Dora’s therapy session on Friday went well. It is a great relief for me to have someone else directing the conversation and probing into feelings, allowing me to just be the mom cuddling the kid in question. Dora was cooperative, reflective, and appropriate.


Early on in the session, the therapist asked Dora if she knew about “the different kinds of parents”. The therapist explained about “birthparents”, “legal parents” and “parenting parents.” This was a good lesson for Dora, because currently three different people or couples represent those three types of parents for Dora. The therapist explained the role of each type of parent and why some children find themselves with different people in different roles.


We explored the “love the one you’re with” concept and the necessity of Dora making a decision to embrace our family. It was a good start to weekly sessions.


Our houseful of company didn’t arrive until late Friday night, so it wasn’t until yesterday that the energy level in the house ratcheted up a notch or two. All of the additional people and excitement is challenging for kids who struggle to hold it together on a “normal” day. Dora was no exception. It is difficult for her to figure out where she fits in the scheme of things, because of her own uncertainty of what she wants and her jealousy of the relationships already in place. Some of her jealousy caused her ever-present anger to rear its head again.


One of the issues Dora struggles with is hygiene. She has several “idiosyncrasies” (putting it nicely) that involve the toilet. Yesterday morning I nailed her on not using any toilet paper at all … a habit reflected in the condition of her underwear. I knew this because the roll needed to be changed, so after I called Dora on it I changed the roll. A few hours later, my husband told me he found an empty roll tossed behind the toilet, and mentioned he asked Dora about it and she told him she had just changed the roll. I said that couldn’t be, as I had just put a fresh double-sized roll out a few hours before. With some difficulty, we were able to pry from Dora the fact that she had flushed an entire roll down the toilet and tossed the empty cardboard behind the stool … because she was angry at being told to use any toilet paper at all.


I suggested there were better ways of offloading her anger and she filled three bags with manure yesterday afternoon.


When I asked her tonight what the highlights of the weekend were for her, one of the things she mentioned was "getting her anger out" by filling manure bags!


Photo Credit Charmin
Photo Credit 2