At the end of this year, I will have been writing this blog for two years. I embarked upon this blog-writing adventure because I love to write, I love to educate, and I love to advocate. When I was a practicing veterinarian, one of the things I most enjoyed was talking to and educating my clients about how to be more informed and better prepared pet owners.


I have invested over a decade of my life into the creation and growth of the Attachment & Trauma Network—another vehicle for supporting, educating and advocating for parents. Although we are an all-volunteer organization, our ranks have expanded considerably … both in terms of those who are part of growing and maintaining the organization as well as those we are serving.


My goal over the next 6-12 months is to extract myself from much of the day-to-day details of ATN, allowing me more time to write, network, and advocate on a national level. Additionally, I'm interested in resuming my life. I am just now realizing how many things I did with my "first batch" of kids that Beth, and now Dora, will never experience if I don't restructure my priorities. However, I will continue to write this blog, for all the same reasons that I invested so much time in my clients when I was a practicing veterinarian. My training and education to become a veterinarian was rigorous, and I did learn a few things along the way. Likewise, my “training” as a therapeutic parent has been rigorous … and I have learned a few things along the way. As a veterinarian, I offered opinions, advice and support … the clients were certainly free to heed or ignore that advice. The same holds true for what I write in this blog. It is my experience, my viewpoint, my advice … and you are free to take it or leave it.


I am most certainly not opposed to healthy dialog and legitimate questioning about what I say or do. Even “normal” parents disagree about how they define “normal parenting” … it goes without saying that folks dealing with our kids are not going to be able to cookie cutter their parenting approach. They are going to have to pick and choose what works for them and their kids. Not only are the kids all different, but the parents are all different, too. Different strokes for different folks ... no one has to do it "my way."


But here’s the deal … I’m tired. I’m tired of fighting an uphill battle for everything I say or do. I’m tired of fighting the school for something as simple as half days for a traumatized child. I’m tired of defending myself and other parents who are truthfully the most child-oriented, child-dedicated, child-friendly people on the planet … all because someone gets their nose out of joint because they can’t or won’t understand some very basic principles of parenting. I realize many of you have the same experience … on a daily basis. It is because we need each other that I continue to write this blog. My fatigue demands that I pick and choose where I wage my battles, and at this point, I want to get the most bang for my buck. I'm not interested in toeing up with provocative individuals ... they are just little fish in a big pond.


I appreciate the terrific comments many of you have made in response to Mater’s questions. I agree with nancyderen that answering legitimate questions with straightforward answers helps educate John Q Public about something they struggle to understand. I am nothing if not honest and straightforward. I am just too tired to respond to questions that appear to me to have more to do with lighting fires or proving therapeutic techniques are “abusive” or “wrong”. Having said that, I will nevertheless explain one more time in the next post why poor little Dora had to wait ten minutes to go to the bathroom, as well as my views on stealing. And then it will be the end of that story ...


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