[AdoptaMom]

A little over a month ago a 10.5 old year old young lady with cerebral palsy joined our family. This is her first time in foster care and she came directly from her aunt's home to ours. She has had no visits with her family of origin since she entered care - their choice.

She is ambulatory and although she has a speech impediment, we are able to understand her. She feeds, dresses and bathes herself. We help primarily with tasks requiring fine motor skills (buttoning, hair, etc).

She is in a self contained classroom and I initially thought it was due to her physical disabilities. We've since discovered that she has emotional and educational issues as well.

The emotional issues are what I'm concerned most with today. The honeymoon ended for her within a couple of weeks. When she does not get her way, sometimes a switch "flips" and she can begin to meltdown, beginning with a facial "mask" of sorts dropping down over her normally pleasant features and quickly escalating to punching, biting, kicking, scratching and screaming at the top of her lungs. This can go on for 45 minutes to 3 hours and the only way to contain her is to use the "basket hold".

On one occasion she came out of the rage on her own, asked for forgiveness, and everything was fine. Every other instance she has fallen into an exhausted sleep which lasts through until the next morning.

These episodes have started over very, very small frustrations ... being asked to brush her teeth, being told it isn't her turn for the computer, not liking what is for supper. I haven't been able to find a common ground in what her trigger is.

Today her social worker made an appointment with a psychologist to evaluate her, but that's not until mid February. In the interim, how can we prevent this child from hurting herself and us? Is there a better way to physically restrain her than using the basket hold (my training is ancient <g>) Does anyone have any insight into what we an do to help her regain control of herself?

And lastly, a very basic question - just what do YOU do with a child who can trash themselves and their room in under 5 minutes when they decide they don't want to go to bed (or do whatever the requested thing is)???

Any insight, advice, or tidbits warmly welcomed!!