I am asking for help!
I need some fresh ideas for getting Alyssa to open up. She has shown no interest in blogging, she constantly says that we don't love her, and she is sassy and disrespectful beyond belief.
We had ONE GOOD DAY, and then poof! The sass and disrespect returned full force. Now, she has added the woe is me complex. I am bad, I do nothing right, nobody loves me...
I have to admit that my patience and empathy are gone. You are entitled to your feelings. BUT, your feelings do not give you the right to treat me with sass and disrespect! I am here and more than willing to listen to you and try to help. BUT, be sincere! I keep getting the feeling that I am being played. Alyssa has been going to therapy long enough now that she knows the right things to say. But I feel like she is just mouthing the words. She says what we want to hear, but her actions say otherwise!
Who knows, maybe it's the weather. I know that I am not the only Mom that is really struggling for respect right now. But Alyssa knows better! She has something going on that she is hiding and refusing to talk about and it shows in her behavior. I am gearing up for a huge relevation, her behavior is that bad!
So come on Awesome Moms! Give me ideas! I need some new tools in my toolbelt!!!
We have therapy with Paulette tonight so I am hoping that she can give us some ideas that will change things up.
I don't like living with this tension! I feel like we are going backwards instead of forward!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Help!
Posted by Alyssa's Mom at 9:44 AM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
well... take a deep breath and remember that not everything she says or does is actually directed at you, you just end up with by default.
When Calvin is really acting up now we call him on his behaviour directly. Last night he started to escalate after a number of really good days and I called him on before it got out of control by telling him I knew what he was doing, that it needed to stop and that he would be going to bed as soon as we got home. He tried to talk back and be rude and I again told him what he was doing was not ok and refused to engage in the fight he was looking to have.
We came home, he was told to get ready for bed, he did without an argument and so then instead of turning out the light I let him read in his bed until what would of been bedtime. I told him that since he was able to calm down and not have a tantrum he could read and that I was really proud of him for managing to calm himself down.
This has been working for awhile now, I am sure it won't work forever but I will use it as long as I can. Perhaps it might help there too
Sorry, I have nothing to give except my empathy. I hope you get to the bottom of it (and when you do, please tell me how you did it!) It definitely sounds like something is going on, though. Maybe troubles at school? Boys? Puberty?
Anyway, hang in there. I'll be checking back for all the Awesome Mom advice that's sure to come!
I didn't comment yesterday because I've been thinking about it and trying to come up with something. I failed. Miserably.
The only thing I can come up with is rubbing and tapping. That usually always gets J to open up.
I'm sorry.
When Tara was going through her FASD testing, we worked with a different AT who was amazing (and has an office over 2 hours away so we can't work with her on a regular basis).
Now, we have all heard of the regression therapy where you do the baby bottle thing and whatnot. This therapist took it one step further. She said to really examine your child and look at when her first broken attachment was. With Tara, it was about 6-9 months after she was born that she began to be severely neglected. Instead of doing the acts of how you treat the baby, this AT said to put yourself into that baby's shoes and think about how you perceive the world. Really, everything boils down to familiar smells and sounds...words mean nothing.
She said to incorporate those comforting smells and sounds at regular times. Think about the different sounds of different times of the day and what you want it to be like.
So I made it my mission to change it up and do this thing. I bought some aromatherapy inhalers, one for waking up, one for calming down, and one for falling asleep. I also bought some CD's that had music that would be calming, yet familiar (classical and nursery rhymes). When Tara wakes up, she now takes a shower, then listens to certain music while getting dressed, then takes her meds---one of which is her morning inhaler. When she gets home from school, she does her Stress Less inhaler and puts on the nursery rhyme type music, then before bed, she has calming time where she listens to the classical music again and does her Sleeping inhaler while I read the calming passage on the back.
Now when she starts acting all sassy and screamy, I bring her in her room, give her stress less inhaler and put on the calming music. I tell her she needs to take some time to find herself.
She still gets mad and beats the shit out of stuff, BUT it is about 75% better than it used to be.
I use very few words anymore. This was easy and calming for both of us.
Next I am going to try Lisa's Guided Imagery book. I bought it, yet still need to record something for Tara to listen to while she falls asleep. It looks really cool.
Post a Comment