Heather at Strong in the Broken Places wrote a beautiful post titled How Would I Know.... You should check it out. She is a beautiful writer.
This is another one she wrote about her daughter called Teaching a Penguin To Fly. (Go read it, I'll wait.)
I see so much of Kitty in this one. Heather* very eloquently put into words the frustration that I feel when I see people wanting to treat my children like they can just spread their wings and fly like eagles. My kids look like eagles, but in many ways they are penguins (they look like birds, they have wings like birds, but no one expects penguins to fly like birds). The problem is determining in which ways they are capable of being eagles, which ways they could soar (with some major assistance from the ground crew), and in which ways they are penguins and will always be penguins.
I get so frustrated when I hear people saying that Kitty or Bear's behavior is "normal teenage behavior" or it's because I'm not spending enough time with them, or we're being too strict... Maybe sometimes it is just normal teenage behavior, but most of the time it's penguin behavior, and the motivations and instincts behind the behavior are so different.
As we deal with the kids' behaviors, Kitty's meltdowns, Bears' irritability and hyper vigilance, Hubby and I are frequently frustrated with not knowing what is causing the behaviors and therefore not knowing what to do about them.
Anyway, I like this analogy, and hope you like Heather's blog. She may not write often, but I found her blog to be very entertaining and insightful.
*yes, I see the potential confusion here for some of you. Nothing I can do about it. It's her name!
This is another one she wrote about her daughter called Teaching a Penguin To Fly. (Go read it, I'll wait.)
I see so much of Kitty in this one. Heather* very eloquently put into words the frustration that I feel when I see people wanting to treat my children like they can just spread their wings and fly like eagles. My kids look like eagles, but in many ways they are penguins (they look like birds, they have wings like birds, but no one expects penguins to fly like birds). The problem is determining in which ways they are capable of being eagles, which ways they could soar (with some major assistance from the ground crew), and in which ways they are penguins and will always be penguins.
I get so frustrated when I hear people saying that Kitty or Bear's behavior is "normal teenage behavior" or it's because I'm not spending enough time with them, or we're being too strict... Maybe sometimes it is just normal teenage behavior, but most of the time it's penguin behavior, and the motivations and instincts behind the behavior are so different.
As we deal with the kids' behaviors, Kitty's meltdowns, Bears' irritability and hyper vigilance, Hubby and I are frequently frustrated with not knowing what is causing the behaviors and therefore not knowing what to do about them.
- Is it medication based (found a pill Bear must have dropped, we've changed the time on a med that makes Kitty sleepy, Bear's having trouble with insomnia again...)?
- Is it a symptom of one of their diagnoses, and if so, which one?
- Is something going on with school, relationships with friends and families, a movie or TV show... anything that could be causing stress or anxiety?
- Is it caused by the abandonments, the abuse, the changes in caregivers, or any of the other of a multitude of issues and events that happened in the years before we met them?
- Was a genetic predisposition passed down through the generations?
- Is it part of their personality or the way their brain works now after the effects of their childhood? RAD causes brain damage too (your brain becomes wired differently with neglect, or prenatal alcohol/drug abuse).
Anyway, I like this analogy, and hope you like Heather's blog. She may not write often, but I found her blog to be very entertaining and insightful.
*yes, I see the potential confusion here for some of you. Nothing I can do about it. It's her name!
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