This post is also available at my new website Trauma Mama Drama. If you enjoy reading my blog, remember to update your feeds, emails and bookmarks with the new link, because eventually I will only post updates on the new site's blog.
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I'm dreaming of a trauma-free Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where no meltdowns happened, and children listened
To us when we had to tell them, "No"
I'm dreaming of a trauma-free Christmas
With every outburst and each fight
Can't our days be merry and bright?
And why can't our children just act right?
I'm dreaming of a trauma-free Christmas
All that I want is Christmas cheer
Not these hateful faces, nor these exhausting paces
But it is not to be I fear
I'm dreaming of a trauma-free Christmas
With every single fit they throw
I'm just so tired of telling them, "No"
Man, I wish I had somewhere else where I could go
(There is a smidgen of "adult language" in this blog... Just a heads up!)
Today I tell you, dear readers, a little story I've dubbed "The Candy Cane Lesson." This is not a recap of the cute but questionable "origin of the candy cane" story that I got to hear for the very first time last year (Husband was shocked that I'd never heard that story, btw... We were raised so differently!).
No. This is a story of Reactive Attachment Disorder's associated behaviors, and how those behaviors differ from kids who do not have such a disorder. Come, children, gather 'round while I regale you with a rousing tale of deceit, conflict, and love...
Last week was the last week of school before Christmas, which means it was a week full of trauma behaviors. Last Wednesday, Middle hopped in the car after school, and within a few seconds she popped something in her mouth.
"What you put in your mouth?!" Little demanded.
Middle didn't answer.
"WHAT IN YOUR MOUTH?!"
"A candy cane."
Husband, who thankfully does the picking up of the children, asked her to spit out the candy cane because we have a rule that they can't just eat in the car willy-nilly (this is because of Oldest's tendency to choke when she eats... I insist on being aware when children have food in their mouths in our vehicle!). He was telling this story to me while the kids changed and I went through backpacks. I found another candy cane in Middle's backpack and put it away.
When Middle emerged from her room, she started digging through her backpack. "WHERE MY CANDY CANE IS?!" she demanded (and this was my first clue that something fishy was going on... Her grammar gets ridiculous when she is triggered).
"I put it up." Middle went to grab it. "NO," I said. "You need to wait until snack time. Right now it's time to do homework if you are up for it."
We started her homework, and she was making little mistakes... LOTS of little mistakes... Mistakes on things she "mastered" a year ago. Mistakes on things like writing the letter "e." She was "playing the game"... she was screwing up on things she knows, and repeating those mistakes even after I intervened. When Middle plays this game, that means something is triggering her.
"Hmmm..." I said. "Looks like something is bothering you. Maybe homework is not such a good idea today. What's going on?"
"I just want my candy cane."
"You'll have to wait."
"But can't I have it now????"
My RAD-parent brain kicked in right about here. I'll bet she stole those damn candy canes.
Now, I knew I could not say that out loud to just anyone, because I knew how crazy it sounded. If your kids never experienced early-childhood trauma and don't have "RAD behavior," or if they DID experience trauma but you somehow avoided the insanity-inducing behavior that can stem from such trauma, I know I often look like a paranoid, over-involved, overly suspicious mother who should probably be evaluated by DSS. And I am thankful that most people don't understand me, because that means that most kids do not carry the deep scars of early-childhood trauma with them for years or decades or forever after they are removed from the traumatic environment.
But, if you are raising a child with trauma issues, you get it.
You get it.
And I'm sorry.
But anyway. There we were, Middle pleading for her candy cane, me getting more and more suspicious of these candy canes.
"Gee... Where did you get that candy cane anyway?"
No response. I asked again. "My friend gave it to me."
"Who?"
"My friend."
"Which friend?"
"I don't know."
"Did you get them in class?"
"Yes!"
Dad jumped in here with, "I thought you got them from the library?"
"No..." Middle said.
"I'll just message your teacher to find out about the candy canes."
Middle went back to her room, with the instructions to lay down and read. I messaged the teacher, the teacher told me she had no idea where the candy canes came from but that she would check with the librarian (who told the teacher she had not given out candy canes to any students).
I checked on Middle, and she was NOT doing what I asked. "So, what's going on in here?" I asked.
"I JUST WANT MY CANDY CANE!!!"
"Your teacher says she doesn't know where those candy canes came from. And, since they seem to be causing you a problem, I think we will have to wait on that candy cane until we get to the bottom of that."
Now, right here I want you to think back to when you were younger and tried to take something you shouldn't have. Didn't you try to keep your procuring of the forbidden item on the "down low"? Did you keep it somewhere your parent wouldn't stumble across it? Or use/dispose of said item before your parents could even lay their eyes on it? THAT is what typical limits testing or even just plain childhood greed looks like... Take the stuff and enjoy it before I get caught. But with my kids, it seems to be different. They take things... And then make sure I notice they have taken something they weren't supposed to take. I've actually told Middle that she couldn't take a certain toy to school, and then on the way she started playing with it and holding it up in the rear view mirror, or dropped it and then said, "Hey, Mom, I dropped that thing you just said I couldn't bring with us. Can you get it off the floor for me?"
Anyway, after a couple hours of asking for the candy cane every time she opened her mouth, she eventually told us that a friend of hers took the candy canes for her when she asked him to. Even if that is not entirely accurate, she wasn't supposed to have the candy canes, and she knew it, so she got them through illicit means.
Of course, I knew this within minutes of her arrival home, and I told her as much.
"How did you know?"
"Because you are a good person. And when good people do things that are wrong, they feel guilty. And if you are feeling guilty, your behavior tells everyone that something is bothering you. I'm upset with taking the candy cane, I'm angry that you lied, and I'm sad that you've spent two hours throwing a fit about this candy cane when we could have been having fun."
Silence.
"So, I think we need to throw away this candy cane because it's making you feel so badly. What do you think?"
Now, what would you expect here? I know I certainly expected another meltdown. Even well-adjusted kids with no trauma history will have a meltdown if their parent throws away candy, right?!
And therein lies the danger of expectations.
"Yeah, that's a good idea," she said.
Then we hugged it out and moved on with the day.
And so goes another day full of trauma drama.
And man. I'm so tired of it.
But, hopefully, she will remember... That I know she is a good person.
She's not fooling me with her obnoxious behavior. And, I hope I never fall for her trick. Because she needs me to see through all the bullshit she throws at anything and anyone in her path, to see past the lying and arguing (OH GOD THE ARGUING) and destructive behavior and strange things she does, to dig through the rubble and find the little girl who just wants to be loved but doesn't know how to accept it.
