I was thinking about Peggy Sue's comment yesterday about not having any decorations up and her kids still reacting to Christmas. Where does all the fear come from? Here are my guesses.
1. Old memories of Christmas' past, some bad, are stirred up.
2. The kids at school are wired. I think my kids feed off of that energy and just go one step further. If you picture a room full of hyper kids ours are the ones whose heads are popping up above the crowd as they leap on chairs and jump on other kids backs.
3. Warm fuzzies. Do you feel the warm fuzzies at times during Christmas? I do. When we turn on the lights to our tree. When I hear the Christmas carols. I just want to hug my whole family. Imagine those thoughts in a child afraid of love.
4.Changes in diet and schedule. The constant treats every where I go are TROUBLE for me and my diet. No problem for my boys. They shovel them in as fast as they can!! The programs have started and the parties will be soon. This means later nights. High school swim team has started too which means driving to other towns for swim meets.
What to do?
I try to keep our schedule and diet as close to sameness as I can. I try to keep things at home as much the usual as possible. BUT...it happens anyway. The hyperactivity, problems in school, escalation in anger all happen anyway.
So we just try to get through it. Remember the quiet voice, calming touch and loving words. I do believe in consequences but if we are not careful our kids have no privileges and live like prisoners. That isn't right either. I do think extra exercise and extra work duty help quite a bit. Keep their hands busy!
Remember to take care of yourself. Take time away to enjoy this season and have yourself a Merry little Christmas. You really still can.
7 comments:
Mine are still reacting to the family togetherness from Thanksgiving. The Holidays are all one big traumaversary for us.
Mary in TX
Oh I agree, they are feeding off of what they hear in school and what is on television. And like Mary, we had three birthdays in November and Thanksgiving, so we are still winding 'down' from that. Problems at school, yes. Keeping things balanced between treats and consequences . . . difficult, but we're managing so far. I have requested the Awanas teachers not give her a piece of candy for every verse she recites and to start giving out stickers instead. Last week she got three suckers and a small candy bar . . . waaaayyyy too much sugar.
Hey if you don't mind I would like to toss out a question for a possible future post. DH and I have noticed that DD will not take a gift from me. Another woman I know who had tried to adopt a girl who had been severely mistreated (for a gross understatement) said this was true for her girl as well. She would literally ignore the gifts she bought her for Christmas yet go into raptures over anything anyone else bought her.
I bought my daughter a coordinated outfit of a cream sweater and leggings for her birthday and she hasn't touched it, yet she has worn the outfit her grandmother bought her three times already within two weeks. And the other day she got in trouble at school but I decided to buy her a little box of her favorite animal crackers when we went in the car to do errands, and she didn't want the cookies, even though I knew she was hungry. Has anyone else noticed this and what do you do to counteract this, or to help it out?
Oh and I know it is because she is reacting to me as the mom and the gifts symbolize love, so she doesn't want them from me because the mom-love is scary, I do understand that, but am puzzled as to how to break through this resistance . . .
I have seen that. In fact the incident at the swim meet when I bought Teddy a sandwhich, chips and a drink. He would not eat the chips or the drink even though he likes both of the type I bought. He showed up with the bottle of pop later and said to "Give this to dad". You never drink a drink a child with RAD has offered when they are angry. There is sure to be a foreign substance in it. Just remember it is a symptom of the lack of attachment and look forward to watching it go away as she attaches to you. Taz is now very appreciative of gifts.
PeggySue - we do AWANA too and have the same problem with sugar rewards. I used to ask them nicely to not give her sugar and they just thought I was "one of those moms." Now I say "It's sorta like she's diabetic, her body just does not tolerate sugar well." Not a lie - her body does not tolerate sugar, but when I word it that way, they listen to me. Now they give her a balloon animal which she thinks is WAY better than candy anyway. This solution has worked well for us at least.
"You never drink a drink a child with RAD has offered when they are angry." OK - that made me laugh out loud. So true!!
This season becomes difficult for us mainly due to #4 - schedule, routine, schedule, routine, schedule, routine! Without it, we are horribly amiss! Of course, 5 nights this week we have choir and drama rehearsal from 7pm-9pm. Yup, seriously!!! We're so tired from running way beyond exhaustion that it makes it difficult to enjoy the season.
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