Lately, our house has been filled with violence, chaos, anger, frustration, tears, and raging hormones. It has not been fun. In fact, it has been so chaotic and disharmonious, I would prefer to go to bed and just pull the covers over my head and pretend I don’t exist.
You see, I have an 10 year-old, soon to be 11 in the next 3 weeks, who is nearly 5′ tall and a developing teenage body with hormones raging. She is violent, angry, defiant, overly sensitive, and exhausting to parent. I have been thinking over and over how I can change the tone in our home. I am so tired of correcting her and trying to offset the negative with more positive than negative and that is hard to do when there seems to be less positive than negative and it really takes a lot of thought and intentional parenting to come up with a lot of positives even for the tiniest things. But, I am trying really hard.
However, upon reflecting on the predicament in our home and brainstorming ways to fix it, I realized that not only am I part of the problem, I am also part of the solution. The solution is absolutely almost impossible for my brain to do. I am looking at an 11 year-old, for all intents and purposes, who is going on about a 5 year-old developmental level. Imagine an 11 year-old who is really only 5 years old at best. It requires mental gymnastics for me to try to stay on top of my game parenting her sister who is exceptionally bright and then turn my brain around and look at a child almost as tall as me in a teenage body and think 5 years old in behavior and in consequences for bad behavior. To add to the chaos is the fact that my little, big snowflake’s issues is her severe short-term memory loss. I can give her consequences for negative behaviors; the only problem with this is that within a couple minutes, she has no idea why she is receiving consequences. The only thing she sees is that she is being isolated in time-out or put in bed early and perceives it as I do not want her to be with me and the rest of the family. This could not be any farther than the truth. The fact is that I desperately want her to be with me. I want to be able to cuddle her and not be so frustrated with her that I don’t even want to be in the same room as her. I desperately want to help solve the issues that make her violently angry. Part of this is also complicated by her severe auditory processing disorder. What she hears is not usually what is being said so her perceptions are almost always skewed. Some days, in fact, most days feel like a ongoing loosing battle.
When analyzing all of these facts, I realized that some of the fault was mine. Since I have only had her a year-and-a-half, and a good part of the first year was spent just getting her issues diagnosed, it is not like having raised her since an infant or toddler and growing at her pace and getting my feet under me and used to her delays. I have had to learn constantly on a run to keep up with the medical and mental diagnoses and am trying to just keep my head above water to keep from drowning. Nevertheless, the problem is partly mine. I see her, I look at her and my brain does not automatically say her behavior is consistent with her developmental age, so relax and stay calm. This is appropriate for her stage of neurological development. No, I look at her, see the pre-teen child and automatically say, wrong behavior, you know better than this! In some ways, this is not all bad, as a friend of mine pointed out to me, because it is constantly pushing her forward to work harder at her behavior and work harder at developing those age-appropriate skills. But, I think, in some ways, it is doing more damage because it is causing her to give up because it seems like no matter which way she turns, she is always in trouble. It also is causing self-esteem issues. She already has enough self-esteem issues because she is cognizant enough to realize she is different from everyone and she sees it as a negative thing, not a positive thing. She is constantly in competition with her neurotypical sister who is exceptionally bright. She wants to do everything and I do mean everything exactly like her sister and then ask me who does the activity best. That is as bad as asking someone whether your outfit makes you look fat. It puts me in a no-win situation. Nevertheless, it doesn’t change the fact that I am part of the problem and the solution.
Somehow, I have to start remember 5 year old, 5 years old, 5 years old, 5 years old! Her behavior is consistent with 5 years old. RELAX! Remember what a 5 year old acts like and what behavior should be expected and accepted and deliver consequences accordingly. It doesn’t fix the severe short-term memory issue; neither does it fix the severe auditory processing issues and nothing that I am aware of will help me with these problems, but if I can just relax and stop expecting her to act at her chronological age, it would be a start.
The guilt that I feel at being so frustrated with her to the point of not even wanting to be around her is almost overwhelming. I love her, and I love her intensely. I just hate the behavior and much of the behavior is inappropriate even for a 5 year-old. However, she does not yet have the ability or coping skills to manage and control these behaviors. I see my road as wrong and grueling and exhausting, but it makes those victories, no matter how small, that much sweeter. It is hard, so very hard to be judged by other people when she is acting up, being petty, being her when other people have no idea what I am going through or what makes her tick and what sets her off. Add to this severe PTSD from her past and severe anxiety and depression due to a variety of factors and it spells a twisted, almost impossible to unravel mess.
What I have figured out is that I MUST relax. I MUST find it inside of me to move past the grief and loss of how I thought my life would be raising these children and accept what is reality. I never, ever knew any of these issues going in to the adoption because it was information withheld or heads turned the other way and no testing or therapy given. Her foster home parent said she was just acting out to get attention and refused to acknowledge that she had delays and autism as well as other mental and neurological disorders. I was, in effect, blindsided by all this stuff. But it is what it is. Maybe I can change it slowly and turn some of the negative into positive over time, but it is going to take work, a lot of hard, hard work. My snowflake deserves it. She deserves someone who believes in her and lifts her up, not tears her down. She deserves the very best I can give her, not my defeated, want to give up attitude that comes over me every now and again. She deserves no less than my best in advocating for her and in parenting her. I have to get past the grief and the guilt and adjust my sails according to the course that is set instead of fighting the storm and the course I wanted to go on. I am sure that when I do that, life will be less complicated and I will be able to build my snowflake up and will be able to find more positive than negative. I have to parent very intentionally and very intentionally I promise myself and her, I will parent.
