More and more, I realize how important having contact with other moms of hurt children can be for those of us on this journey.  Who else can understand our pain, joys, fears, and overall feelings?  This mom and I were discussing how abnormal we sometimes feel around those who don’t have wounded kids.  While others discuss their last pedicure or how well their child is doing in school, we’re dealing with urine, poop, and sex.  It can sometimes feel like we live in an entirely different world than everyone else.  And that can be isolating!

Having contact with others going through what you are going through can be so important.  We need to know that we are not alone, that what we feel is normal, and to feel like others care and know us.  For this reason, we have our once a month Forever Homes support group meetings.  While our vision is to have one in every city, right now the extent of the meetings has been only in the Tri Cities of WA state.  It has been incredibly exciting, though, to watch this group of people develop into a true community of people who care about each other and provide support to one another.  Such a blessing!  These moms have become my friends and cheerleaders. They are precious to me, and I am incredibly thankful for them!

We have also begun to have a time for just the moms to get together, because we all started to feel like once a month was NOT enough!!  (By the way, if you are interested in this get-together and live in the Tri-Cities, it will be this coming Thursday – June 11 – at 6:00 PM, in the banquet room at Round Table Pizza on Leslie Road in Richland – We’d love for you to join us!)  We moms need each other for encouragement, laughter, and hope.

For those of you who do not have a support group in your area, please do not give up hope.  You are not alone.  I know that you are very busy with your own wounded child, but I’d like to challenge you to the possibility of starting a support group in your area.  You will be able to meet other families going through what you are going through, and you can be there for one another.  

There’s just something about being understood that fills up our soul.  I think that’s the way God made us….to need to have connections that goe beyond the surface.  To be known, understood, and loved.  And sometimes that feels harder when you’re parenting wounded kids.  Not that many people really know what you’re going through. That’s why we need to stay connected to those who do.

I knew, however, that the day would not be a happy one for the other two kids.  While sibling rivalry and jealousy abound in “normal” families, one child having anything good can create WWIII in any home with wounded children.  Mom, of course, still tends to be the target of their rage, even though the “evil perpetrator” of their distress is a sibling.  This sibling, of course, will also be a target; however, the jealous child just wants anyone to pay for the fact that they don’t have what the other child has.

Knowing this would be a hard day, I let my third son know that I knew he’d really want tomake everyone pay for his poor “misfortune.”  I tried to ask him some challenging questions, hoping to get him to think about how his own choices contributed to the situation.  We went through all of the choices his brother had made to get to the place where he could make such a large purchase.  The choices included doing his chores, saving the money, and saving up his birthday money for the purchase.  I began to ask him at each point if he, too, had been able to make those same choices along the way.  I asked, given his own choices, why it should be his brother’s problem that he hasn’t worked for an Ipod Touch.  Or why it should be mine.  Of course, he was able to say the right things, but I knew that in his heart the fact that he didn’t have an Ipod was completely the fault of everyone else.  Maybe someday that idea of personal responsibility will kick in.  

I find that children with Reactive Attachment Disorder have a difficult time taking personal responsibility for anything they do.  Regardless of their actions, any consequences basically become the fault of anyone and everyone around them.  This particular child pretty much refuses to do chores in the time given to do them (he still must do them later, but he does not get paid to do them at the later time).  He knows he won’t get paid for the chore by doing it this way, but his desire to be in control outweighs his desire for having money to spend.  This complete desire for control keeps him away from what he really wants; however, his choices still, somehow, become the problem of everyone else instead of him.  He becomes irate when the other two kids receive their allowance and he is left with nothing.

At one point, our therapist had the kids on a point system.  Now, normal star charts don’t really work with wounded children, but this point system was designed to show the kids how their choices added up to either earn privileges or not.  The therapist also used it to point out areas that the kids really struggled with or ways that they sabotaged their own fun.  Two of my kiddos did great with this system, and, no matter what items were placed on the point system, they worked hard to earn positive things.  This particular child, however, worked extra hard to make sure he did NOT earn the points needed to be on the higher level.  

After several weeks of this, I noticed his anger when he was unable to participate in what the other kids could, simply because he hadn’t earned that privilege.  So I asked him about his anger.  He looked at me, and as seriously as he could, explained that despite what he had done, I could still choose to allow him to participate.  In his mind, his behavior should have no connection with him receiving any kind of negative consequence.

