On a good day, parenting will test the integrity of your character. On a bad day, parenting will test your will to live. Parenting children with trauma histories will cause you to test the integrity of everything and everyone you thought you knew, for the rest of your life.
~J. Skrobisz

Thursday, June 3, 2010

life coach

OMG
I'm sitting here in the living room, reading emails. Sissy is in the kitchen working with her life coach. Today's topic is worrying. Sissy is a chronic worry wart. This child can imagine the most impossible scenarios and convince herself that they will happen to her and only her, over and over and over. She's certain that the world is against her. The thought of unforeseeable horrors happening to her consumes her. But as I listen, and quietly observe, her language and body posture are telling her life coach that she doesn't care, isn't worried about anything, that all of this is nauseatingly absurd.

And then the life coach asked her about something, ANYTHING she might have EVER worried about, even just once. (I gotta give the therapist props - she's GOOD!)

Sissy, caught off guard says, "well, I had a dream about aliens and I woke up worrying that they were going to abduct me."

The life coach, without missing a beat says, "What did you do about that, how did you handle that worry?"

Sissy replied, "Well, mostly I was just glad that I didn't get abducted."

OK. I admit it. I laughed. From the living room. Played it off like it was the TV I found humorous.

But here's the REAL side of the story. Since I didn't let Sissy play her other therapist the other night, trying to convince her that she was waking up every night fretting and worrying about aliens, today Sissy has changed her story to it being a "nightmare" that she woke up from, not a conflagration of her prepossessing thoughts.

Funny how that works, eh?

That's fine, I'll set the life coach straight when she leaves. Sissy will tell them all a different story and no one will have a clue unless I go behind her and say, "well actually..." Thankfully this new team seems willing to hear it.

BTW, got in four more hugs and some touch time with Sissy before yesterday ended. Today is Day 7. Let's see what happens today, shall we? I'm anxious that I'm going to send Sissy over the brink if I press too hard. I have plans to go through her space under the auspice of "reorganizing". Show of hands, how many of you think I'm going to uncover contraband? Yep. I'm planning on it. This way we can use it for opportunities to show love despite her yen to hoard and sneak. Dastardly plan, eh?

2 comments:

GB's Mom said...

You are a brave soul. I haven't tried to "reorganize MK's room since we moved to this house, 11 years ago! I am on Day 7, too. All is well with GB, the other two are still looking at me like I have three heads :)

Mama Drama Times Two said...

Dastardly, yes - but with a sophisticated and elegant flair.