Some of you may be familiar with the Attachment and Trauma Network (ATN). For those of you who are not, they are a wonderful resource for people who work with and/or parent kids with trauma issues. Julie Beem, the head of the organization, is in the running for Eagle Rare's "Life Honor" Award, which would reward ATN with $50,000 should she win.
If you or a loved one works with, parents, or has been diagnosed with an attachment-related mental health problem (Reactive Attachment Disorder, Complex PTSD, etc.), or if you just want to help those affected by early-childhood trauma, please click here to read her story and vote for her if you feel her cause is worthy! She needs to remain in the top 30 through January to be considered for the next round. You can vote once, twice, or daily, and it takes less than a minute to cast your vote.
This post is also available at my new website Trauma Mama Drama. If you enjoy reading my blog, remember to update your feeds, emails and bookmarks with the new link, because eventually I will only post updates on the new site's blog.
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Dear friends, family, and well-wishers from our community,
I know, I know. You want to shower my kids with gifts every chance you get, and the holidays provide the perfect chance to spoil the heck out of them.
I know you want to send them mountains of presents, but I have to ask that you limit yourself to one or twogifts for each child.
And I ask you this, because I made the same mistake with two of my kids after we were granted custody of them.
My youngest and middle children are my step-children, and my husband and I got custody of them in 2013. Before they came to live with us, they experienced several traumatic events and some neglectful conditions. They were diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) shortly after they came to live with us.
The early-childhood trauma my youngest kids endured actually changed the way their brains develop, and as such they respond to things very differently than most children. So, the first Christmas we had with them, their dad and I went way overboard with the gifts and Christmas cheer. We gave them dozens of presents, trying to make up for all the less-than-awesome Christmases they experienced when they were younger. But, instead of being excited about all the gifts, my step-kids seemed to get exhausted by them; they seemed to get more and more upset with every wrapper they discarded. By the end of the day, my middle kiddo was trying to give her gifts away. She even went so far as to wrap some up on a blanket and try to return them to me.
When I explained they were hers and asked if she liked them, she told me she loved them, but did not want them. "Why not?" I asked, confused.
"I don't know. I just don't want them."
And those gifts sat in a corner of her room, wrapped in a blanket, for over a week.
The same kind of thing happens with our youngest, only often he becomes aggressive and destructive during and immediately after his birthday parties or holiday parties. He has completely shattered some of his "most favorite!" gifts beyond repair... Within an hour of receiving them! And not in the "typical" way of playing too hard and too rough with a toy, but rather by smashing them into the wall, stomping on them, or throwing them at his sisters as hard as he can. This is the kind of behavior you expect from a one-or-two-year-old boy, not a boy nearing six years of age.
I didn't understand this at the time, but now that they've been diagnosed and I've learned a lot about how a brain affected by RAD works, I know that my step-kids never learned to differentiate between the emotions of fear and excitement, which most of us learn to do early-on in our lives. And the best way to ensure our holiday celebrations don't devolve into a massive puddle of tears, bloody noses, trying to sneak new toys into the trash or trying to give them away at school is to limit the amount of "holiday cheer" we expose them to.
We put our decorations out very slowly, one or two per day, beginning December 1, and we wait to put up our tree. We definitely don't put the presents under the tree. We try to skip commercials with holiday messages, and we don't go out shopping with the kids. We don't discuss the naughty and nice list and we certainly don't go see Santa at the mall. Because these things, while fun and stimulating for typically developing kids, only serve to amplify our kids' anxiety levels and send them spiraling down into a cycle of negative behaviors associated with RAD. And there are probably fewer things worse I can picture for our family than a Christmas season dominated by RAD behaviors.
So, friends and family, as much as I love the idea of showering the kids with gifts (and I really, really do!), I have to ask you to restrain yourselves and send only or two gifts, if you choose to send anything at all.
The best thing you can give to our family this year is your love and kind words, and, of course, respect for our parenting choices
This post is also available at my new website Trauma Mama Drama. If you enjoy reading my blog, remember to update your feeds, emails and bookmarks with the new link, because eventually I will only post updates on the new site's blog.
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I know I sound absolutely paranoid and borderline insane when I talk about my kids sometimes. I mean, before I learned about Reactive Attachment Disorder, I know I'd have questioned someone's sanity if they'd told me how their extremely young child could manipulate almost anyone and could orchestrate chaos out of thin air.
But kids with traumatic histories can do these things! And they do them so well that it is almost awe-inspiring... but it's not, because it's so damn frustrating when you are trying to parent them!
Middle and Little can read people, situations, and surroundings at a level I don't think I have reached yet after thirty-two years of living on this earth. And if Husband and I could just nudge their manipulation skills toward good instead of "not good," our children will grow up to be incredibly successful adults.
Yet, even though I recognize the potential of this skill, it is not a skill I particularly like...
Okay, I hate it. I hate dealing with it. I hate dealing with it all the time, every day, all day, constantly. It's infuriating.
I'll give you an example so that you can see what I mean, and why it's so frustrating. Keep in mind that similar situations to this arise multiple times a week.
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Middle came home Tuesday and started in on her after-school routine. A few minutes later, she called me back to her room.I found her standing next to her bookshelves, her hand on her hip, her shoulders raised. "WHERE ARE MY SLIPPERS?!" she asked in the most accusatory tone her 7-year-old body could muster.
I took a deep breath and answered, "We donated them, remember? They were too small."
"I DO NOT REMEMBER THAT."
"Well, I do. We went through your room and donated things that were too small, and threw away the broken stuff."
"I remember THAT, but YOU said I could KEEP my SLIPPERS!!"
"Huh. Well, if I didn't donate them, they must be somewhere around here."
"BUT WHERE?!"
Another deep breath. "I don't know. Is it my job to keep track of your things?" I asked as I walked out of her room to escape her withering, angry stare.
Things did not go well that afternoon. I had to constantly separate Middle from Little, and I couldn't do anything with her because she was angry. She even got angry with me when I let her have computer time because I wouldn't put her on the website she wanted to get on to and instead put her on an educational site. And when I told her computer time was over and to get her things for her bath, she really started "poking" at me (she was picking out "daytime" clothes instead of PJs, she forgot to bring in new underwear, she "got lost" in her closet, she broke a hanger, etc.). When she got into the bath, I asked her if she wanted me to wash her hair. "NO."
"Oh... What's the problem? Is there anything you need to talk about?"
"I JUST MISS MY SLIPPERS SO MUCH AND YOU THREW THEM AWAY!!!" she wailed.