This same child purposefully made life very difficult for his teacher and classmates in his regular education classes.  After some time of this, he was unable to participate any longer and had to be pulled out.  His anger went through the roof!!  He did not understand why he should have to do one on one tutoring, despite the fact that he had chosen, time after time, to refuse to participate in the classroom activities and actually worked hard to create chaos in his classroom.  Before this, he’d become angry when he was unable to participate in special events, simply because he had proven that he could not handle them.  In his mind, he should have been able to do anything he wanted and still participate in everything that the other kids did. 

My personal opinion as to why wounded kids fail to take personal responsibility for their actions has to do with attachment.  Children who have not developed an attachment to another human being lack a conscience, because it develops in the context of bonding with another human being – in the middle of relationship.  Because they lack a conscience, they have no sense of personal responsibility and a concept that their behavior creates either positive or negative consequences.  (Many times, in children who have been neglected or abandoned, they did not get a consistent response to their cries for help as infants.  Sometimes when they cried, someone slapped them. Other times, someone gave them a bottle with curdled milk.  Other times, their cries of hunger were completely ignored.  It makes sense, then, that they have no concept of their behavior having any affect on the outcomes.)

So, how do we help them develop this?  Natural consequences, delivered with lots of empathy, help them to become more angry at themselves, rather than you, for their choices.  In those situations where natural consequences are not appropriate, we give other consequences, still delivered with empathy.  And, especially for those extreme kids, we sometimes suspend those consequences, so that they aren’t able to sabotage things.  It takes time, but eventually they get the idea that they failed to learn as young children…that their behaviors have an effect on the outcomes.  Our hope is that they learn to take personal responsibility….eventually.

Something our therapist told me really stuck out.  She said, point blank, “You are getting way too predictable.”  Bottom line – I NEED to mix it up more!  I know this relates to my post yesterday, but it is such an important point that I want to look at this in a slightly different angle.

Children with Reactive Attachment Disorder will sabotage and try to ruin any good thing when they know it’s coming.  They will also work hard to get into trouble if that happens every time they mess up.  Again….parenting these kids does not follow the normal, or typical, parenting techniques.  Sometimes when our child acts up, we need to send them to their room.  Sometimes they need a “time-in,” where they sit right by your side the whole time.  Sometimes they need to do chores to pay back for the family energy they’ve taken.  And sometimes, we just need to pull them into our arms and say, “Wow!  You are having a rough day.  You must really need my love today!”  

This becomes tiring, because we must stay ahead of the child.  I feel as though I am constantly making decisions as to the best way to handle a given situation.  Doing the “time out” thing every time becomes easy.  And, in “normal” parenting, it can be very effective to do things consistently.  With our children, we have to be full of surprises, so that they don’t know what’s coming.  According to our therapist, sometimes we have to act more crazy than them!  These kids find it much harder to know how to tick you off when they can’t seem to get the same response from you every time.  Wounded kids don’t know what to do with it.

When I’m on top of my game, I can work hard to come across just as insane as they are.  And, trust me, it really does help!  A senseless question can be met with uproarious laughter or a smirk and a quick hug.  Non-stop chatter can be met with making more noise and being louder than what they are doing.  A temper tantrum can be met with an even bigger one coming from the place they least expect it….mom.  (Try to imagine yourself throwing a big one on the floor…with your child, who has now stopped their temper tantrum, looking at you -completely wide-eyed!  Try it…it might actually feel pretty good to get out all of those feelings you have pent up inside!)  These unexpected responses keep them out of equilibrium and don’t allow them the opportunity to create as much chaos.  The crazier their behavior becomes, the more unexpected your response can be!  They do the behaviors, hoping to push you away.  When that doesn’t happen, they are thrown off.

So, I guess as crazy as I feel sometimes, I am just not being crazy enough.  So, here’s the word for today: Planned insanity!  Try it.  You may like it!

With RAD children, many times their consequences must go the opposite way from how we naturally think.  The norm says, “you made a bad choice; therefore, you need a time out.”  Sometimes with RAD kids, we must give them “time-ins,” where they are right by our side, instead of the usual time-out.  A consequence for a bad choice one time might be a natural, Love-and-Logic sort of consequence one time, and the next it might be cuddle time with mom.  It helps when they don’t know what the consequence will be each and every time.

