Less than three weeks until Christmas… And how are all you folks doing with your difficult, non-reciprocal kids during this “joyous” time of year? Although Mother’s Day is probably the hardest, Christmas ranks as the second most difficult holiday to share with emotionally disturbed, angry, traumatized and wounded kids.


Amy arrived as a 21 month old, so she doesn’t remember any holidays before joining our family. As the years passed, she watched Stephanie and Kyle sell potholders, do extra chores, and make things in order to have presents under the tree for other family members. Year after year after year, she did nothing for anyone else on any holiday. Not birthdays, not Christmas, not Mother’s Day. Oh, there were a few exceptions… mostly when one of my parents shamed her into it. The family joke was that we would sit down to eat a birthday dinner and she would jump up just before we said the blessing and ask to run to the computer to print off a card! Truly—I’m not making that up! If we got anything at all, that was it. I still remember the year she went on a field trip right before Mother’s Day and bought herself 5 pounds of fudge with the money my husband had given her.


In spite of her lack of participation, Amy still enjoyed the benefits of receiving… she had birthday parties, received numerous Christmas gifts, and otherwise enjoyed all the perks of the family.


By the time she was into double digits, we were growing quite weary of this routine. (That would make her about Beth’s age right now.) I listened to Nancy Thomas talk about this one day in late summer… and Nancy said at her house, if a child didn’t participate in the giving, they didn’t participate in the getting. Made perfect sense to me… so I went right home and informed Amy that for Christmas that year, she was going to have to put out some effort if she was going to reap the rewards.


Although she had four months of preparation time, she did nothing… of course. I really wasn’t terribly surprised. So she spent the gift-opening time in the basement watching cartoons. She joined us for Christmas dinner and all other festivities. It was very tough on my parents (and Kyle and Stephanie), but we persisted. (Frankly, it wasn't easy on my husband or me either... it was the least objectionable of two crummy choices.)


To be continued...

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