I told her that we'd decided to donate them, together, and I was sorry she didn't remember that. I told her that missing her slippers is no excuse to treat me like crap.
But she wasn't going to take that answer as justification for her slippers' disappearance. She assaulted me with a verbal tirade and I left the bathroom before it got too serious. "If you change your mind about me washing your hair, let me know," I said over my shoulder.
Things only went downhill from there... Middle and Little started engaging in some unsafe behavior. Neither of them has been sleeping well this week, and they both had monstrously dark, large circles underneath their eyes. We chalked up the crappy behavior to being tired and we decided to make them dinner and send them to bed about an hour early.
Middle was clearly unhappy with this decision, and she refused to eat. I left the room, again, because I could feel my face starting to get hot. I was on the verge of yelling at her, and that wouldn't help anyone. I went back in her room and my eyes landed on a box, sitting out on her bed. I'll bet she hid those stupid slippers in this box, I thought.
DING DING DING DING!
After finding the slippers, I remembered that when we went through her room, she'd told me she wasn't ready to give up her slippers yet. I told her I wouldn't donate them, then, but encouraged her to get rid of them when she was ready so she could get new slippers that fit better.
I stomped out into the living room where she and Little were eating, slippers clenched in my fists. "HERE ARE YOUR SLIPPERS!"
She looked up at me and made "the face"... You know, the one that she makes when she realizes her jig is up. "Oh."
"You know where I found these?!"
"In the box?"
"YES IN THE BOX! Why you would hide the slippers in the box and accuse me of throwing them away?!"
::Middle's "face" intensified::
"Did you just NEED a reason to be mad at me?! So you made one up out of thin air?!"
::"Face" intensified to max strength::
"WELL YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM TONIGHT!" I said yelled, and put them in the "toy time out box" we keep in the living room. "You really hurt my feelings and I'm angry."
The slippers joined Oldest's camera and Little's shirt in the time-out box. At least they weren't lonely.
I stormed out to our porch for an oh-so-calming cigarette, and by the time I got back inside, she was in bed, her food uneaten. But she didn't fall asleep until 2:30 in the morning.
............
At which point Little woke up, and I pulled out every strand of hair from my head and screamed into pillows until morning broke.
I'd seen the tail end (heh) of this gif many times... Had never seen the lead up to the ultimate feat of feline prowess, nor had I seen it paired with music until this weekend. Worth the brief watch.
Husband and I are having our wedding ceremony in less than two weeks.
LESS THAN TWO WEEKS, YOU GUYS!
We were legally married earlier this year, but couldn't have the ceremony at that time. Now the big day is just around the corner!
Anyone who has a blended family knows that this is a challenging experience even under the best of circumstances. Now take the "normal difficulties" and "normal emotional conflicts" kids with divorced parents have when one of those parents remarries... And multiply them by A HUNDRED BILLION BAZILLION... And you may have an accurate idea of how bonkers things are getting around here, especially with Middle.
When you add in a phone call from bio mom to all the wedding excitement, you get a dysregulated Little and a nearly apoplectic Middle. This was the first phone call in a month. Middle asked to call her mom, and it just so happened that it was her mom's birthday (we knew this because bio mom sent about 20 texts the day before demanding access to them via telephone because it was HER birthday and "all she wanted" was to talk to HER kids... Middle probably didn't know this unless her hypervigilant observation skills are WAY more advanced than Husband and I realized).
And of course after Middle learned it was her mom's birthday she made a card... But we can't send said card because bio mom has moved yet again and we don't have the address... And making that card was so sweet, but probably reminded her that she got nothing from bio mom for her birthday last month... Which probably reminded her that she hasn't really gotten much at all since we got custody of her and Little...
And so on.
There's a lot of excitement going on. And when there is a lot of excitement, kids with traumatic backgrounds often interpret that excitement as a threat. Which means Middle is absolutely losing her mind.
Saturday night, she hit Little in the testicles. Sunday morning, she briefly trapped my cat and terrorized him while no one was looking, called attention to the fact that she terrorized the cat because no one noticed she had just engaged in domestic animal terrorist tactics, and then triangulated Husband and I against each other for a very brief moment (he was convinced she hadn't done anything to the cat, I was convinced she had), and then when things calmed down she copped up to being mean to the cat... I couldn't tell if she was just trying to rile everything up again or not, but by the time she admitted to what she'd done, I was calm enough to ensure things stayed placid around here, thankfully.
She's also had some bathroom issues, been staring at me with "THE FACE" on almost nonstop, refusing to sleep, and doing weird things with her clothes again (she hid her uniform this morning, she is putting dirty underwear into her clean underwear drawer and clean clothes into the dirty clothes basket, there's a new hole in one of her pairs of pants and one of her blankets, etc).
This morning, the hidden uniform fiasco resulted in some very impressive orchestrated chaos... But I take the blame on that one. I completely overreacted when she said she couldn't find her uniform. But it wasn't even 6 a.m. yet, damn it, and I'm tired.
And don't think for one minute that Oldest is just sailing along smoothly throughout this crazy time. Oh nononono. Her behavior regressed quite a bit this weekend as well, and we had to separate her and Little on many occasions because she was being WAY too handsy with him. She also progressed in age, apparently, because she was TOTALLY acting like a teenager when I asked her to do things or tried to talk to her. That, or she lost her hearing suddenly because she pretty much ignored everything I said to her unless I was talking about food.
SO! I may not be around too much until the wedding confetti settles. I missed "Silly Sunday" yesterday, and don't really have too much time to write. I am working on a lil' piece called "Airing Dirty Laundry" that goes over the importance of sharing our experiences with others, but by "working on," I really mean "I've come up with an idea and I haven't written a frigging thing, but I have every intention on doing so."
I'm also working on a blog that I hope explains why normal consequences and rewards don't work so well with kids who've experienced trauma... There are actually words written down for that one, so that will probably come before the "laundry" post.
Anywho... since publishing with The Mighty my readership has increased exponentially, and people I don't know pop in here now and again, I figured I should offer a brief heads up that I probably won't get much accomplished with writing until after this whole wedding shindig wraps up. I'll try to get some stuff written and posted, but no promises on seeing anything from me until the middle of October.
This post is also available at my new website Trauma Mama Drama. If you enjoy reading my blog, remember to update your feeds, emails and bookmarks with the new link, because eventually I will only post updates on the new site's blog.
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I learned the importance of self-care the same day my wedding dress came in the mail.
Husband and I engaging in self-care together!
Things started to go wrong, however, the moment I opened the box... and they only got worse as the night wore on.