Why?  We have to keep them on their toes.  We have to keep them wondering.  If they know what the consequence will be, many times they will sabotage anything good for themselves on purpose, because they don’t believe that they deserve anything good.  Then, they never find a way out of their negative cycle of relating and thinking.  Sure, they have to earn privileges.  But, in the middle of negative behavior, sometimes we have to give them what they least expect and least deserve.  It breaks through their walls of defense.

This need to switch things up all the time makes therapeutic parenting very difficult for me personally.  First of all, you always have to be thinking and staying one step ahead of the child.  You can’t just stick with your normal, do-it-all-the-time consequence.  You find yourself always evaluating what way each situation should be handled.  Also, therapeutic parenting requires staying in a place of giving mercy and forgiveness.  Sure, it’s easy when a kid makes poor choices to automatically give a negative consequence.  It makes sense.  Depending on what the child does, sometimes it make us feel better knowing they had to pay for their choice.  It doesn’t make as much sense to sometimes give what looks like a positive consequence for negative behavior.  Plus, much of the time their behavior makes us mad personally.  So, sometimes I find myself wanting to go for the automatic negative consequence, simply because I want to see them pay back for what they’ve done.  Sometimes we want to scream out, “But she didn’t deserve that!!”  It throws off our sense of justice to parent therapeutically.

So many times, I know what I need to do in order to help my child heal.  I struggle to give them those things, because of my own anger and sense of justice.  I want them to pay for what they did or how they purposefully try to hurt those around them.  That makes sense.  The level of extreme mercy we must give our children goes against what my brain says is right.

I fully believe that, as therapeutic parents, we will have more opportunity to understand God’s unconditional and overwhelming love much more than our “normal” parental counterparts.  God reaches down and pulls us out of our muck, despite how terribly we treat Him.  We push Him away.  He continually pursues us.  We spit in His face.  He continues giving us good things, despite the fact that we don’t make good choices.  His love doesn’t wait until we “get our act together.”  He loves us just as we are, and He loves us too much to let us stay there.  Isn’t that how we have to look at things with our wounded child?

Romans 2:4 “Or do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’ kindness leads you toward repentance?”

One thing she said really stuck out to me.  She said, “Sometimes it’s so easy to focus so much on the labels that we forget that these are just kids underneath all of those issues.”  So true.  So many times, we look at our children through the filters of Reactive Attachment Disorder, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, Autism, Bi-Polar, etc, that we forget that underneath it all there’s a child.  Granted…..a hurting, scared, angry child, but a child nonetheless.

I am praying God to give me His perspective on my kids this week.  One of those perspectives, I’m sure, has to be…this is a child.  A precious child whom God loves.  Underneath all of the anger, hurt, and awful, mean, ugly behaviors….there’s a kid down there.  Wanting, but not knowing how, to get out and play.  Too scared to.  Too traumatized.  But wanting to.

So often we forget that.  And, I think that because the behaviors usually don’t match up with the age, we assume that they are just working hard to be manipulative.  Many times, when I talk with moms of very young children, the similarities of behaviors and thought processes will be uncanny.  Because of the abuse and neglect, most of our kids emotionally are very young.  While it’s hard to remember, I’m trying to picture a little three year old sitting there in the car, asking me a question he already knows the answer to simply because he did not get his way earlier.  Not easy to do in the heat of the moment, but sometimes it helps shape my response.

The moms who do well with wounded children have developed ways of thinking that don’t follow the norm.  They see beyond what presents itself to the deeper reality.  They see beyond the annoying behaviors, to the red flags begging for help.  They have learned not to take the bizarre behaviors personally, and know that the better they do at their job the more those behaviors may come out for a while.  I want to be that mom.  I know I’m not there yet.  I keep letting myself get to this place of exhaustion, getting completely annoyed with the ongoing jabs and purposeful behavior.  I find myself in need of new perspective.  Don’t we all!?

Since this was their first time, Shelly took them on the tour of the ranch and introduced them to the animals (including the chicken who thinks she’s a puppy and will let you pet and hold her).  Then, she taught them how to lead the horse, and they were able to groom two of them as well.  They had a blast!  By the time we returned, though I was exhausted.  So, after getting everyone settled in back home, my husband took over and I took a nap.  

