Our house is chaotic. Pretty much total chaos. Most of the time.
With 2 kids who struggle daily with significant emotional dysregulation it
seems like every moment is a ticking time bomb just waiting for some to start
yelling or accusing or arguing or something totally out of proportion to the
situation. And the rebellion. Ugg... Every time a kid actually says
"yes mom" I about fall over from a shock. It is a rare occurrence.
Peace.
That is what I long for...
So in May I informed the family that this summer was "Summer
Boot Camp." I took everyone's electronic devices away, put up the game
console controllers and games, and put up the remotes to the TV (although they
have slowly earned them back for short periods of time).
My husband and I reminded the kids of the rules already in place.
Chores for each kid and no fighting, arguing, back talk, etc.
Essentially, disrespect will be disciplined. More on disrespect below...
Summer Boot Camp is also forcing my husband and I to be more
diligent about "catching" them being obedient and kind. I bought
colored poker chips and assigned a color to each kid. They get 1 poker chip for
completing their chores, and then every time we "catch" them being
kind to one another, first time obedience, cheerful obedience, being willing to
let someone else do something first, using kinds words and tones of voices,
etc. Once they get to 10 in a single day they get a prize.
*****
Objectively, how has it gone? We are almost 2 months into it and
we have discovered some things.
1. My husband and I needed to be more diligent about catching the
kids doing well lol!
2. My husband and I needed to be better about being on the same
page about expectations, and the same consequences for the kids' lack of
compliance.
3. Behavioral incidents have decreased.
4. Life has been smoother with very strict rules (you thought we
were strict before? Nothing compared to now!) If my kids called me
"The Hammer" before, I don't even want to know what they call me now
lol!
******
I am a person who never really shuts off analyzing behavior,
wondering what motivates a person, or looking for deeper meaning. Most of the
time the kids get mad and tell me to stop being a psychologist and groan that
they were unfortunate enough to have one as a mother. I just tell them that I
have always been wired this way and went into the field because that is how I
think, I don't think this way because of what I do.
Anyway, I have been more intentional about analyzing their
behavior this summer since we are slowly moving out of "crisis parenting" mode and a few weeks ago discovered something that I found
interesting and has changed the way that we are interacting with them with, so
far anyway, delightfully positive results.
You may think this is an "obviously" moment, but for me
it was an "ah ha" moment. They argue (well, 2 of them argue, 2 of
them make dramatic comments and stomp off) with us because they don't... trust
us. I am trained in Trust Based Relational Intervention and have been
using its tenets to try to dig to the bottom of the kids' behavior and the
chaos. When I dug down deep enough I realized that they didn't respect us -
because they don't trust us.
I called a family meeting and talked to them about their disrespect toward us, but also that the
disrespect is rooted in the fact that they don't trust us. I gave a lot of
examples to them of how we see them arguing with us because they don't trust
us, and therefore don't respect us/show us respectful behavior.
"Respect" has been a hard word for both my my husband
and myself. I can remember my husband telling me at the beginning of our
marriage that we will never demand that our children "respect" us. I
came to understand that he grew up with a father that demanded
"respect" (outwardly compliant behavior that never EVER questioned
his father) yet did nothing to earn it (and much to do the opposite). I had similar
conversations with a parent, so it was difficult for us to navigate what
"respect" really meant. We have always believed that respect must be
earned and not demanded. One can show "respectful" behavior externally,
but if one's heart is full of resentment and bitterness (a lack of trust,
connection, and belief that the person actually has your best interest at
heart) is the external compliance really the best goal? Isn't changing the
person's heart the goal (especially in a parent/child situation)? So how does
one do that?
So, the new intervention? Every time that they argue with us we
now respond with "do you trust me?"