I ran into some disappointment when I realized I couldn't try the dress on because I couldn't zip it up on my own, and no one who lives here could help me... Oldest's fine motor skills are lagging due to her non-specified genetic disorder, and I didn't want her to snag the fabric. I was too nervous to ask Middle and Little for help because they are only five and seven, and I didn't know if helping me with such an exciting and intimate task would trigger their early-childhood-trauma issues. And asking Husband for help was out of the question, because tradition and bad luck and all that jazz.
I pushed my slightly-sad feelings aside when my kids came home from school. Why do I feel like I have to try the dress on immediately anyway? I asked myself. Quit being so whiny, Self!
Unfortunately, Middle and Little were having a "bad day," which meant an evening full of arguing, screaming, crying, and general weirdness, and it all came to a head at dinnertime when both of my step-children refused their dinner. They suffer from encopresis (holding their bowel movements). I have lots of experience with this because Oldest also has problems with her bowels. Oldest's problems stem from a lack of muscle movement in her bowels and can't be helped. Middle and Little's problems likely relate to traumatic toilet-training experiences during their early childhood, before we got custody of them. We don't know everything that happened, but we do know that when they were two and three years old, Middle and Little were expected to change their own diapers and were given consequences for having accidents.
So, when they only took a few nibbles before pushing their plates away dramatically, I looked at their stomachs. They were quite distended.
"So... When was the last time you guys pooped?"
Cue three hours of hysteria on and off the toilet, capped by taking Little to the hospital when he started screaming and shaking (We were worried he had impacted bowels, but he was fine. The next day we kept both of them home from their summer behavior program and emptied them out, courtesy of Fleet, and we started keeping better track of when they did (and didn't) go to the bathroom after this).
Anyway... While Husband and Little were at the hospital, I got on Skype with my mom to show off my dress. My mom oohed and ahhhed and did all the mom things that moms do when their daughter prepares to walk down the aisle, and then we switched gears to talk about the trip Husband, the kids and I had been planning. We'd been working on an 18-hour drive to visit her my mom in Kansas so she could see everyone and meet Middle and Little, and then to Arkansas to visit Husband's grandpa, mom and brother. My mom asked to talk to Husband, and I broke down telling her about the poop drama we'd gone through that evening.
In tears, I whimpered, "I just wish they would let us take care of them!" In front of my mom, you guys!
I try to keep a happy face in front of others, especially those who worry about me when hard times befall me, and especially especially in front of my mom. She's too far away to help out like I know she wants to, and I try not to weigh her down with our family issues, which can be incredibly intense at times. But I couldn't keep it together that night. The jig was up.
"You and Husband are doing a good job taking care of the kids," my mom said. "But what are you doing to take care of yourself?"
Man, I hated that question, and my mom wasn't the first person to ask me about self-care that month. I'd been asked that dozens of times... Friends had asked me, our family therapist had asked me, the case worker at Little's behavior program had asked me, and now my mom was asking me this very simple question. And I gave my standard answer.
"Nothing. How can I take care of myself when there's so much to do for everyone else?!"
"Maybe instead of everyone coming, you and Oldest should come by yourselves."
This, of course, just made me cry harder. Why can't we just have a normal family vacation like normal people?! I wanted to scream. Instead, I let loose a muffled, "Mnghuaghlstguh."
Somehow, that did nothing to soothe my mom's worried face. "I really, really think you need a break," she said. "So, think about it. I can meet Little and Middle when I come in for your wedding ceremony."
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I didn't plan on taking her advice, but a few days later, Little decided to slap me across the face hard enough to knock my new glasses off. He then snapped the earpiece in half. Later that week, he started throwing a fit in the car and when Husband pulled over to calm Little, he punched Husband in the face. His violent behavior kept increasing, and it got to where I couldn't even look at Little without getting angry. I was so mad and so frustrated with his actions and his lack of remorse for those actions that I was overreacting to every little thing he did. I was not in a healthy place, and the case worker at Little's program gave me a week off from attending the program with Little and Husband. "You must take a break," she said.
"But how can I take a break? I can't take care of myself when everyone else needs me to take care of them!"
"I hear you, but... How can you take care of anyone else when you're kind of a mess?"
(I'm sure she said it more professionally and more eloquently than that, but that's what I took away from our conversation!)
I decided to take my mom's advice. Oldest and I were gone for twelve days. Part of me was despondent that only 2/5 of our family went on our "family vacation," but part of me was so relieved at getting some time away from the traumatizing behavior of my traumatized kids.
Before I left, I made little gifts for the kids... ten pages of questions and activities for Middle ("What did you do today? Draw me a picture!") and a little booklet for Little that used his name as an acronym for awesome things ("D is for daring, darling..." etc.). While I was gone, I called home daily. But I didn't do any research on RAD or trauma... The closest I came to that was chatting with other trauma mamas and papas on my favorite online support group (read this: If you are raising a kiddo with trauma issues, you need to find an online support group that offers you a safe space to rant and ask advice! Look into that pronto!)
While I was gone, I focused on me and Oldest, my mom, and my friends.
And when I came back, I was a whole new trauma mama! I could interact with Middle and Little in loving, caring ways because I took a break from the onslaught of difficult behavior they'd been tossing my way for weeks and weeks on end (summer is difficult for them because most of the MAJOR singular traumatic events they experienced happened in June and July).
I've been back for over a month now, and guess what? I haven't even YELLED once since my return!
That doesn't mean I'm not struggling. Not at all. In fact, earlier this week I had to fight the urge to throw things and scream and cry. But that little break... That short little bit of ME time... Has put me back into a place where I can parent my kids with extra demands successfully (er... somewhat successfully).
Bottom line: Self-care is JUST AS important as taking care of your children, and it is especially necessary when you care for children with special needs, be they physical, developmental, or mental. We know that raising kids with special needs is demanding, and we need to be at our optimum levels of awesome to meet the needs of our children. Make time for self-care! Get away every once in a while if you can... And if you can't, find something that allows you a little mental escape when you are feeling overwhelmed.
Today, I strive not only to bring you laughter, but also education!
Ladies and gentlemen... I now present to you... "True Facts About [Insert Animal Here]" from YouTuber and Buzzfeed contributor Zefrank1!
Disclaimer: There is some mild cursing in some of these... The "BIG" curse words are bleeped, but wanted to throw out a heads up!
Ever wonder where modern clowns come from? Now ya know!
"If you're writing a children's book... Remember... Only one animal can die. Not all of them."
"Don't do drugs, because if you do, an owl may rip your face off."
Now, I'm familiar with the horror of Mantises... Manti... Uh... You know what I mean.
