Friday, October 17, 2008

Triggers


"The rockets red glare.

Bombs bursting in air"


Can you hear them from where you are? The explosions are coming from my house! It happens every year this time. The boys were removed from their birth home in the fall. They were moved 3 out of the 4 times in foster homes in the fall. That is the only thing I can figure. So the behaviors escalate. We are going to go back to the beginning stages of things.

strong sitting

snuggle time

Mozart

I will get out the quiet activities. When I say they must do a quiet activity it means they must play with Legos, draw or read, or play a Logic game such as Tangrams, Parquetry, or a one person Logic game such as those put out by ThinkFun. Most of these I found at http://www.target.com/ These must be played sitting near me. There will be a scheduled homework time. During that time they may do homework. If they refuse they may sit quietly. It is going to become a very quiet therapeutic home once again. They are very afraid and need a quiet healing atmosphere. Chris and I are starting to get REALLY frustrated and starting the yelling ineffective junk. That must stop. I am going to put together the quiet time basket again. Really work on putting back together my training I received from attachment therapy and the books I've read and go to it. I need to stop and buy some caramels today! This also means I need to start taking more time for myself. That has slacked off since I started back to school. I took a day off for shopping and ate at an Indian restaurant yesterday. YUM. I have no idea what anything was, but YUM. I hope if things are exploding at your house that you can pull back, evaluate and go back to square one. If you have not read anything about RAD - When Love Is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas is an excellent place to start. Beyond Consequences is also an excellent place to read material on working on yourself and your attitudes in dealing with your children. I haven't forgotten about the rest of the grieving material. We are still working on Step 1 at our house. That is a big step. I hope you are working on it too. In case you forgot it is saying goodbye to birth mom. They can either go from one to two extremes "Oh I don't care about her" to "If I could find her we'd be happy". Both of those thoughts are denial about the fact that they have lost her and are stuck in their grieving. Talk, talk, talk about birth mom if your child is stuck. They have to grieve her lost in order to move on. Have a healing day. If you are not strong enough to have a healing day, take a healing day for yourself, at least an hour.

5 comments:

familygregg said...

I absolutely love indian food.

That's it. I cannot talk about RAD today.

C said...

We just had the good day. Ya' know, that first good one after all the bad ones. Their six month anniversary came, and nothing bad happened. They got to eat out at a yummy place for lunch, and we made a special cake, and no one showed up to take them back, and we were in control and nothing bad happened.

And no one raged all day long.

Of course, once we have an actual court date, we'll do the dance again. But for now ...

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

CatholicGirl said...

I clicked on your blog form Dawn's. The posts I/ve read here have touched me deeply. My own blog is light hearted and funny, but this blog makes one think and pray for those who struggle for the most simplest of blessings in life- the love of a child. You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.

Shannon

Cindy said...

I've followed your blog for a while and want to let you know how great it is. We used to have a child w/RAD in our home. I wish I had had you as a resource then!
Blessings,
Cindy

Lisa said...

We are so there too....It is helping to bring the boundaries in a little.