Shortly after the beginning of my nap, one of my kids’ old habits began. My kids have tended to freak out when I’m in my room and not out with them (at all moments, mind you).  In the past, it was much more obvious.  While today the behaviors were not quite as obvious, they were still reminiscent of the old habit.  It used to be that, as soon as I was back in my room for a nap or just to have some time to myself (with my husband out there with them, of course), they’d be perfectly quiet out in the living room, going down the hallway, and then again when they were in their room.  Where they weren’t quiet?  You guessed it.  Right in front of my room!  They’d walk from the living room and down the hallway, completely quiet as a mouse, and then right in front of my room they’d suddenly remember some completley random question that they “needed” to shout out to one of their siblings at that exact moment.  So, they would yell out that silly question, making sure they made enough noise to wake me up, and then proceed quietly to their room.  This scenario would repeat itself more and more the longer I was in my room.  When asked about their behavior, they’d make it clear that they felt that I should be out with them, and they wanted to try to make me wake up and come out (again, the “how DARE you do something for yourself or that isn’t directly for ME!” attitude so common with RAD kids).  While my kids still have that attitude, they have learned to curb their behavior quite a bit in the last two years (dad having them make it up to mom every time they performed those little tricks has helped this greatly!).  

It sometimes still annoys me to think that my kids honestly feel that I should be at their beck and call at every blessed moment of the day.  Dad can be gone…that’s ok.  But mom – if MOM isn’t there, then she has completely abandoned them!!  At times, I struggle with being angry at my children for this completely unrealistic expectation.  Other times I understand where it comes from and I’m better able to shrug it off.  I go between the two attitudes.  I wish I could say that it doesn’t bother me still after two years, but sometimes the fact that it has been that long causes me to wonder just how much longer it will take for this to go away.  I think, though, that this self-centered way of viewing the world will probably be there for a long time to come.  I just need to figure out a way to handle it better without them changing!  Maybe I just need to reread the book Boundaries, by Cloud and Townsend, so that I remember what to do with people who step over my boundaries!  Even if it is a little kid!  :)

Regardless of where they are at in this journey, I find one thing to be completely obvious.  These moms love their kids.  Whether they’ve just started out or have been doing this for years, they love their kids.  Whether they are feeling burnt out or completely rejuvenated, they are doing an amazing job…and love their kids!

Did I mention that they love their kids?  Do they get burnt out?  YES!  Do they tire of dealing with attrotious behavior?  YES, YES!  Do they always know the right thing to do?  Nope.  But, these amazing moms, through exhaustion and emotional fatigue, push through to figure out the answers!  They get up, every day, and keep on keeping on.  And that, in itself, makes you a hero. 

And, just so you amazing moms know….I admire all of you so much.  You have put up with more than what is humanly possible, and they keep loving.  Even when you feel like you hate your child.  It’s not the child that you hate….it’s the incredibly awful behaviors that are exhausting you.

Remember, moms….You may not always like your child’s behavior.  Who would?  But, you absolutely would give your life for them.  In fact, you do so right now, day in and day out, in the little things you do, despite how you feel.  You give your life for them every day.  And you deserve way more applause than you ever will receive in this lifetime.  Thumbs up to you!!!  Know that the angels in heaven applaud you, every day, as you’re dealing with a mountain of laundry because your child once again peed in his clothing on purpose.  They cheer you on as you deal with the dumb questions, constant chatter, glares, “I hate you’s,” stealing, lying, and neediness.  I know that sometimes you don’t feel like what you do makes that much difference (mostly because the change comes so slowly).  I know there are times you want to throw in the towel and take the next bus out of town!  I know sometimes you feel exhausted, beat down, alone, afraid, and like no one out there cares or understands.  I know.  I’ve been there, too.  

But God sees what you do, day in and day out.  He sees the heartache you feel in your heart.  He sees the aprehension and the wondering if this child will really be able to “make it” as they get older.  He sees all of that.  And He hasn’t abandoned you.  You are not alone.  And He sees you as AN AMAZING MOM!  Despite your discouragement and fatigue.  He knows.