When I was a single Mama, living in Hawaii with Oldest in a tiny ground floor apartment, my daughter suddenly started screaming, "THERE'S AN ALIEN IN MY ROOM!!!"
I walked in to find the BIGGEST MANTIS EVER.
LOOK AT THAT THING!
It was seriously the size of my forearm.
We ran outside screaming.
When I realized running out of our apartment was probably not the best way to get rid of the thing, I decided to take charge and evict our unwanted house guest. First, I looked up whether or not those things bite (they don't... But they DO have spiky things on their legs that hurt if they get ya), then I grabbed my oven mitt and caught him... Screaming the entire time. My local neighbors laughed and laughed and laughed.
It's funny NOW... But when there's an ALIEN right in front of you, it's really, really hard to laugh!
Hope you all are having a great Sunday. If it's a rough one, hang in there. You can do it!!
We visited Husband's parents and siblings yesterday... The kids swam all day, jumped on trampolines, ate ice cream cake, and just had a great time.
So, of course... Today is a big ol' pile of suck.
Oldest took in a TON of water yesterday when she jumped in the deep end for the very first time (go Oldest!)... She couldn't breathe when she came up and ended up vomiting (Soooo awesome, right? Not in the pool, thankfully!). She told me she felt funny on the drive home, and then after she went to bed, she started having some very deep coughs. I didn''t think anything of it until RIGHT before I went to bed... Suddenly, all those articles I read about secondary drowning came rushing into my brain and I decided "better safe than sorry!" and took her to the hospital.
She was totally fine, but we didn't get home until 4 a.m.!
Then, both Middle and Little woke up around 6 a.m. Middle had a huge breakdown this morning and Little is in the midst of a three-hour meltdown... With no signs of letting up! Husband and I are taking shifts with him in his room, with varying degrees of success at therapeutic parenting.
I'm so glad today is Sunday... Today, I'm sharing some silliness with you that my mother-in-law shared with us yesterday. Ladies and gentlemen... May I present to you... "Guy on a Buffalo" by Possum Posse, an epic tale of love, loss, betrayal and... Revenge!
This post is also available at my new website Trauma Mama Drama. If you enjoy reading my blog, remember to update your feeds, emails and bookmarks with the new link, because eventually I will only post updates on the new site's blog.
**************************************** If you've read my previous posts, you know that Middle and Little experienced chronic early-childhood trauma before they came to live with us. When the judge presiding over Husband's custody hearing awarded him full/sole custody, we expected them to engage in some problematic behavior when they moved in... "But it will get better once they've been here a while," Husband and I said, "All it's going to take is consistency, patience and love."
I can't even begin to tell you how wrong we were.
Husband and I found ourselves totally unprepared to deal with the needs of my step-children... No one warned us that sustained early-childhood trauma can negatively impact the brain's development. We'd never even heard of Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), and therefore we were completely baffled when they reacted so negatively to our safe and secure environment. And we certainly didn't know about thetherapeutic parenting style we would adopt when they resisted our traditional parenting methods (often with screaming and yelling and kicking and spitting...).
I tried my best not to put too much stock into the RAD diagnosis, but eventually, subconsciously, I started automatically attributing any negative or odd behavior to their attachment issues. I lived in near-constant worry that that our love wouldn't be enough, that they wouldn't get better, that all of our valiant efforts would fail miserably... And if I lost my temper and slid back into traditional parenting methods, I would dwell on the most negative thought of all... Maybe their behavior would get worse.
So you can imagine my reaction to Middle when she told me about "The Good and Bad Maps" in her brain that make her "do good/bad things."
I emailed her mental health counselor immediately... "Is this a sign she is having delusions? Middle's family tree has some mental illness in its branches... Should we look into other diagnoses for her?"
The therapist asked me to make a note when she brought up "The Maps," but said she wasn't too worried about it... Middle is very artistic, and her therapist thought she was just using visuals to explain how her mind works.
Middle brought up "The Maps" a handful of times that month, but nothing major. Satisfied that she wasn't experiencing dissociation or mental hallucinations, we let the subject drop, butin April she started going into great detail about people in her brain that made her do bad things. She vividly described their appearance to me and even imitated their voices for me! I sent another alarmed email, but was again advised again to make a note when Middle mentioned the "people in her brain." I complied and tried to play it cool, but I was getting more and more concerned convinced that we were seeing the development of an additional mental health problem.
She kept talking about multi-colored people that lived in her brain and how they were in control of her thoughts and actions. I grew more and more worried as this discussion continued on and off for a month or so, until one day I heard her squeal, "MOM!!! COME QUICK!!! IT'S THEM!!" I raced into the living room to find her excitedly pointing at the television, jumping up and down. "THERE THEY ARE! THE PEOPLE IN MY HEAD!"
I could only reply with an embarrassed, "Oh... Okay, I get it."
It was a commercial for Inside Out.
Mystery solved.
But wait... What about those maps she kept talking about in March?
Turns out, her kindergarten classroom had a giant poster about choosing the right path... The poster included drawings of paths to success and paths to trouble... Paths that Middle called "The Maps" in class.
Poor Middle... She was using her imagination so wonderfully, and there I was, a mother with no higher-level psychology education, trying to shuffle her into another serious diagnosis.
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This story's end may be amusing, but I hope it serves as a word of caution against relying too heavily on a diagnosis to understand someone (or even understand yourself).
The power of the RAD diagnosis was so strong that I guess I completely forgot that all young kids say things that sound weird to adults and engage in behavior that we don't understand from our vantage point. I'm glad I had this realization when I did because I didn't even realize I was seeing her diagnosis instead of her.
Now that I have recognized my faulty thinking, I do my best to avoid falling into that pattern of thinking again, and I'm much happier interacting with my kids diagnosed with RAD.
After all, it's so much easier to laugh at the absurdity of childhood experimentation and logic when I'm not constantly asking myself, "What does this mean?!"
This post is also available at my new website Trauma Mama Drama. If you enjoy reading my blog, remember to update your feeds, emails and bookmarks with the new link, because eventually I will only post updates on the new site's blog.
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The other day Little and Oldest were playing a "game" together. The game consisted of running as fast as they could into the wall.
That was it.
They weren't crashing into each other. They weren't fighting. Middle wasn't in the room so I didn't have to worry about my step-kids triggering each other. The floor was clean and free of obstruction. They were being safe... well, as safe as kids can be when they are slamming themselves into the walls. They were having a great time, and walls can be fixed if damaged, and running into the wall isn't too likely to result in major injury... If we owned our own free-standing home, I like to think I'd have allowed them to continue this game because this... interesting game is just "Big Body Play," and I know that is important.
