Karen's Journey

I will not get sucked in by my son's trauma-based mental and verbal games. Kids from hard places desperately fear having someone be in charge of them. They lived that before, and that person betrayed their trust, whether through abuse, abandonment, or neglect. One way this comes out is through brain drain. Brain drain is a particularly frustrating form of mental gymnastics designed for the child to come out on top. They will grab whatever loophole in what you are saying they can seize upon as an "Aha! You're wrong!" moment. For instance, if you say, "It's not safe to do handstands on the couch. We do handstands outside," your child may retort, "NOT ON THE PAVEMENT!!!" The natural reaction is to say, "Who said anything about pavement?" Or your child sets traps for you. This is when trying to have conversations with your child can be exceptionally frustrating, because they are not conversations, but lairs they are luring you i...

When the going gets tough, ask myself, "What can I do to connect with my child in this moment?" I know we've been over this one, but things have been really tough lately, and when I'm at the end of my frayed rope, I need to remember this one. When he's asked his hundredth nonsense question or picked his thousandth argument or complained about every.single.thing.all.day.long….I need to remember this one. I've been asking myself, "What can I do to stop feeling like I want to smack sense into this child?" Not hitting him is good -- essential, but connecting with him is better. Yesterday we played cooperative solitaire. (Is that an oxymoron?) When he's regulated, I ask him what scares him about having me be in charge of him. He says he's never scared. Right. He's scared for his life every minute of the day. It's in his cells. It's inescapable. One day he was living happily with his family and the next he was dumped in an o...

I will make it through this day. That's all I can write today.

My ex husband struggles with relationships, and was emotionally and verbally abusive to me, the woman before me, and the woman after me, and no doubt to the woman he is currently with. He believes himself to be smarter than everyone else, and if you disagree with him, you are just stupid. He's not afraid to treat people that way. It's made it impossible for him to hold a job, to retain employees at his not-for-profit organization, and maintain personal relationships. Even his own brother didn't speak to him for years. I once said to him, "If you are saying one thing and every one else you talk to is telling you that the opposite is true, what does that say to you?" Wrong question to ask. It means, I was told with plenty of accompanying screaming, that he is right and everyone else was wrong, and if I can't see that, I'm just stupid. He spent our entire marriage crowing about his IQ and how much smarter that made him than me. He never bothered to fi...

Don't get hung up on trying to meet artificially imposed goals. Like writing a daily affirmation. I'm just going to do the best I can. But writing a daily affirmation is not worth damaging my relationship with my child. I plan to quit at 40 affirmations, even if it takes me two months. Or 90 days. Heck, I just finished getting the ornaments off my Christmas tree yesterday.

"I get knocked down, but I get up again;  you're never gonna keep me down." We all have our bad moments and days -- even the experts who write the books and teach the courses and produce the DVDs on therapeutic parenting. And all we can do when that happens is to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off, apologize to our children, and be grateful for the grace of tomorrow. Today's ear worm. Hey, these ear worms are not such a bad thing. A good way to remember the day's affirmation.

I cannot connect with my child while I'm connecting with an electronic screen. T's screen time is strictly limited. I need to start doing the same for myself. Instead of posting photos to foap while he sits on the couch reading, I could be reading with him. Or at least reading next to him. So enough with Facebook, enough with Angry Birds Star Wars, enough with foap. I was smart enough to decline downloading solitaire -- do you notice it doesn't come preloaded on computers anymore -- deciding that if I really feel like I need to play, I can get out the deck of cards and manually shuffle and move the cards around. I understand how electronics are so addicting for him; I can barely remove myself from them. I'm sneaking this one in while he gets ready for bed. Oops, here he is; asking to go on Study Island. I just suggested we read a book together. Off I go!

If my child will not do an assigned chore, DO NOT FIGHT WITH HIM OVER IT. Doing chores because "we're a family and everyone pitches in to help out the family" is tough for a kid who  does not want to be part of this family . Simply tell him, "That's okay. I will do it. But come sit in the room with me while I do it." I tried this out last night with T, who does not want to have to set the table every night -- or any night -- and the fact that he eats the food is just too logical for him right now. When he's feeling like we're not being fair, or that he's being forced to get his ticket punched as part of our family, his brain drops into lower brain mode, where logic is a lost cause. So I told him to wash his hands anyway, and just come sit in the room with me. Of course my child wanted to know why he had to sit in the room while I did his chore. He needs a reason for everything. "Because I love to see your beautiful face and I don...

I will look for the good things in my life and my relationship with my child. Let's face it. This trauma mama stuff isn't easy. It's hard, it's draining, and it's depressing. Life often seems like a downer more often than not. Fourteen percent of moms parenting children with trauma have considered committing suicide. Sobering statistics. In an attempt to remind myself of the simple things that can bring happiness, I started a Happy Moments jar. When I think of something that happened recently that was a happy thing, I write it on a post it note and put it in the jar. T decided he wanted to join me. That made one of my happy moments notes. Today we read through our notes from January and early February. It was good to be reminded of the not -bogged-down-in-trauma-times. "T helped me with my ski boots." "I skied Cut Throat without falling today." "Mom made a great dinner last night." "T was a good helper today." Smal...