Please don’t let the messages from your children (or other people, for that matter) tell you otherwise.  You know…the constant messages you get saying, “You can’t take care of me.” or “You don’t love me.”  or “You don’t ever do enough for me (or give me enough – attention, love, hugs, stuff, etc.).”  You are amazing.  You are the one for the job.  A tough job…undoubtedly.  But one you were created for and can do like no one else can do.  Not many people would be able to fill your shoes.  Most wouldn’t last a day.  But, you have lasted this long.  Your child still lives, right?  You haven’t yet dropped him along side of the highway for him to fend for himself yet, right?  That’s a huge accomplishment!!  :)  Give yourself a pat on the back!!!!  And, you take it one step further.  You actually do good things for this child who repays you by spitting in your face emotionally (or perhaps physically from time to time).  You keep plugging along.

I’d also like to remind you that you are not doing what you are doing for this child.  Yes, we want them to heal.  Yes, we do lots of stuff for this child every day.  But, ultimately, it can’t be for this child that we work.  Otherwise, our love will fail and grow weak.  No….our work must be for the One Who loves us, Who saved us, and Who every day gives us the grace to go another moment.  His love – endless.  His grace – ours for the taking.  It can’t be on our own or for our kids we work.  It must be for Him and in His strength alone that we do this work.

May all of you awesome moms (especially those of you who don’t feel so awesome right now) have a blessed day!  (And, usually when you don’t feel very awesome, it’s because you are dealing with way more than one person should have to.)  I pray for others to come along side of you and encourage you right now in the middle of your struggle and pain.  May God’s love come down and remind you that God loves YOU…not just your child.

First of all, sometimes I feel like there must be more that I could be doing to help them.  While I think, no matter what, it is always possible to do more, with wounded children it doesn’t really depend on how much or how little the mom does.  Whether or not they heal has a large part to do with their choice to want to heal.  But I still always feel guilty that I’m  not doing enough.

The other way I get burnt out is that I begin to get angry with how much they are missing out.  I want for them to be doing well.  I want a good life for them.  Yet, I get frustrated because, regardless of the consequences they receive, they continue making poor choices over and over and over again.  I want fun, laughter, hope, love….you know.  The best in life.  I want for them to rise above the abuse they’ve endured.  Most of the time, I want it way more than they do, and that makes me sad.  And angry.  And frustrated.

And sometimes, when I am wanting so much more for them…I find myself connecting too much to them.  Let me explain.  When giving a consequence to a wounded child, the best way to do it is with empathy.  ”Wow…I am really bummed for you that you have to do this.”  But, when my compassion passes over a line, I get way too emotionally involved.  I don’t want to have to give this consequence.  I see how much they are messing up their own lives.  And, I find myself getting angry instead of showing empathy, just because I really want for them to stop doing whatever it is they are doing, so they can have good things.  My compassion in wanting the good thing way more than they do causes me to loose perspective and cut off their learning opportunity.  I become angry, and that’s all they see.  They don’t learn from their mistake…they just blame me because I got angry.

Even when I am in the middle of feeling so completely burnt out by my kids’ behavior that I don’t even want to see their smiling faces (let alone their angry ones), I have to remind myself of one thing.  It is not my children that I dislike.  I love them very much, and I want the best for them.  No….it is their behavior and choices that I absolutely despise.  And I despise their behavior because of the damage I see it doing to them.  I hate how much they miss out in life.

While I would absolutely LOVE being able to teach my kids the fun stuff in parenting (like how to be a good friend and what their strengths and talents are).  I’d love to be cheering them on at Little League, going to their soccer games, and, well….you know.  The fun, healthy, normal kid stuff that we enjoy seeing our kids excel at.  Instead, I’m cheering them on with, “Good job talking about how much you hate me in your feelings journal!  Way to be honest!!”  ”I love it how you talked about your feelings, instead of acting them out!”  or “Good job not stealing today!  Way to go!”

I know that my kids did not cause the damage done to their brains through neglect, abuse, and abandonment; however, they are the ones who must deal with the consequences.  (Along with my husband and I).  I just hope that they can process through their abuse in time to lead healthy, successful lives.  And, maybe that looks different for wounded kids.  Either way, I have to in some ways distance myself from their behavior and consequences.  I have to understand that I did NOT do this to them and that there’s only so much I can do to help them.  The rest is up to them.  And, I have to keep my heart in check and realize that keeping this boundary in place helps me to be a better parent to this wounded child.  I feel badly that they keep missing out; however, I cannot make them choose what is good for them.  And that’s ok.