Unfortunately, we live in an apartment with adjoining neighbors and we try to be courteous, so I had to ask them to stop and tell them that slamming into the walls is against the rules. I left the room and they stopped... But after a few minutes, loud, dull THUDS began reverberating through the walls again.
I asked Husband to go in. I figured he would separate them, but he did something totally unexpected and pretty brilliant.
He stood in the doorway and waited for them to notice him. When they saw him standing there, they of course stopped their game. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"SORRY, MY FAULT!" Oldest said.
"I didn't ask you to apologize, I asked what you were doing."
"Breaking the rules," Little said, nonchalantly.
"Okay... But what were you doing?"
The kids fell silent. So Husband asked them again until Little said, "We were running into the wall."
"Oh, yeah? Do it again. I heard you guys laughing, so it must be fun." At this point, Oldest started crying, Little started smiling. "Why are you crying?" Husband asked Oldest. "I just want to see what you are doing in here."
Little smiled and laughed while Oldest wailed. "Go on," Husband said to Little. "Show me."
Little charged the wall and bounced off it, giggling.
"Your turn, Oldest," Husband said. But Oldest refused to move.
"Why won't you do it?" Little asked Oldest. But Oldest wouldn't answer.
"It's because she feels guilty for breaking the rules," Husband explained.
"Huh?" Little asked. "Guilty? What guilty means?"
"She knows running into the wall is against the rules. She knows that I feel upset when she breaks the rules. She doesn't want to upset me."
Oldest nodded.
End scene.
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So. How does the above example illustrate the differences in healthy and unhealthy attachment? How can I say that when there is an age difference of four years between Little and Oldest? Am I reading too much into this?
Well... No. I do realize that this is not a perfect example to show the differences between secure and insecure/disorganized attachment because of the age difference... The development of empathy (the ability to consider how one's actions effect the well-being of others) and morality (the ability to choose the "right" thing even if it contradicts your own personal desires) is a long process that doesn't fully develop until the "tween" years. The Evergreen Psychotherapy Center in Colorado describes the typical process like this:
Primary Process Thinking (ages 12-27 months)
"I want it, so I'll take it!"
Primitive Causative Thinking (ages 2-3 years)
"I want it but my parents will be upset with me... So I'll take it when they aren't looking!"
Causative Thinking (ages 3-5 years)
"I want it but my parents will find out... Is it worth the risk?"
Emerging Internal Control (6-7 years)
"I want it, but I won't take it because I don't want to upset my parents and then I'll feel bad."
Internal Control (8-11 years)
"I want it, but I would feel bad if I took it."
So, even if they were on track with their development of empathy and morality, my daughter would far more often choose the right thing to do for the right reasons. At five and six years old, respectively, Little and Middle should be considering the fact that we might find out about wrongdoings before they take action.
Unfortunately, they're not. Instead, they seem to vacillate between "primary process thinking" and "primitive causative thinking." I have been contacted by teachers more than a few times about Middle and Little trying to get away with something "wrong" even when they know it is wrong (primary process thinking). I warn the teachers that even if they say they are sorry, they are likely to just continue that behavior whenever their back is turned... And then I get another email in which the teacher expresses shock that the behavior is continuing on the sly.
Of course they're shocked... Most kids their age learn not to do "bad" things after getting caught and receiving consequences a few times, but since my kids are several years behind in this area they just don't have the cognitive skills to consider much outside of their own personal interests.
And they don't have these skills because such skills are dependent upon a strong, natural desire to please their parent-figure, which emerges as a natural and pleasant consequence when a secure attachment bond develops between parent and child.
Middle and Little don't have the type of desire to please we expect from young children because they did not develop a secure, healthy bond with Husband (army deployments disrupted their attachment process) or their biological mother (who, for whatever reason, wasn't able to provide them a safe environment while Husband was away).
And that is why parenting children who experienced early-childhood trauma can be so damn challenging... We see kids who are physically 5, 6, 10, whatever, but their development of empathy and morality is just not on target. And it's incredibly hard to get them on target, because the early foundation was never put down.
But we keep trying to get them there. And we will keep trying. Until we get there.
Trying this out... Raising kids is hard, raising kids with special needs is super hard, and raising kids with attachment/trauma issues seems damn near impossible sometimes.
We all need to laugh.
So, every Sunday, I'm going to get silly around here and post things that make me laugh.
I hope they make you laugh, too.
Today, I am featuring Fowl Language Comics. The artist and author, Brian Gordon, was kind enough to give me permission to use comics from his site for my first "Silly Sunday."
Things have been utterly atrocious at my house since mid-June.
I am presently on my "family" vacation with only a small fraction of my family. Little and Middle are home with Husband, Oldest and I are road-tripping it to my mom's house.
More blogs soon to come... Probably several during my little "break"!
This post is also available at my new website Trauma Mama Drama. If you enjoy reading my blog, remember to update your feeds, emails and bookmarks with the new link, because eventually I will only post updates on the new site's blog.
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When I was fourteen, my mom called me outside on a lovely spring afternoon. She walked me over to the fence. "Can you explain this, please?" she asked, gesturing at the extinguished cigarette butts that covered the grass underneath my bedroom window.
OH NO! Thinkthinkthinkthinkthink... "I don't know... Weird."
My mom looked at me, steady. "Pick them up."
While I cleaned up the mess I'd so obviously created, my mind clamored for an explanation that would take the blame off me. And then I remembered something.
I finished my task and went inside to find my mom sitting in the kitchen. "Hey, remember how we've seen Jordan and his friends walk through here sometimes? I'll bet they are the ones who made that mess."
My mom laughed. "I think it was you. You've been smoking outside your window!"
"No! No, I don't do that!" I tried to muster up all the indignation I could find within myself. "It was those boys!"
Now. I'm 100% certain my mom knew I was lying. Of course she did... How could she not?! But this lie was just plausible enough to introduce reasonable doubt. Those boys had walked that way while they smoked their cigarettes. Maybe they did smoke dozens of cigarettes and throw them out under my window... I mean, that was certainly possible, right?!
So there we were. I'd been confronted with the stinky mountain of evidence I'd flicked out my window, but I would not admit my wrongdoing. Instead of coming clean and accepting the consequences of my silly teenage actions, I deflected the blame onto others, and I stuck to that lie for years. I've even lied about this incident as an adult! In fact, I've never come clean to my mom about this (and I'm 31 years old!). If she is reading this blog, this will be the first time she's ever heard the truth from me: I did that. I smoked outside of my window for months and made a huge messy pile of nastiness in our yard, and then I lied about it. I shouldn't have lied to you, and I'm not sure why I thought you would buy my ridiculous explanation.
