Round 287... Ding! Ding! Ding!

There are days when I'm never quite certain how I got to the point I'm at. It is never fun to find yourself sitting on the edge of your bed in a shouting match with your child, only to realize you are not winning and no amount of shouting is going to change that. Then you remember that it isn't about winning it is about breaking the bad habit in the first place.

K has lived her very short life in a sort of state of flux. Her moods never being the same from one hour to the next and it made life difficult for all of us. During those first five years, we let a lot of behaviors go that in B we stopped sort. It was easier to give in than listen to hours of screaming.

However, K has been on meds for 9 months, and her moods are quite stable, and her activity level is even and normal for a girl her age. For the most part. This has lead us to discover some very unattractive learned behaviors that we must now change. One of these is a hair-trigger temper that is expressed with high pitched screaming, stomping and a great deal of prolonged just-for-sympathy crying.

Her therapist has given us a tool to help negate this behavior, and I must admit it is not my favorite tool ever. K usually does this tantrum-y behavior after being told no, not specifically the word no, but more a you can't do what you want, because you must do as I say kind of a no. So, our tool is to state what is expected, allow her to question once, state what is expected again. If she chooses to question or goes into tantrum mode, I'm supposed to say "K you are not taking no for an answer and we will not discuss this further, go to your room."

So far this has equaled, a great deal of "What? I cant even speak now?" kind of screamed retort. For clarification, a scream is when it is so loud and so high pitched that it is physically painful, and yelling/shouting is just a raising of voices from normal conversation level to they can hear every word we say in the other room. Back to K...

I am supposed to not talk with her again until she has calmed and completed my request. That is not an easy thing when you have a child sitting on her bed screeching into her pillow or making a loud humming-crying noise so that you will come in and talk to her. Though I will admit that length of time for this noise has shortened considerably.

I have also found that I do not always remember to use this technique, and that is when I find myself in the aforementioned shouting match.

I think that if K had not been inclined to the brain development issues she has, then we would have on our hands a child which leans toward the dramatic in all that she does. One that is incredible canny, and often devious. Who learned and uses the art of manipulation early and well, and has one of the sweetest most giving hearts I have ever met... Oh wait, we have that, only we just found her in the last nine months. I wonder what our lives would have been like if only my sweet sweet baby had started talking as a toddler instead of waiting until she was just a little past her third birthday.



**For those unfamiliar, K, my youngest and 8 years old, was diagnosed with Bi-polar Disorder, Sensory Processing Disorder, ADHD and Dysgraphia (like Dyslexia only with writing instead of reading) at the ripe old age of four. She is currently receiving Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, play and talk therapy, and we see a psychiatrist who closely monitors the mood stabilizers and stimulants she currently takes. It took nearly failing the 1st grade for us to give into the last resort of chemically altering her brain chemistry and I will admit I feel a small pang of maternal guilt each time I open those pill bottles and shake those two white circles and that long blue oval into her hand.**