During one of the sessions, my son looked up at me and told me, “You hate me….you just don’t want to deal with me.”  My response?  ”Really?  You think I’d drive 2 1/2 hours away, go through this long of a therapy session with you, and drive back if I didn’t love you or want to deal with you?  Trust me…this is the last thing I’d be doing if I didn’t love you!”  The therapist also reminded him that he was sitting in my lap at the moment of this declaration.

I have found that this faulty way of thinking permeates everything wounded kids do.  They come into your home thinking that they are not loved.  Their past has taught them this very well.  No matter what you do, they are trying to prove that this is the case, simply because it’s what they already believe.  And they work hard to prove that you don’t love them.

I have had a child look at me, ask me a question for which they knew the answer would be “no,” and then, once they get that expected answer, walk off dejected.  You can almost hear in their demeanor…”See.  I knew she didn’t love me.”  (They also do this when they’re just mad at you for breathing and they want to find some legitimate thing to be mad at you for…I tell my kids that they are welcome to be mad at me for no reason.  They don’t even have to work that hard to come up with a one!  Just be mad!)

Sometimes, when I am helping my children deal with this whole anger/you-hate-me issue, part of me is thinking, “Are you serious?  Really?”  Children with RAD have so much rage and anger that they pretty much get mad at anything and everything.  And everything you do is reason for them to believe that you do not love them.  You went for a walk = You hate me and now I’m angry with you.  You went out for coffee with a friend = You hate me and now I’m angry with you.  You answered the phone = You hate me and now I’m angry with you.  You made me do a chore = (you guessed it) You hate me and now I’m angry with you.  I find that it almost becomes comical at times the types of things that these children become angry with.  I’ve discovered that pretty much any and everything I do makes my children mad.  I’m evidently really good at it.  It’s a talent I never knew I had before having children in my home with Reactive Attachment Disorder.

This used to bother me so much.  No matter what I did, my children got angry and assumed that I didn’t love them.  And I used to get frustrated with the daily need for the question, “Ok…so what are you mad about?  Use your words!”  Now I just figure that I WILL be making my children mad throughout the day.  And, no matter what, they WILL assume I don’t love them.  I might as well just go about my day and have fun, knowing that they are going to be angry and hurt no matter what.  I can’t control what they get angry and hurt about.  They came to me that way.  All I can do is love them anyway.  And sometimes now I even decide that I might as well even make their anger fun for me.  (It’s sick, I know.  But, when you’re dealing with it day in and day out, you find sick and twisted ways of coping.)

On this particular day, when my child told me that he thought I hated him, I said, “You know what?  That makes me really angry!  If I have company over, you think I hate you.  When I get ready in the morning instead of pay non-stop attention to you…you think I hate you.  I do ANYTHING and you think I hate you.  You have made it completely impossible for me to love you according to your standards.  You have this huge list of things that I must do in order for you to feel loved, and no one would be able to live up to your standards.   And, quite honestly it’s only because you want to keep my love at a distance.  It’s not fair.”

I don’t know if any of my words got through.  But they needed to be said.  I DO love my children – very much.  Quite honestly, if I didn’t I would have left them on the doorstep of some unsuspecting person – or along the highway on the way to therapy – a long time ago.  Just the fact that they are still in my house and are still living is a huge monument to my love for them.  Not to mention the healthy meals I prepare for them, the countless hours I spend trying to find programs to help them heal, the fun activities I plan for them.  One day, I pray that my love will be able to seep into their hearts.  One day.

I think part of it simply is because I had a break…and it felt good.  My husband and I went camping alone for the weekend, and I really relaxed.  No children screaming for my attention.  No pee shrines.  Only us – out in nature (and, his mom’s camping trailer, where we actually watched some movies, too).  Sometimes after a break I find it hard to go back into the mess.  It’s nice not to have to conduct multiple “therapy sessions” per day per child.  It’s nice for a while not to have to deal with all of their insecurities and fears.  But, then the break concludes, and I must go back into the muck.  And, the muck tends to be worse after we have had a break….my children’s anger over being “abandoned” for the weekend makes me uncertain of what kind of reception I will come home to.