I really want to deeply root in their minds and hearts that they
can trust us. Whether this will help or not, after 8 and 10 years of taking
care of their every need hasn't done so, I don't know. But I do know that this
intervention requires more "thought" on their part. They have to
actually think "do I trust them or not?" They have to make a choice
of deferring to our decisions, or to argue and essentially say that they don't
believe that we have their backs or their best interests at heart. Either way,
we are eliminating the knee-jerk rebellion and requiring their response to be
more intentional and thought through.
We have also realized that it goes both ways. Just yesterday we
accidentally discovered that a couple of the kids had done something that was
extra over and above their normal disobedient behavior. We sat them down and
talked, once again, about how we want them to trust us and know that we are
here for them. They do not have to be afraid of us (I believe that fear is the
root of lack of trust, anger, etc). The kids confessed their sin openly (quite
honestly, shocking us) and it appeared they were genuinely remorseful and had no problem with the severity of the consequence. We
talked about how we know it is hard for them to trust us based on what they
have experienced in their lives. However, we also wanted to impress upon them
that it is hard for us to trust them when they act this way
and they need to understand that is why we have such strict rules. We simply
can't trust them. But we want to. We discussed how we know how
they feel struggling to trust us, like we struggle to trust them.
********
So, qualitatively what have we seen since this has started?
It has been different with each kid but I think that all of them show an increased trust in us.
Superman: He is initiating hugs and snuggling more. In the 9 years
he has been with us I can count on 2 hands the number of time he has initiated
a hug. He seems more at peace. He is opening up more. He seems to be genuinely
submitting to our authority (trusting us) and decisions without the anger that has always
been present but underlying his "mask."
Grace: She still argues, but she stops sooner. That is a major,
major improvement. She apologizes more readily, and she actually says "yes
Mom" or "yes Dad" or "ok" several times a day. It
shocks me every.single.time. Every time she has a major tantrum she has to go
to bed early that night. That is her most hated consequence. Quite honestly,
she goes to bed early most nights (which means we have quieter evenings and we
can devote more time to the other kids which is making a noticeable difference
in our relationships with them). But we have found that the more she realizes
that we are serious the more she works toward self-control. We caught her
laughing with the other kids about me forgetting about a consequence and her
getting away with doing something. We write them down now. It doesn't happen
anymore lol!
Faith: She is doing SO much better than she was. Gradually since
the March she has become a very different child than she was the previous 18
months (well, 3+ years). I am so thankful! She wants a lot of holding, is opening up more, and
is far more compliant, and far more willing to accept consequences when she
messes up.
JJ: JJ is a tough nut to crack. Since he can finally talk more or
less in a way that can be understood, he has been insistent to have his voice
"heard." We are thankful that he "speaks" much less with
aggressive behavior now, but his arguing skills, attention to detail, memory of
situations that have happened before, memory of every "yes you can do
that" ever uttered, and ability to sniff out loopholes in logic would make
him an excellent attorney one day.
We had struggled several months ago until recently with him
deciding that I was no longer to hug him, kiss him, or snuggle with him. He
would tell me that he wanted to go live with his "real mom." He said
a lot of things that really hurt. But in the last month he is really coming
around again. For a kid who has begged me for years to "hold me" for
hours a day to being physically rejected has been hard. But it is getting back
to a better place. He is less angry. He initiates hugs, kisses, giving me a
neck rub, and snuggles. He laughs and gets silly when I hug and kiss him. He
seems to be back to the way that he was.
Of course, when I ask him "do you trust me?" He will say
"no" and laugh - ever the contradictory child;)
So, overall I am so thankful that God has given us the wisdom to
see what seems to be going on with the kids. They are at a dangerous age and we
need to be on solid ground moving forward. They need to trust us. I think that
we are getting there. I have more hope than I have had in many years. More
often I am feeling the peace and laughter in our home that has been lacking for
too long. We are actually able to go out on family activities and have them go
better than they ever have.
I had dreaded the kids being home for the summer, but this has
been our best summer yet:) Yay for Summer Boot Camp lol!
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