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OMG - love behavior bingo! Totally doing it!
Have the boy's caseworkers lined you up with attachment therapy? I'm not saying he has AD - but the manipulation and lying are a big part of that. It takes special therapy to get through it.
I've also heard that it takes as long as they were without you to be with you and make it totally loving (which means I have 4 and 3 more years...crap)...but I've also heard that year 3 of being home is a big one and that lots of changes can come...we are in that year and I'm hopeful for these changes.
Look, there are good days, bad days, really bad days and neutral days. Perhaps I didn't say great days because that is a high expectation...I try not to set those. Give yourself easy goals to achieve. Today I'll sit with him for 15 minutes, just the two of us and tell him stories. Even if he tries to ruin them or wiggle away...I'll be loving and sweet and use a calm voice. Today, I'll rock him like a baby for 10 minutes. I'll talk to him like a baby and wrap him like a baby and make it a game...for just 10 minutes.
Each time you can knock down that wall a little - well, it's knocked down a little. Not a huge breakthrough - but small, tiny steps to love. If you feel a sense of committment to taking care of this child - that is a step. There were days in the beginning that not only would I have not stepped in front of the bus for them - I may have been the one pushing. I've come a long way baby! (and that is a total joke...for anyone getting their panties in a bunch...never planned to push my kids in front of a bus!)
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