Part of my breakdown also stems from earlier this week.  I felt very overwhelmed in therapy, and I think it took me a while to even realize it.  Not really prepared for even one intense session, and I got two of them (and then a third child who completely shut down and refused to talk altogether).  And they things the two shared were doozies.  Found out more than I ever wanted to know about my kids, what they are doing, how they think, and what they want to do.  You know….one of those sessions.  One where you walk out going, “Hmmmm…not sure what to do with that one.”  One that you feel the need to get a therapist for YOU afterwards, just to figure out how to process through all of the junk you just heard.

I find myself a little grossed out right now by my kids’ behavior and thought processes.  Normally I can take it, but it has just been a little too much too often lately.  Perhaps because they are just sharing more now, because of where things are at in therapy.  Either way, I find myself not quite sure how to continue giving them unconditional love right now.  I want space.  I don’t want to deal with sexual issues, bodily function issues, wanting to kill my new puppy, a constant need for supervision and a constant desire for attention.  It’s all a bit much for me right now.  I’m starting to feel burnt out…not as much as I was before, but I guess just burnt out on dealing with extreme issues.  I wish that part was over.  When do we get to the fun stuff?  Will we ever?

Today I found myself trying to figure out how to handle it all, when I was reminded of some old lessons I’ve learned while chatting with a friend today.  Something I’ve learned before but keep forgetting.  She asked me how I got out of my extreme funk last year, when I was completely and utterly burnt out.  I told her that I pretty much ended up sending my kids to the day camp at the Boys and Girls Club almost every day, thinking that would help.  Then, ONE week before school started, I realized, “Shoot!  I only have one more week of this extended schedule with a few more hours away from my kids.  Then school starts and it’s back to the normal schedule.”  I realized I wasn’t ready for it, and I also realized that I needed to do something drastic to change that.  So, what did I do?  I spent the entire week on me.  The entire time that the kids were at day camp, I went out with friends, listened to music, read books, sipped coffee.  Took life easy and took extreme care of myself.  And, after only one week, my husband declared he’d seen an entire 180 degree turnaround.  I went from complete burnout, where I didn’t even want to look at my kids, to being able to give and love again.  It was that obvious and that fast.  

So, what did I learn from that experience?  (And, what is it that I keep forgetting?)  I MUST take care of myself.  If I don’t, I will not be able to parent my children in the way I need to.  They need extreme measures of love, forgiveness, mercy, healing, and nurture.  I must give myself extreme measures of those same things in order to give them what they need.  And, frequently…I don’t.

Sometimes I don’t care for myself the way I need to, because, quite honestly, it feels selfish.  I look around.  I have several stacks of paperwork that needs to be done, mostly for my kids.  I have a master bathroom half done that needs for me to paint it in order to get it fully working (which, by the way, will be so wonderful…I won’t have to bring my toiletries back and forth from our only bathroom – just like I did in college – so that nothing gets peed in or stolen!  Yah!).  I have calls to make.  I have schedules to get ready for the summer.  I have so many things to do.  However, if I don’t take care of the one commodity that can help my kids heal – me – I won’t be accomplishing much, no matter how much of that I get done.  

But, too often, I let guilt get in the way of what I really need to do.  Guilt that my husband is working hard to provide for our family.  How dare I give myself a pedicure while he’s away at work?

We MUST take time to stop and smell the roses.  Sometimes, after smelling so much urine and poop for so long, we start to forget that roses are even out there.  We have to do those things that keep us connected to the beautiful side of humanity, rather than the utter depravity we experience every day.  We must connect with God.  Listen to music.  Watch a breathtaking view.  Stop and talk to a friend.  Read a book.  Whatever it is that fills you up.  Make sure you do something today that fills YOU up.  After all, junior can stay in his room for 30 minutes while mom unwinds.  It’s OK.

We as moms (and dads) of wounded kids MUST take extreme measures to take care of ourselves, so that we can help our kids heal.  That may mean using more of our budget to do things that to the outside world look like frivolous things, then we must.  For families with wounded kids….they “frivolous” things are absolutely necessary for survival.  So, don’t feel guilty if you NEED to get a massage every week or a manicure.  That sounds selfish and silly, but…it is NOT.  Take good care of yourself.  These kiddos needs for you to help them heal.  And, without you (and without you being sane and refreshed)….that won’t happen.

And, for those of you who know someone parenting a wounded kiddo….give her (or him) understanding when she needs to pamper herself a little more than the average person.  Perhaps you can even facilitate some pampering for her….