Making Connections

I am grateful for this blog. While some people hide behind computer screens and spit vitriol into cyber space, it seems the people who read my blog are not those sort of people (and I cannot thank you enough for that!). Instead, they take time to express condolences in hard times or dispense advise, not judgment. For this, I am eternally grateful. One particular individual contacted me regarding change my parenting methods with Chica Marie specifically, but really it’s an overall shift away from a consequence/reward mentality to one of connection. As with any paradigm shift, this has not been easy for me. Cerebrally, it makes sense and it’s something I’d rather employ, but emotionally? It’s hard for me to not want to see cause and effect – you got suspended from school, why should you be allowed to watch TV or do crafts, or really anything enjoyable because this is a big deal and you can’t go on like you did nothing. In other words, you must be punished! As you can see, I have a lot of work to do but, like any major change in our lives, to be lasting I’m trying to move incrementally, yet slowly. This is hard work!

 

Last night, after dinner and running an errand for Primero (it’s a complicated mess with his bestie/guy-he-wishes-he-could-date), I decided I would spend the remaining time with Chica Marie, trying to establish some sort connection with her. I figured we would sit and talk to maybe read a few books since we had about an hour before she needed to go to bed. So, I sat down at the kitchen table and she sat on a chair across from me and we talked about her bad choices at school. We didn’t get too far into our conversation when Chica Marie started crying. I patted her back and told her it was ok to cry. She climbed up onto my lap and wept into my chest. Every now and then she would look up at my face to see if I was crying. It seemed like she wanted me to cry, but I just couldn’t manufacture the tears. Instead, I held her and rocked her and patted her back. After about 20 minutes her brother came over and wanted to steal some attention. I tried to put him off, but he wouldn’t have it and he managed to climb onto my lap as well. We sat like that for a few more minutes before Chica Marie asked if she could go to bed. It was only 20 minutes before her bedtime, so I agreed and used that time to change Love Bug into his pjs. Chica Marie didn’t want me to read her a book, instead she kept asking, begging, pleading, cajoling me to allow her to sleep in my bed, something she has never done. She told me she was scared to sleep in her room because it was too dark. Unfortunately, when we had a nightlight in her room she would 1) play with the nightlight itself and 2) get up and play by the meager illumination from the nightlight. So, I took it away from her. I offered to open the window shades, allowing the ambient light from outside to shine into her room. This seemed to appease her, but I noticed this morning she had been messing with the window shades.

 

Chica Marie has slept in the same bed in the same room since she started coming to our house for respite nearly 3 years ago. There have been minor changes in what has been in the room with her, such as her brother in a crib or the toys that recently relocated from the living room, but her room has always been her room. Still, after all this time, she doesn’t feel safe, either that or she was just trying to manipulate me into giving her something, like a nightlight. And, this is the hardest part for me, in terms of the change in parental style. I feel like if I don’t have tight grip on things, Chica Marie will manipulate me into all sorts of bad behaviors. It took a lot of mental energy to force myself to listen to her and try to come up with sensible alternatives.

 

Lately, because she seemed to wake up in the middle of the night for no reason, I have been giving Chica Marie melatonin pills at night to encourage a good night’s sleep. Last night since she asked to go to bed, I thought she could forego the pills. But, after sitting with her for over 30 minutes (also holding her brother on my lap), just listening to her beg to sleep with me and cry and moan, she asked for the pills. I told her she would not be able to take these pills forever because the more she took them, the less effective they would become. But, because she wasn’t settling down and insisted she could not sleep without the pills, I finally broken down and gave them to her.

 

So, I don’t know if I’m doing this thing right or only making more mistakes, but I do know it is EXHAUSTING. For over 90 minutes I listened to Chica Marie cry and moan, literally moan in a low-pitched whine. She didn’t speak a lot and some things she said made sense, but other things were just weird things she says. I don’t know if we were more connected during this time or if it helped in any way to make her feel like I empathized with her and was listening to her. I tried to keep myself open and just listening, but the moaning and whining! This is not something I can do every night for 90 minutes. Not just because it is time consuming, but also because my nerves will fray into non-existence. I can handle crying, but whining and moaning I cannot. And I don’t know why she wanted to sleep with me when she never has. She kept saying she wanted to try my bed and I would tell her she could lay on my bed tomorrow to “try” it.

 

I don’t know at what point I’ve gone from too strict to too soft because it feels like I’m already there. I have to keep reading and trying to process all of this myself as I try to put it into practice with Chica Marie. I also plan on talking to her new mobile therapist about what I’m trying to do and see if they can help or offer more resources for me. I don’t know at what point I might see any fruits from my labors and certainly some of that will be contributed to the new TSS worker, but I am willing to try anything at this point to get us out of the very deep hole we seem to be in right now.

 

(This is a link to one of the websites recommended to me by a fellow blogger and mother of a strong-willed child)