Parent issues or child issues?

Two years ago, we learned about Nancy Thomas and her special brand of attachment therapy.  Our daughter, Elle, had been diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) and we didn’t know what to do to help her.  With the help of an attachment therapist, we struggled with changing our parenting style in order to combat Elle’s RAD behaviors. After a year of seeing little progress, we decided to attend one of Nancy’s family therapy camps.  Nestled in the Colorado Rockies, Nancy and her staff started the process of our understanding RAD and how it was affecting our daughter.  We learned parenting skills that would help us to help Elle understand what was going on in her brain, and help her identify her emotions and… [more]

When you live with a child who has attachment issues, you can begin to feel like your children when it comes to changes that they make in their lives. Allow me to give you an example. My son is 15 and has had numerous placements over the past three years due to his explosive and violent behaviors. He has been in juvenile detention four times, shelter care (non-secure detention) seven times, two different treatment foster homes and is on his third residential treatment center, and that's just in the last three years. The center that he’s at now is seeing what they call positive changes in him and they want me to get excited about it. The center he is at is also Christian based… [more]

Yesterday was spent traveling home to Kansas after my endoscopic surgical procedure in Indianapolis. I awoke this morning at 5 AM with a migraine—no surprise there, after general anesthetic, a little extra stress (although I wasn’t really worried about this at all) and a completely out-of-sync sleep schedule. My throat still hurts but it is better. I had dinner with my doctor the day after my surgery (he's a long time friend), and he mentioned he wasn’t sure the big tube would fit down my throat … so that tells you how tight it was. No wonder my throat felt so violated! Dora spent four days with a neighbor. Dora couldn’t afford to miss school, and she’s been singularly unpleasant to be around, so we… [more]

My cousin Trina and her kids left this morning, and I have spent the last four hours putting away Christmas decorations. I just ironed a huge new tablecloth for my dining room table, only to decide it didn’t match the wallpaper, so I put it back in the original wrapper and will return it next week. What an exercise in futility. Trina and I spent much of yesterday sewing and cutting out fleece patterns to make clothing for the girls and me. I told her I would sew today, but haven’t gotten to it yet. She calls me periodically as she is driving home, and inquires if I am sewing yet? One of my New Year’s resolutions is going to be to find time somehow to… [more]

Well, the fur is a’flyin’ over on the community board I anonymously mentioned a couple of days ago. I have been blasted for all manner of things: • Most notably, they are angry that I “cross-posted.” But I didn’t … I did describe a scenario I read about on that board, but I mentioned no names, did not quote the post, and did not name or link the board. Based on their logic, anything anybody reads on that board can never be used in any other settings. It is the Internet … that is not likely. Based on this line of thinking, I can’t apply anything I learned from one family to another family … that would be crossing the line of privacy. Also based on this… [more]

I have a houseful of people this weekend. Stephanie is home for the first time since she traveled with us to meet Dora two months ago. Steph is accompanied by her boyfriend, Sean. Kyle and Marie are home as well. We are celebrating Beth’s 11th birthday a few days early. I have been cooking for several days straight: two batches of Oreo Ice Cream dessert, homemade Chex snack mix (Kyle loves it hot from the oven), homemade trail mix, corn casserole, potato casserole, two large loaves of homemade sourdough bread, angel food cake dessert, Jello salad; ham and egg casserole, French toast and cherry coffeecake for breakfast (plus a pound of bacon) … Tonight we had the famous pork on the grill … a… [more]

I spent nearly ninety minutes in the rocking chair yesterday with Dora, processing where we’ve been these past three weeks, and where we need to go. She did her morning chore well, for the first time in days. (In fact, she did it correctly this morning, too. She’s acquired more practice on animal clean-up duty today as she tackled the round pen where the horse now resides!) We talked about how her passive/aggressive behavior rises up whenever she feels like a “throwaway kid”. We talked about her inherent worth, her many gifts and talents, and her right to be treated as a valuable person. We talked about the parents’ job in the parent/child relationship as well as the child’s responsibilities in the relationship. I told Dora that… [more]

Beth and I didn’t end up going to the Chief’s game last night. She had a mini-meltdown … the stress of the first day of school was a bit much for her. I was not sure keeping her out late last night was a great idea to begin with, and her meltdown only confirmed my fears. So my husband went and Beth and I stayed home. It was good that we did, as we had a fierce thunderstorm and I had several very antsy dogs to handle. I learned through the family grapevine last night that apparently Amy does, indeed, have a safety net in the event she is evicted from her apartment in another month. Apparently Tommy has stepped up and… [more]

Yesterday morning I dropped off the puppy, Gracie, at my vet friend’s clinic … she was spayed. (Boy, it is sure different than 25 years ago!) One would think with as many dogs as I have running around here, I wouldn’t miss just one, especially short term. But going back to Katherine Leslie’s “measure behavior on two different scales—positive and negative”, I have to say Gracie is pretty much a positive, and when she is not here, her absence is noted. So now I am sitting here wondering whether or not to type the next thoughts that came to my mind … which were how acutely aware I was and I am that I don’t miss Amy. I had… [more]

It amazes me how many people assume teenagers have some inherent right to be nasty and disrespectful simply because they are teens. How often have you heard a parent dismiss and ignore disruptive and ugly behavior with the comment, “Teenagers! There’s nothing you can do with them!” I beg to disagree. I don’t think there is any age where it is acceptable and appropriate for one person to treat another person badly, simply because they are “at that age”. Toddlers can learn appropriate ways of responding and controlling their behavior, and so can teens. I have often heard teenagers described as “two year olds with hormones and wheels.” Hormones can definitely complicate the mix, but they are not an… [more]