Jealousy

Yesterday Dancer turned 21.  As you know sibling birthdays are tough for kids with RAD.  While they do not want our affection they most definitely want our attention. Negative or positive attention makes no difference as long as they have it.

Teddy chose yesterday to ask if we could go shopping to spend his Christmas money.  "Not today Teddy".

We went out for lunch as a family to celebrate Dancer's birthday so you can imagine the effort put in there by him. He sat directly across from me and used every glare and dirty look he knows. After an initial "If you want to stay at the table with us you will have to control what you say" we moved on to chattering and talking about other things.  It is so hard for them when they are not the center of attention. Positive attention scares them so they try to control the conversation by getting everyone arguing. It did not work.

On a very happy note Taz had completely healthy interactions in the entire meal! Go Taz.

It is very hard with Teddy. When Taz began to heal we were deep into attachment therapy. He became explosive but we had our therapist to guide us through the mine fields.  Teddy has made some progress in attaching but we are doing it on our own as he went through the year and a half of attachment therapy and held firmly onto his fears.  17 is really almost a "stage of life". With our older kids it was really a time of beginning to separate and take on more repsonsibility and freedom.  Teddy is not ready for a lot of that and resents not getting it. Tough stuff.  Yet we know he may leave home in another year and a half (legal age in Nebraska is 19) and do whatever he want so we try to prepare him. Yet he doesn't want guidance. Tricky. So tricky.  He may have to learn from the school of hard knocks. Some kids are like that.  We still keep on keeping on. I feel we still have the responsibility up to the very end to do our best and keep loving. Some days that is very hard to do. When this 5'10" man child makes fists and declares his hatred, I have to look at the scared little boy inside. Sometimes he is hard to see. The little one is in there, none the less.

Off to get a pedicure....I received a gift certificate for Christmas.  I'll turn off the cell and sit back and relax for an hour. Heavenly.