be honest and tell the truth. I feel so bad that you do not" Or something along those lines. Hug them, turn and walk away again. You have not addressed the specific lie but have talked with them about something much bigger and that is lying in the future. Make sure to make loving eye contact. Use gentle touch that your child is comfortable with. Maybe just touch the shoulder. If they will not allow that pat them as you walk away. Try in some way to become attuned to them. If they look in your eyes and feel that attunement they feel understood. It is then they will begin to care. I will say as your child begins to heal the honesty does develop. We have seen this in Taz. He does have melt downs. He does regress but the feeling of safety has really grown and so the need to lie is not so strong. So have hope. There is hope!
PS. I am adding this comment by Simply Moms at Attaching Hearts :
"We always give a consequnce for lying. Before the consequence is given...the child needs to articulate why the consequnce is coming....w/eye contact. We always wait....sometimes a loooooong time for an apology. Everyone affected by the lie needs to hear an apology...w/eye contact. After the aplogies ....we always say, "So is this working for you?...The lying thing?" If we ourselves do not forgive...it is a problem between us and the Lord. We forgive w/eye contact."
And from Ali at Crawford Life & Times
"one thing that has ALWAYS worked well with us? we approach discussions with jack in the car while driving. he's in the back, he doesn't have to make ANY eye contact at all, and really opens up! these guys HATE having to look at you and you can get lots of juicy info at half price! well.. for FREE! try it! "
11 comments:
My little one does not have melt downs. She completely disappears emotionally. She shows NO emotion or feeling whatsoever.
Lying is a HUGE trigger for me as is any deception, such as sneaking around, stealing and any other "dishonest" behavior. I can handle a melt down, or yelling at me, or even hitting me, but the deception is a BIG thing for me personally...that being the key word, I tend to take it personally. I know in my head not to do this, but my heart does not follow along.
We always give a consequnce for lying. Before the consequence is given...the child needs to articulate why the consequnce is coming....w/eye contact.
We always wait....sometimes a loooooong time for an apology. Everyone affected by the lie needs to hear an apology...w/eye contact.
After the aplogies ....we always say, "So is this working for you?...The lying thing?"
If we ourselves do not forgive...it is a problem between us and the Lord. We forgive w/eye contact.
Bren,
I have one who has meltdowns and one who withraws.
Simply moms,
My boys apologize at the drop of a hat. I am trying to teach them the difference between feeling guilty and feeling truly sorry (turning away from the act). Tough to do. It is very important to learn though, I agree.
Yeah...it's that "wordly sorrow" verses "Godly repentance" thing. I've been pondering over the question of whether or not it is possible to repent w/out the help of the Holy Spirit???? I don't know????????? Anyways....the evidence is in the fruit. Has there been a turn? A lasting turning away? Or at least a consistent attempt at it?
Is what we are witnessing repentance or worldly sorrow? Worldly sorrow does....hopefully....allow us at some point to see our need.....which may lead to salvation....which will lead to repentance. Because He who is faithful....will finish the good work He begins.
One of my favorite responses is, "Sorry is not a magic word."
my RAD son does not show ay remorse or apologize EVER. even with kendyl, who he shows real love for. at her birthday party, he witnessed my 8 year old nephew release every single one of her balloons while all the adults were inside at the very end of the party. he did nothing to stop it(and for all i know, participated)and didnt feel bad at all. poor kendyl was crushed when the sitter took her out there to collect all her balloons and they were GONE. i thought he would atleast feel bad for her, but nope. its very hard sometimes! and yes, link or use anything from my blog that you want. you have total license lol
My daughter shows no remorse for something she did. Like Ali said about the balloons...my daughter would have shown sympathy had she not been involved. If she had ANYTHING to do with it she would not show a sign of remorse, sympathy, or anything else. I think it is the empathy thing. It is impossible for them to put themselves in someone elses shoes. They can feel badly for a sibling who fell down and scrapped their knee...unless they pushed that sibling down.
I also wanted to add that, even though I do not believe a consequence for lying will "work" for my daughter, she still receives one. For 2 reasons...the Words tells me too, and also, we have siblings here without RAD and I would not want to "teach" them that their sister can lie and get no form of discipline at all. That is where the BC has been hard for me...I noticed my son doing more behaviors and was surprised when he was consequenced.
Oh....we so got laughter rather than remorse for years and years. No hint of remorse. It was very difficult during that.... no evidence of empathy period. We had out and out laughter in certain situations. Sad situations....where tears should've been shed. That is when I was the most wounded.....resentful....exasperated....frightened...when I was raising a child who had zero empathy...or was uable to express the empathy that was locked deep, deep, in her heart.
I agree....in our family we MUST discipline the one w/RAD even if we are not sure it is working...because first.....the Word of God is clear on this and also.....all the other kids in the home get disciplined so it is necessary for their health and well-being to be consistent and fair.
Sometimes their disciplines do look different though. We have noticed that our girlie withRAD does not usually respond to the disciplines that work with her siblings.
That's when we get creative.
Simply Moms
I would say this is where we have used Love & Logic parenting. If you ride your bike past the allowed line, you lose the bike. If you watch something inappropriate on tv you lose tv. If you refuse to wear a coat then you will be cold all day and mom will not rescue you and bring it. If you hide your homework under the bed, it stays under the bed until you get it out and take it. That sort of thing. I do not rush it to school to save the grade.
So wise.
With ours...the consistency of consequences time after time...the working thorugh the steps...what is expected? what did you choose to do? What will now happen? Is this working for you? ...it seems to have made a difference. We've been at it w/her for 8 years now.
Good words. I think with some, like Taz, it is an "ah ha moment". With others I think it is a slow gradual realization taking years and maturity that is not on the same pace as other children. This requires moms that don't give up. Very hard to do.
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