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My husband and I have a 15 year old son, Sammy, who is in his third residential treatment center (RTC) in as many years. He stabilizes in a center and the center then tries to do a step down to a less restrictive environment and once he’s in that less restrictive environment, his behavior heads downhill quickly.
He’s at the “stable” point now and the center is talking about transitioning him to their version of a treatment foster home, which is quite far from the treatment center and also from our home. For our kids, transitions like this are beyond scary. It upsets their entire world. My son is also smart enough to know that the pattern of his behaviors, and I am sure that he is anticipating what will happen when he leaves this center.
When our kids go through transitions or get ready to leave places where they are happy, even if happy is a relative term, they can sabotage things by ramping up behaviors to get everyone angry. Anger is safe so they transition while everyone is angry and they don’t have to feel those feelings that they hate so much because they can’t control them. Fear and sadness are uncontrollable feelings that they will do everything to avoid.
A few weeks ago I received an angry letter from Sammy. It came out of nowhere and was meant to hurt me. For the past few weeks I have agonized over this letter and have been trying to figure out where it came from and received no answers from Sammy or his counselor. In the past 24 hours I have figured out that it is because of his upcoming move. At the end of his time at each of the three RTCs he has done this. He is nervous about his move and he is lashing out at me.
At some point in the past few years Sammy has acknowledged that he can and does lash out at me because he knows I will take it and still be here for him. This is the way it is with our kids. They hurt the people they feel the safest with, simply because they can. There are two vastly different reasons for this.
1) Getting close to people is scary. Lashing out at people and pushing them away prevents them from getting close and being scared. This is where the attachment disorder portion comes in.
2) They hurt the people who stick with them, because those people stick with them. We say things to our family members or spouses that we wouldn’t say to our friends because we know that they will still love us. We feel safe in venting those emotions there. Our kids are no different.
Yesterday I sent a letter to Sammy and told him that he could be angry with me and there was nothing I could do about it but I am his mom and there is nothing he can do about that. I reiterated that I love him and will always be here for him. I don’t know what, if any, impact this will have on him, but I needed to put it out there.
Knowing all these things doesn’t make it easier when they lash out at us, because our kids are so incredibly skilled at knowing what will hurt us the most. They can push buttons better than just about anyone else in our lives. It’s a matter of how we bounce back.
We are currently having visitations with a nine year old girl to be placed with us in a pre-adoptive home (we requested an older child)
My question is: how do you address a child’s underlying emotion appropriately without getting sucked into the “drama” aspect?