[kxl164]

I used to have a handle on this, but I lost my grip somewhere along the way....

My son, former foster now adopted, is a screamer. He has always been a screamer ever since placement at 10 months, this is not new. He has calmed down a lot, a tremendous amount. He screamed 90% of the time in the beginning, then about 65% of the time before TPR when I could "wear" him, down to 20% of the time post-TPR, to about 5% of the time now, if at all, at 3.5 years old.

He has come a long way.

Now I am finding myself unable to tolerate the screaming anymore. The high pitched I am scared for my life screaming for little reasons like my glove is on wrong or my seat-belt is twisted. I realize that these are normal things that frustrate children and that he uses screaming as his way of dealing with frustration still... I get that in my head, but my emotions are just done with it. I used to be able to handle it, but suddenly I am not. I lost it this morning and yelled at him for it (this is after of course his screaming came out of the blue and startled me so much we almost got into a car accident), and I honestly wanted to just run far and far away and not look back. (Which of course I didn't) Those feelings of course made me feel sick inside and now I am just exhausted and it is not even 10am.

Help find my tolerance/compassion again. I used to have it, I used to be able to help him (which is why he is down to screaming seldomly instead of regularly), now I just feel depleted.

What do you do to handle the screaming, or whatever it is your children do that really gets under your skin and makes you see red? This has always been something I had to work on, but he and I were both doing really well, but I am back-sliding and I don't want him to back-slide along with me.

Thanks,