"Crazy lying" or "lying about the obvious" is one of the top behaviors associated with RAD and trauma-related disorders. It seems so hard to understand, but it's not. I mean, haven't you ever been so afraid of what would happen if a parent or loved one discovered something wrong you had done?
I don't know why I felt the need to lie to my mom like that... She is wonderful, was never abusive, and never over-the-top in her punishments. Perhaps I was afraid she would go through my room (plausible), or take my privacy away (less plausible). I likely feared I would disappoint her (I had a healthy relationship with her and felt awful if I let her down) or make her angry. But, I did.
Same with kids diagnosed with RAD, or kids who have been through developmental trauma, or kids in general. Kids, and adults, lie to protect themselves... To keep something they want or need, to avoid punishment, to make someone happy, to avoid breaks in attached relationships.
Crazy lying, or normal childhood behavior?! You decide!
Here's the difference: if I hadn't pulled that far-fetched, but possible, excuse out of my you-know-where... If my mom had had irrefutable evidence that I'd been smoking, I'm fairly certain I would have come clean (maybe not! Who knows!). Kids with trauma who engage in "crazy lying" will lie for absolutely no reason. In fact, they may come up with a lie, seek you out, and start a conversation with a lie!
And when caught up in their lie, kids with traumatic pasts have even less motivation to tell the truth, because their life experiences have taught them they could be severely punished for wrongdoings and they might fear their current parents will completely derail when lied to.
Another difference between "normal childhood lying" and "crazy lying"? My lying was a fairly isolated incident that occurred out of "necessity" when my mom confronted me... I needed to lie to her so I could continue on in my stupid teenage mistakes (most of which weren't life-altering, but smoking was definitely something I should have listened to my mother about because I still suck down cancer sticks like they're full of oxygen instead of, you know, cancer). I did not initiate the conflict over the pile of discarded cigarette ends... I never would have walked up to her and casually mentioned, "Hey, there are a ton of cigarette butts outside our window and I have no idea how they got there." A child with trauma issues may do just that, perhaps to intentionally disrupt harmony so that they are in control of when their parent confronts them on something they've done. To kids with trauma issues, instigating a conflict (even an unnecessary conflict) beats responding to a conflict that someone thrust upon them unexpectedly.
I've mentioned that I noticed something was slightly askew with Middle almost as soon as I met her, but Husband didn't really catch on to her disordered mental organization until the first time she turned her tendency to "lie about the obvious" on with him (I'd been experiencing it from day one, but it took about a month for her to start in on her dad... and I didn't mention it because I felt like I was the crazy one and reading too much into the behavior of a precocious little girl who had experienced more trauma in her four years than I had experienced in my entire life).
I was cleaning the room Middle shared with Little when I noticed she had written some letters on the wall. Little hadn't learned to write yet, and I recognized Oldest's and Middle's handwriting, so I knew who had written the letters without a doubt. No big deal, I thought. I'll just have her clean the wall and we'll be done with it. I called her in. "Middle, what happened here?"
She started smiling. "I don't know!" she shouted.
"I think you do. Want to tell me about it?"
"I DON'T KNOWWWW!" she wailed, and started to cry (but the smile remained on her face... I would come to figure out that the smile she puts on while simultaneously sobbing indicates she is terrified, but at the time I mistook her smile for her thinking our discussion was funny).
Husband entered the room, concerned. "What?!" he asked.
"Someone wrote on the wall. It's not a big deal, it will easily wipe off! But I want Middle to talk to me about it."
Husband looked at the writing. "Middle, why did you write on the wall?"
"I didn't!" she cried.
"Middle. All that is going to happen is that you'll have to wipe it off." He got a towel. "Here. Why did you write on the wall?"
Middle threw down the towel and started wailing. Then, she stopped and suggested, "Maybe it was Little!"
Husband pulled Little in and asked him to write the letters that were up on the wall on a piece of paper. He could not do it (he was only three at the time). Husband looked at Middle pointedly. "Little did this?" he asked.
"YES!" Middle then said, "Hey, Little, like this... This is what you did!" and proceeded to write the letters out on the paper for him!!!
"You know, whoever did it will have a consequence. Are you okay with Little having to take the consequence?"
"YES!"
"Middle, Little did not write on the wall." Husband held the piece of paper up to the wall, comparing handwriting samples (CSI here we come!).
"THEN IT WAS OLDEST!" she screamed. Husband repeated the process.
Now, this was before we knew about therapeutic parenting. This was before we switched from the ways we'd been raised... Stern lecturing and exasperated yelling from me, isolation and corporal punishment from Husband (I am neither for nor against spanking... Husband sees no problem with it as he is a typical Southern guy (sorry for the stereotype!), who believes physical punishment worked well with him and his siblings and didn't see any problem with giving his kids a swat when they misbehaved. HOWEVER, we have both come to realize that physical punishment and yelling do not work with our kids... In fact, that usually just serves to make things worse. Therefore, we try not to utilize these "old school" methods and try to remain bastions of therapeutic parenting). This went on for HOURS and HOURS as we tried to get Middle to admit lying. By the end of the night, we were all exhausted and traumatized (and re-traumatized) by trying to get her to tell the truth using discipline methods that only forced her to cling to that lie even tighter. These discipline methods probably would have worked well with most kids (stay in your room until you are ready to talk, if you lie again I'm giving you a swat).
Let me tell you... We handled that lie poorly. As we have many, many other lies... She once sat at the kitchen table every day after school for most of the evening because she kept insisting she didn't know how to read the word "of." EVEN AFTER SHE'D JUST READ IT, EVEN AFTER WE'D JUST SOUNDED IT OUT TOGETHER, EVEN AFTER I FREAKING TOLD HER THE WORD.
And we handle the lying poorly because it shows us how different her brain works from our brains, from the brains of kids who didn't go through the trauma she did, and those differences can be incredibly scary. The prognosis for a child diagnosed with RAD is frightening, and sometimes we overreact to our own fear when our kids engage in troubling behavior (and, sometimes, unfortunately, when they engage in normal childhood behavior). We were--we are--terrified for Middle and Little in a way we are not for Oldest (I am certainly apprehensive for her as most parents are when they think of their kids' futures, and I'm probably more nervous for her future with her genetic disorder delaying her development, but I'm not worried about her empathy levels or her understanding of cause-and-effect like I am Middle and Little... But I digress).
