We Have to Go Find It!

The kids ate popsicles on the deck after weeding the garden on Monday.

It has been a hard last week or so with RAD. No huge outbursts and rages, but constant controlling and tons of disrespect. The Holy Spirit convicted me that I had been letting a lot of my daughter's disrespect slide and the He helped give me the courage to start confronting it at every turn a week ago Monday. It was a full-time job last week. Providing consequences for the disrespect is so challenging for me because I know the moment I provide a consequence I am going to get even more bad behavior. I fear that I won't be able to handle it or know how to provide a consequence after that. Trusting God to help me know how to parent this child has been the biggest growing experience of my life. 

In the midst of this constant disrespect needing addressed, the Holy Spirit helped me implement a therapeutic parenting strategy I had yet to use. Firm boundaries are always needed, but there are times the brains of  kids with RAD literally get "stuck" in a rut and you need to do something to help them out of it.  I had sent her to her room and told her she could come out whenever she was ready to be respectful again. She came out right away but wasn't respectful. This went on a few times and it had already been a long, hard morning. So, without barely thinking, I did a crazy therapeutic parenting technique straight out of Nancy Thomas' book "When Love is Not Enough:"

I said to my daughter with a startled, serious look: "We have to go find it!" "What?" she asked in an angry voice. I said in a rushed tone, "get your shoes on, we have to go find it!" She was so puzzled and very reluctant, but did come follow me outside so we could go on a little walk and "find it." (My sister was here eating lunch so she was manning the fort...Otherwise I would have taken all the kids on this little walk.) 

I started walking down the sidewalk with her, having no idea myself what "it" was going to be and I was still a bit in disbelief that I was actually doing this. But I was trusting God with every step that He would use this. A few houses down, I saw a bright yellow leaf sticking out of the grass and I dramatically said, "Ah-ha! There it is! I found it!" More confusion and bewilderment and questions about why I needed "it" from my daughter. After a few steps, I looked back and noticed she had picked up a leaf. :) I walked to the end of the block and did another dramatic, "I found it!" with another leaf. She walked over to where I picked up the leaf and was searching the ground as if for treasure. :) We turned around and walked back home. She continued to try to figure out what in the world we were doing with these leaves. 

And that is the point. (I continued to just say, "I found it.")

This crazy little technique shifted her brain from being stuck in the rut, literally (neurons habitually firing in the same patterns), that she has had to use to control everything around her to survive. Going outside to "find it" caused her to have to use her brain to figure out what in the world mom was doing instead. It wasn't punitive and it didn't cause shame. I kept an upbeat, positive tone and attitude the whole time. And it snapped her out of her downward spiral.

It was lunch time and while I was willing to have her stay in her room and miss lunch if she chose (as a consequence for defiance), I really wanted her to eat, if possible (all moms know that full tummies help kids  function better!). When we got to the house, I said, "let's sneak in the back door." As we got to the back door, I said, "I bet your tummy is hungry, you should eat lunch." She formerly had refused to sit at the table and eat with the rest of us, but after that moment, she did sit down and eat. She cooperated with cleaning up the kitchen and ran off to the back room with her cousins to play with a happy, lighthearted attitude. 

Whew!

It still makes me smile when I think about this little scenario. I am so thankful for the Holy Spirit who lives in me. I can do NOTHING without Jesus empowering me every day. Had I thought through doing this little technique to do with my daughter, I would have chickened out. I swear to you as I stood at her bedroom door, the Holy Spirit pushed the words out of my mouth, "let's go find it!"

More disrespectful behavior continued after that . . . especially when we made the announcement Saturday night at dinner that we were going to the zoo on Sunday morning. BIG MISTAKE. I should have known better, too. Nancy Thomas says that knowledge is power and when you give your RAD child the knowledge of what you are doing, where you are going, plans, etc., it gives them power to use it to control and manipulate. We have experienced this so many times (but we are slow learners!). I purposefully don't tell the kids what we are doing in even the next hour at home for this reason. When they ask what is for dinner, I say, "mom has it planned and you will see when we make dinner." Otherwise, I hear all kinds of negatives opinions of what the girls think about what we are making. 

Jason and I had planned to take the kids to the zoo Sunday morning because we knew that there was going to be an {awesome} performance at church by the kids from worship arts camp the week before. Our RADish child asks frequently if she can sing and dance at church. In addition, our niece, Mya, was going to be in the performance. Having our daughter watch this would have been asking for a DISASTER (tons of disrespect and bad behavior). Without question. We had been wanting to take them to the zoo, so we chose to do it at that time. 

The problem is that Jason and I didn't talk about when to tell the kids about the zoo ahead of time (it is hard to have these kinds of conversations with four kids around you all day!). So, at dinner, we made the last minute decision to tell them. Like I said, BAD IDEA. Our making the the fun announcement that we were taking the kids to the zoo made us look like really good, fun parents and little RADish just couldn't handle that. She was defiant after dinner, had to go to her room, defiant again and then therefore missed out on the first 10 minutes of our movie. When she realized the movie started without her, her world fell apart. She got to watch most of the movie, but went to bed very mad. I was very unsure of how the zoo was going to go. She was very cold and silent in the morning, but right before we left, she finally had to ask me for help with something. That softened her up a bit and by the time we got to the zoo, she was in good spirits. Whew! (again) We had a great time at the zoo. (Another post to come). But, the afternoon was full of more bad behavior.

When parenting kids with RAD, it is SO HARD to not let the child's threats, control, fits, disrespect, etc. get to you and make you back down and feel like "this is impossible." So many times last week (and in the last couple months), I was not sure if things will ever get better with our daughter. The ONLY HOPE I have in these times is trusting God by sheer faith - being sure of what I HOPE for and certain of what I DO NOT SEE - that God is working even when I don't see it. The moment my daughter is disrespectful, I have a choice: to cave into my feelings that tell me it would just be easier to ignore it and appease her OR walk out on the narrow limb and trust God that not letting her to herself will bring healing in the long run. If I did not have God's Word and the Holy Spirit living inside of me, I would be a sunk ship!

BUT GOD IS SO FAITHFUL. First, He has been faithful (after many of my failures) to give me the courage to stand firm and hold the line at every turn with my daughter this last week. And second, He showed me a little bit of fruit two days ago. After a week of loads of disrespect and lots of walking out on the narrow limb to not allow the disrespect, this past Tuesday I had the best day with my RADish child that I have had YET. She was not defiant all day, she asked me for things respectfully, she said, "thank you," sweetly many times after I did something for her, she was a JOY to be with (ahhhhh!!) and to top it off, the way she looked at me in my eyes was DIFFERENT - in an "I trust you more" kind of way.

It brings tears to my eyes to think that her heart really is changing. 

Her behavior on Tuesday was enough to spur me on to keep on keeping on with this tough love and tough holding-the-line-business. My flesh so easily wants to let things slide out of fear of how bad her behavior will be when I say no. (Have I mentioned God is conquering my fears through my daughter?!) But, I also easily forget that kids with RAD want and need a mix of a grandma and an Arnold Schwarzenegger (according to N. Thomas) to walk with them through this dark path to healing. They need the gentle nurture of a mother/grandmother, but they also need the toughness of Arnold that will not let them to themselves. Seriously, how many times do I have to learn this lesson?!

I know many of you are praying for us and for my daughter and I am so thankful. Hopefully you can see that God is working and answering all of our prayers.