I need to meet my child where he is emotionally.  Throw the chronological age thing out the window. In our online course last week, the instructor told us about letting out kids experience things that typical babies/toddlers/small children would have experienced but that our kids missed out on. She specifically brought up riding in a shopping cart. She assures us that the carts at Target are big enough for teenagers.  T did a small amount of time riding in the grocery cart seat, but growing an inch a month for seven months put a stop to that rather quickly. His feet just didn't fit through the feet holes. He begged to ride in the cart, but I had to tell him he was too big. Sometimes we got lucky and got the cart with a plastic ride-in toy car in the front, which is a bear to maneuver around the store, but he liked pretending to steer. But as often as not, those carts would all be in use, so he had to walk next to us, or push the cart -- usually with less than optim...

What can I do at this moment to improve my connection with my child? What behaviors on this list can you relate to? Wiggly, squiggly at the dinner table Jumps over the arm of the couch to get on the couch Refuses to wear the coat that fits because the coat the doesn't fit and that he didn't like because "it's too puffy" at the beginning of the year is suddenly now his favorite coat Refuses to eat some food that he has always loved, loved, loved because now suddenly he "never like bananas" Endlessly atonally humming three notes or verbally repeating a two-word phrase Doesn't want to do chores Why should he have to set the table? Wants Mom to buy him a toy every time we set foot in a store -- any store Doesn't want to do homework Takes 45 minutes to get ready for school when he could be ready in 15 minutes Doesn't want to take the yucky medicine Sassy, mouthy, doesn't use polite words I could go on all day here. The an...

It's not about T. It's about me. It's not about T. It's about me.

I missed a couple over the weekend. It was crazy and I wasn't feeling well on Sunday. I know what I was thinking those days, so I will get back to them if I can. Today though, the first day of DST. Repetition is good. Repetition helps lock things into the brain. So today we are revisiting: This is Daylight Saving Time Spring Ahead Week. (repeat, repeat, repeat) It's a tough enough week for me. I feel jet lagged. And its corollary: Being on time to work/school/doctor appointments/birthday parties/family get-togethers is not worth damaging my connection with my child. So he was a little behind schedule this morning. It was by less than ten minutes and he was in a good mood. At least three minutes of the delay was due to him asking me to cuddle with him on the bed after I helped him make it. Those were three precious minutes I would do over again in a heartbeat. That I personally wish I could have made go on for longer. Connection time. That he asked for.  ...

I don't know of all my son's triggers, but those I do know about from past experience, I will be mindful of.  This weekend is Spring Ahead. Ugh. When my son is struggling next week, I will keep reminding myself that he is reacting to the schedule change. His internal clock will be out of whack with the the clock we have to live by and he needs time to reset his brain. I've already emailed the teacher to give her a heads up. The past two times there have been changes onto or off of DST, we've had a rough week in school. I forgot to alert her back in the fall. So I'm patting myself on the back for remembering to do so this time. And then there's St. Patrick's Day. Last year while the kids were at lunch, a "leprechaun" came into their classroom and tossed chairs and desks around the room and scattered school supplies all over. T came unglued with that one. It looks to someone who doesn't know him like he's just wound up and overexcited...

Being on time to work/school/doctor appointments/birthday parties/family get togethers is not worth damaging my connection with my child. This was tested this morning by Mr. Sleepy Head Super Slow Mo. Hubs and I both kept our usual nagging in check. We just focused on breathing while T plodded through getting ready for school at his own pace. This means Hubs and I will both be late to work. But I got a hug and an "I love you" and a "See you later alligator," on the little guy's way out the door. Most definitely better to be late for work and connected to our child than on time for work and all of us reeling from feeling emotionally beat up. Tomorrow we will just get him up earlier.

Long time readers will remember that instead of giving up something for Lent, I try to find something positive to do. I wasn't raised Catholic and am not particularly religious, but I think spending 40 days working on making a positive change in yourself or the world is not a bad idea. This year, I am going to focus on daily trauma mama affirmations. That is, each day to repeat to myself throughout the day a wise nugget of parenting advice that can help me on my journey of parenting a child with trauma. Today's affirmation is let it go . "Let it go" means not taking T's behavior or words personally. He got a crappy draw in life and he's justifiably angry about it. So when his anger comes out at me, I need to just let it go. Which doesn't mean ignoring it; it means recognizing and affirming it, but not taking it personally and not letting it push my buttons. Let it go. And you knew this was coming. But it's a good earworm for me today and ever...

I appreciate all the kind comments I received from my last post, and it was heartening to hear that some felt my posts over the years have been helpful. After some time processing my decision to stop blogging altogether, I'm thinking of making this a fork in the road, not a dead end. T has many trauma related issues. This was evident from Day One in the "Big House."  But here's the thing. So do I.  So instead of this being a blog that primarily focuses on T and our efforts to "heal" him or "change" him, this may become more a story about me and my attempts to change me .  I had come to the point of realizing I couldn't change him and that all I could do was change how I react to him. I've now moved past that and recognized I need to fundamentally change me -- not just how I react to T -- but how I act in all situations. How much will I let my past affect me?  The trauma train has tracks right through my family -- ge...