We let our own fears overtake us when our traumatized kids confront us with a "crazy lie." And during the "writing on the wall" fiasco, Middle really punched Husband's fear for their mental health on the nose because, at one point, she shouted at him, "It's not a lie in my head!" That caused Husband to completely lose it because there is a history of mental illness in his family, and the kids' biological mother's history and family. Her claiming that her lie was actually true unsettled him to the point he began shaking, full of anxiety, wondering what, exactly, she meant by that. Would she be able to surpass her trauma and become a healthy adult? Or has she already started building an alternate reality that she will live in instead of "the real world," and run into all sorts of terrible problems that we can't solve for her?
Bottom line: When a traumatized child gets stuck in a lie and can't bring herself to tell the truth, even if we swear up and down that she won't get in trouble for the action we want her to discuss with us, NOTHING makes her tell the truth about what had happened until she feels like it. And the more we try to push them into opening up to us, especially if we employ punitive methods in an attempt to get the truth, the more they lock themselves up, and that is a dangerous road to travel down with any child, but it's especially dangerous for kids with traumatic histories. Traditional discipline strategies of punishment won't work, and ignoring the lie won't really work either, because we need the kids to open up to us, to give us a chance to prove we won't hurt them for something like writing on the wall or destroying the desk or ripping holes in clothing or hurting the cat or hiding the laptop or hoarding the Halloween candy or lying about their academic abilities (all things that have been lied about with gusto in my house).
This post is also available at my new website Trauma Mama Drama. If you enjoy reading my blog, remember to update your feeds, emails and bookmarks with the new link, because eventually I will only post updates on the new site's blog.
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In Part One of my blogs on this subject, I shared with you the heartbreaking day when Husband realized the "abnormality" of Middle's lying behavior and how we responded in one of the worst possible ways. Today, I'm going to tell you how to deal with it.
My favorite resource on how to deal with the lying comes from Christine Moers, of course!
I love how she emphasizes the fact that you shouldn't ask them whether or not they did something because it's pointless, and that getting them to admit their lie is usually pointless as well. Middle recently gouged markings on my desk and I knew she had done it. There was no question. Just like when she wrote on the wall, I had all the evidence I needed to accuse her of gouging the desk without worry that maybe it was another kiddo.
I felt like Kevin Spacey in American Beauty... "IT'S JUST! A! DESK!!!!"
But she would NOT admit it, no matter how many times we told her she wouldn't be in trouble, that we didn't care at all about the desk but only that she trust us enough to tell us what happened. It took her four hours to admit it under intense interrogation, and by that time we were so angry that she was already in trouble for lying to us and her admitting the truth didn't mitigate our anger or her consequences.
A few days after the desk gouging incident, Middle lied to me about a marker she'd hidden in her room (she is not allowed markers in her room because she marks up her walls, and we rent an apartment that for some stupid reason used matte-finish paint on the walls... so removing the marker results in the paint coming off which means we have to pay to repaint the room when we move!). I asked her where it was, she said she didn't know, so I said, "If I find it hidden in your room, I will know that you are lying about not hiding the marker. Are you sure you don't want to tell me? You won't get in trouble, but you will if you don't tell me the truth right now."
"I didn't hide it. It's just gone."
Of course I found the marker, hidden carefully and strategically underneath her clothes. I didn't move the marker, and went back to her to ask, "Are you sure you didn't hide it?"
"I didn't do it!" she yelled, and started crying.
"Middle, I already found it and know you hid it. Won't you tell me the truth, please?"
"Aaaaaaaaahhhh-ahhhh-ahhhhhhhhh!" she wailed. "You don't believe me!"
"I want you to find the marker and then we will talk," I said. I was starting to doubt that she'd hidden it. Middle is very convincing.
But when she came in, she went right to the clothes and pulled it out. And I saw RED. I wanted to punish her and I started yelling at her. "WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST TELL ME WHEN I ASKED YOU!? NOW YOU ARE IN TROUBLE!"
I went out and bought ice cream sandwiches and gave them to Little and Oldest, and then asked her again if she'd hidden the marker. "No," she said.
So I put her ice cream sandwich back in the freezer. "You can have THIS when you decide to tell me the truth!"
The next night after dinner, I doled out ice cream sandwiches again but withheld Middle's. "Are you ready to talk about the marker?"
::silence::
"Okay, no ice cream sandwich for you."
After that night, I started feeling guilty. I was definitely not following the SPACE model for therapeutic parenting by trying to force her to explain herself. I thought really hard about why she was lying, and past incidents in which she felt she had to lie, and realized that she absolutely did not believe us that she would avoid punishment if she'd just tell us the truth. I realized that in her past, she probably faced severe consequences when she finally owned up to a lie, consequences that were the exact same had she kept on with the lie. She was afraid to tell me the truth... And when I asked her what she thought I'd do if she admitted to hiding the marker, she said, "I don't know... Swat me or something."
I decided that since I already knew the truth about the marker that it didn't really matter... what mattered was that she trust me enough to admit a wrongdoing. So we practiced. I made her feel as safe as possible, and asked her to say, "I hid the marker because I wanted to keep it in my room." And when she did, I responded by giving her half an ice cream sandwich, with the promise of a whole one after dinner.
That hasn't stopped the lying. Oh, no. Not by a long shot. But instead of responding with anger and punishment, I've started having her practice telling us the truth. The last lie was over our shower nozzle which she accidentally broke (or on purpose, but that doesn't really matter, does it?). She freaked out when I asked her about it and started lying and crying, but I reassured her and told her it was safe to tell me the truth. I asked her again what she thought would happen if she admitted to breaking it, and she said, "Never let me take a shower again." And we practiced her telling me, "I accidentally broke the shower nozzle." And I said, "That's okay! And, since you told me what happened, I know how to fix it! Thank you for being so brave!"
I'm not sure how this will work out in the end, of course, but I'm feeling pretty good about this method I'm trying out. I certainly enjoy working with her like this instead of punishing her or getting so angry... because when I get angry it just scares her more and makes her clamp onto that lie for dear life. It breaks our bonds and depletes her trust in me, and how can I expect her to tell me the truth if she doesn't trust me?
Bottom line: "Crazy lying" originates from the fear she grew up with before I even met her. When I punished her for lying, I only reinforced the paradigms of her trauma (I can't trust anyone, I must protect myself, and my parents will hate me, maybe hit me, if they find out I did something wrong). While addressing a lie is important because of the control issues our kids with traumatic pasts tend to have, it's important to address it in a way that makes them feel safe and reinforces the bonds of attachment you have with them, however tenuous those bonds may be.
