I'm reading "Parenting the Hurt Child: Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow" by Gregory Keck.
The chapter I'm reading gives various thoughts and strategies for coping with control issues and letting the hurt child give up some control so they can become more attached to their parents.
I like this exerpt:
"If you can't make the child change his behavior, make his behavior what you want. Sound confusing? It's not. If your child is having a temper tantrum, telling him to stop is pointless. Instead, say something like, 'Oh, a tantrum. I think I'll get some iced tea and make myself comfortable while I watch.' Or, if you're feeling particularly brave, say something like, 'You can do better than that, can't you? I'll bet you can scream loud.'
"If the tantrum continues, it seems like compliance. The child now has two choices--to stop or to keep going and do what you want.
"One family, inspired by the Olympics, had cards printed with the numbers 1 to 5 on them. When their child's tantrum started, everyone in the family held up a card to judge it. The rest of the family had fun, and the power of the tantrum was decreased."
This example sounds like something obnoxious I would have done to my siblings when I was a kid, but I can see a lot of wisdom in using it with children who have trouble trusting and attaching to adults.
It's a great book with lots of insight. After this, I'll have to read "Parenting with Love and Logic" as recommended by so many (including siblings, Emily, this book I'm reading now, and the Foster/Adoption agency we're working with). Too bad they don't have a Kindle edition for me to read on my iPod or laptop (or Emily's Kindle!)
Just watching cartoons online. Today's is from Avatar: The Last Airbender is known is "The Great Divide" (The embedded video may not show up in Google Reader, go to this posting itself to watch the episode, it's a good one)
And yes, that title right there ^ is foreign because it's from some other country, because this is probably some sort of copyright infringement being out on the internet.
Grace has a tendency towards something. Always has, and a good example of it happened recently. The other day she was playing with Leif and they got in a scuffle over a toy. She grabs the toy away from Leif and then pushes him down and he begins to cry. I saw this happen and intervened. "Grace, don't grab away toys like that, and we don't push, ever."
So, what does Grace do? She cries. Not just cries, she screams and wails for 10 minutes. Long after Leif had stopped crying, she's still bawling her eyes out. And she's angry at us. She's still lurching after the toy we took away and kicking and screaming at us like its our fault she's in trouble.
The truly sad part of the story is that Grace's outburst consumed so much of our energy, that neither of us were able to see to Leif and comfort him and make sure he was okay. Though Grace was getting into trouble, she succeeded in maintaining our attention on her and away from him and away from the wrong deed that was done. Her strategy worked and in the end, she won.
Once she did this to Emily at the mall, and while Emily is taking Grace out to the car Grace screams out and shouts "STOP HITTING ME!" although Emily was simply carrying Grace as calmly as possible. With people around, Emily's only option was to put Grace down, step back, and show the world she's not in need of Child Protective Services. Grace's outburst won here as well. Despite being the one in the wrong, her tantrums and drama overpower all else. Timeouts and lectures were plentiful once home, but it was a shallow victory to the whole ordeal and not after tainting Emily's appearance to those around her (only marginally was it a good thing everyone around her was a stranger, we hope). Even the apologies she says later are hollow, having only occurred with prompting.
Now, Grace is a wonderful and usually sweet, thoughtful, little girl, but she's incredibly smart and adept, and right now not able to recognize how devious and dastardly she is behaving in emotional moments like that. Any suggestions?
That's how I feel right now. I'm not entirely sure why. I just got back from a show down in the Mission district. It's one of the busier grittier parts of SF. It's not just gritty, its nitty-gritty. An old roommate was playing a show with his band. We were roommates for just one semester a long time ago, but man, I had a great time in that apartment. I've kept in touch with him just a bit and he lets me know how he's doing from time to time.
A few years ago, he formed a band and they got an album out. Just a few months ago they got their second out. Cool. It's a great band. Indie-tronica is a great way to describe their style. A few months ago he emails me to tell me they're going on tour and would like a place to crash in SF and could they sleep on our floors/couches/etc. That ended up being last night. 5 of them. They were all really nice and fun to talk with. Tonight, at their show I got to catch up with Kael and his wife, Heather, a bit more and their friend John. All, really impressive people. Kael works for his brother's company writing music for TV commercials and other stuff (if you have an AppleTV and you listen to the startup music, that's his, or the power-on sound of several Palm phones). His band actually gets a lot of fans because of one car commercial he did.
People on the internet go looking for it, find out he wrote it and has this band that he writes the songs for. I overheard some fans tonight coming to them and telling them they found the band through that commercial. Awesome. He is allowed to make it available but not to sell it. (John says it's kinda frustrating that Kael writes all this great music, but they can't use it in their band :-)
Heather just finished her first year at UCLA's medical school. Their friend John, is a new English Professor at Yale. Crazy. Buncha smart people. All on breaks from jobs/school to do this tour with their band. With them is Kurt and Sebastian.
I feel all weird tonight, like I had an amazing time, but not excited amazing, just uber satisfied amazing. Maybe I liked the attention, or because of the novelty of being out late at a rock show (a small one, but cooler for it), or that I felt cool being in some small club in the Mission listening to a bunch of cool bands and having an inside connection with one of them. Maybe it's just a bit of hero worship and admiration. Maybe I feel just a little bit cooler because I'm hanging out with REALLY cool people. One fan was getting autographs of everyone in the band on the CD he bought tonight and he tries to hand it to me to get me to sign it. "Oh, wait, YOU haven't signed it yet!" Funny, a bit awkward, but funny.
As I drove home, all I could think about was how great a time I had and how lucky I am to have what I have and know what I know. Holy crap lucky. Blessed, fortunate, whatver. I couldn't stop thinking about Emily and Grace and Leif.
I was also reminded of how slow I am, socially. Trying to say what I meant and be entertainingly conversant. Like the awkward statements I make, or comments that don't add to the conversation and probably drag it into the many awkward silences that abound around me. I did make some friends tonight but I lack the resources and strategies to maintain them and feel bad about it.
What was fun was helping them load their equipment into the van while another band was still playing and the show was still going. I was going in and out of this small club and while others were showing ID's or whatever to get past the doorman, we make eye-contact, give each other the little nod and I just walk past. Yeah, that's how important I was tonight. (So stupid, I know, why does this stuff go through my head??)
In our small conversations we nabbed when we could, I'm not sure how much they learned about me. I'm guessing our little family looked like the perfect, quaint little nuclear family. Emily even made them all waffles and banana bread muffins (which they all commented to me tonight how great they were) after I left for dental school on my bicycle. Grace was the ultimate little girl and in love with all of them and cried and screamed when she had to say good-bye. Leif was just his charmingly cute and shy self. They don't get to see our depth, what makes me look at my life and feel like it is fantastically awesome. And I'm okay with that. I'm judgmental of other people who seem shallow or superficial (whatever they are doing good or bad) and I realize I don't think less of them, so why should I care if others see me the same way and probably don't think less of me?
I got to see them at an exciting moment in their lives, and it was fun to be a part of it. I highly recommend checking them out. They are Faded Paper Figures. The other really awesome band I saw tonight is We Landed on the Moon. "Boats" is a great song.
Grace and I like watching FPF's music video but I think the robot weirds her out:-)
