Self-Taught

Earlier this week, the mobile therapist was over at our house. She had been absent for most of the month, citing new clients and a confusing, busy schedule. She stated she has been seeing Chica Marie more in school than at our home, which is not helpful for us to be perfectly honest. I’d rather she leave school to the TSS worker and spend her time in our home. She said, because Chica Marie is have her re-evaluation next week, she is going to ask for more TSS hours in the home, believing this would be beneficial for the TSS worker to transfer the things that work into the home setting. I don’t disagree. I explained to her my discovery of Filial therapy with a new therapist. She had never heard of it, so she looked it up on her phone and then scoffed,” Psh, this is what we do already.” Um, no it’s not. Sure *YOU* play with her, but you don’t teach me a thing, you don’t really engage me and half the time I’m not sure if I’m supposed to even be in the room when you are there. So, no you don’t do the same thing. How do I get us what we need when the professionals who are supposed to be helping us aren’t doing what they are supposed to be doing? The current mobile therapist is our third and I haven’t found a single one of them to be terribly helpful. Our first one was super kind and a great advocate for us, but terribly ineffective with Chica Marie. She let Chica Marie walk all over her. Our next mobile therapist was also nice, but she was so scattered and she flung ideas at me but never put them into practice or really gave me any concrete ways of putting them into practice. Our current mobile therapist has been more stern in sticking to her boundaries with Chica Marie and she seems to have some promising techniques but she’s working with Chica Marie exclusively and thus far, not transferring any of her techniques to me. And I think that is the biggest thing we need. It is obvious I need different parenting tools to work with Chica Marie. And while I have read a ton of books on varying subjects and ideas, I can’t seem to put into practice the head knowledge I have gained. I have some bothersome disconnect, a huge stumbling block preventing me from instituting the things I’ve read to do. I feel like I need someone to model it for me, to literally show me how to do xyz when Chica Marie does abc. The mobile therapist does not do that. She tells me how tough Chica Marie is, what is not working, what other ideas she has, but nothing I can turn around and at least try. This week, for the first time, she mentioned over correction as a method to teach Chica Marie to not react in anger and throw things or destroy things. So, basically, if Chica Marie gets mad during her homework and tosses her pencil across the kitchen, I’m supposed to ask her to retrieve it, then place it back where it was and ask her again, and repeat this process so she is discouraged from throwing her pencil. Wow! What an aggravating  endeavor! But, sure I wll try it! I will try anything because I really, honestly and truly want Chica Marie to have the best life possible. I don’t want her behaviors to keep her from having friends or healthy relationships or being allowed to do things, like join teams or community groups. At this point in her life, she cannot do these things. Her behaviors preclude her from being just your average first grader.

 

So, for my own edification, I am listing all the adoption and child behavior books I have read. Not all of them were with Chica Marie in mind, in the beginning I was reading about open adoption to help me deal better with Primero and his biological family. Without further ado, here is my short list of books:

 

• “The Open-hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow up Whole” by Lori Holden
• “Three Little Words” by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
• “Three More Words” by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
• “Beyond Consequences, Logic and Control: A Love-Based Approach to Helping Attachment-Challenged Children with Severe Behaviors” by Heather T. Forbes and Bryan Post
• “Dare to Love” by Heather T. Forbes (I haven’t finished this book because I started it before I realized it should follow the Beyond Consequences book, not precede it.)
• “To The End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care” by Cris Beam
• “You Don’t Look Adopted” by Anne Heffron
• “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk” by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
• “The Whole Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind” by Daniel Seigel    *** I just got this book from Amazon, so I haven’t read it yet, but I am beginning it as soon as I finish the above book (I’m reading the end of it now). I also got the workbook that goes with it.

 

You would think, that having read as much as I have and gone to as many trainings as I have done, I would be some expert by now, but I am not. I still have a lot to learn and maybe that’s how everyone feels, raising children with trauma backgrounds. I don’t know. What I do know is, I won’t stop until all of these skills just spill out of me naturally, until my old habits are extinguished and these new habits are entrenched in my psyche. I will keep working towards being a better parent for Chica Marie and Love Bug and Primero.