Compromise

I told my husband that it would mean a lot to the family if he does his part and come home at the right time.  However, he is always pulled out in all directions at work especially when it is around 4 pm.  This is the time that gets busy for him.

Before he complained that their office lost their secretary.  Then, after he is complaining that another person was laid off or not working efficiently.  It is true.  He is not lying.  So, our family takes the worst toll in this situation.

It is very frustrating to tell him every now and then how his presence is so much needed in the house.

At 5 pm, I get very very exhausted.  I feel that my body will crash physically and emotionally.

I think what makes it frustrating is when my husband does not hold his part of the compromise.

We agreed several times (not just one time) that he will move towards efficiency and high productivity at his work.  He told me that he agrees that it is important to put God in our life to put some peace into our children. We agreed that we will go to mass as often as we can or go to Adoration.

Unfortunately, we were unable to do it because of his overtime and inconsistent work schedule.

I wrote this blog hoping that I will gain some wisdom as I talk to myself about my feelings.

I just feel there is no point writing about it when I have not gained anything from the whining.  Do I feel better writing this?  I found an outlet but I still do not feel any better writing about it.

This is an example of a “torment”.  I feel very tormented.  I feel very unheard.

This is what my children feels too.  They feel unheard by their father too only they blame me.  I blame my husband.

The truth is it is not his fault.  He may have numerous “imperfections” but nothing is directly his fault.  This is what life is about… a series of ups and down.  It is about coping on the “valleys” in  your life.

I hope to walk through my “valleys” through prayers.

So, I will isolate myself.  Put my self in the presence of God and talk to Him. I will pray.  I will let you know if this helped me in a little bit.

Essay of an Angry Child

I require the children to do an essay (any topic) everyday.  If they like a prompt, I give one to them.

My 12 year old boy wrote the following:

ANGER

I tried so hard to make them understand, but they refuse to do it.

My parents keep on saying “Why don’t  you talk to us?  When I was a kid, I always talked to my mom about school, girlfriends and teachers.”

“How the heck can my Dad think I can talk about school, girls, or teachers, when I am home schooled?  Then I’m ADHD and I have to take medicine so I get distracted when I do my (home) school work and my Mom calls me crazy a lot then say we all need healing except her.

It’s so frustrating just thinking about it.  Once when my Mom was saying I was crazy and that I didn’t care about my family and I was useless.  Do you know what was going through my mind?

“You are such a jerk!  Everyday, I’m the only one who actually tries to get the kitchen clean before my Dad gets home but then something happens and I have to do something else and then something else.  And by the time my Dad gets home, the kitchen is still messy and I get in trouble.  So you have no right to say I don’t care or that I’m crazy!”

But thinking about how I felt did not stop her so when I couldn’t take it I said “Well if you think I’m crazy, then you are crazy.”

We started to argue.  (It was more of a talk because I wasn’t really doing anything but say what they were doing wrong.  When my Dad came home, he was mad that I called her crazy (I didn’t say that she was) and that I hurt her feelings.  Well what a jerk my Dad was.  Did he care at all about how I felt.  When she calls me crazy?  NO.  I don’t have friends because there’s no one my age around the neighborhood.  When will this end?  My Mom keeps saying “Is there something that’s stressing you sonr?”

Well, I have great news for them: they are stressing me out.  They keep on making me angry.  I shouldn’t have to live life like this.  My Dad doesn’t want to spend anytime with us because all he wants to do is to have sex with my mom everyday.  I’m a 12  year old boy almost 13 and everyone in my family except 4 people have to make me angry.  The anger inside me is huge.  The ANGER!  The way how I’m treated I want to scream, shout, punch, kick or anything else to change my life.

I used to be a nice friendly kid until I became homeschooled.  The one person who ruined my life is my MOM.  Now, all I am now is sad, angry, confused boy with a seriously injured ego and he hates his life.

Believe

I just came out of an emotional tasking day with my 12 year old.  We spent 6 hours together debating.  But, I did something different today.  A very different strategy.

As usual, like any normal homeschooling day, he did not perform well in his Saxon Math.  He has good and bad days.  The past months he has been doing terrible.  The attitude of RAD kids to school is  a great indicator of their healing.  If he is regressing, I know he is stuck not just literally with school work but stuck in a “pity party”.

I began telling him the reason why he is making so many mistakes in his Math school work.  He gave the usual stern look, a stare that seems to show a lot of anger and rage inside him.  I am sure you know that look.  He zoned out as I continued to talk.  Then, I started to mimic him.  I copied all his gestures and facial expressions.  It took 5 minutes before he felt very uncomfortable.  He stood up to leave my bedroom.  I stood up and walked beside him.  He stopped with that questioning look on his face, I stopped and gave the same look.  He proceeded to walk a few more steps, I also did.

Then, he finally asked “Why are you copying whatever I am doing?”  I mirrored him “Why are you copying whatever I am doing?”

He continued to stare at me.  I stared back at him.  This lasted for 10 minutes.

Eventually, tears rolled his eyes.  I told him, “I BELIEVE your eyes are telling me that you are frustrated with me.  Do you see it in my eyes that I care for you?”

Tears continued to roll in his eyes telling me, “Your eyes are cold”.

I told him, “It may look that my eyes are cold, but whether you BELIEVE it or not, I believe my eyes are telling you that I care about you.”

He told me, “It just doesn’t look like your eyes are saying that.”

I said “Can we now agree that if you see this eyes, you will believe that I care about you?”

He said, “No, because I do not see it in your eyes.”

I asked him “Do you believe God is present in this room?”

He said, “Yes.”

“What is your proof God is here?”, I questioned.

“I  just BELIEVE God is in this room.  I just know it. “

” You are right.  God is in this room.  All we have to do is BELIEVE.  I ask of you to BELIEVE me that I want the best for you.  And you have to understand that no matter how much I will say it to you or try to do things for you, if you won’t allow yourself to BELIEVE,  nothing will happen.  This is how important it is to TRUST and BELIEVE.”

So we went to another hour of the boy telling me all the bad things I did in his life.  I told him, “You can believe that is true, and even if I tell you and explain to you, you will never BELIEVE because you do not TRUST me.  I have no choice but to continue loving you and finding a way to get that point across to you.  But, what I believe is this:  God told me to take care of you and I am doing that whether you believe me or not.  I believe that I am doing God’s will.  If you think I am a horrible Mom, pray and tell God.  TRUST GOD and BELIEVE that God listens to you.  On my part, I will BELIEVE and Trust God that He will heal your hurts and you will not feel sad anymore about your life.  But, meanwhile, my hands are tied.  I cannot change how your siblings interact with you, but I can tell you they love you.  I cannot force friends to hang out with you, but I can tell you I will not stop looking for opportunities for you to have friends.”

Then, after another hour… he started to complain on how I am preventing his father from spending time with him.

I told him “You can BELIEVE that, but that is not what I BELIEVE.  I BELIEVE that I spend a considerable time telling your father that he should spend with you guys.  But, your DAD is not a puppet.  I cannot force him to spend time with you.  But, it is not right that you harbor ill feelings towards me just because I cannot make that happen for you instantly.  Talk to God.  Ask God, what you need.  I know what you need whether you know it or not.  Whether you believe it or not.”

He said ” I am just a kid.  You are the adult.  You can tell my DAD to spend time with us.”

I told him “  You must believe that I do that.  In fact, why don’t I get a piece of paper.  Imagine that you are your DAD and I am you.”

He said “That won’t work.”

I said, “Ok then, tell me what you want your Dad to know and I will relay the message to him.  I will write down what you are saying and check it back with you if this is really what you want to say.”

We started with one point… until we went to 7 pages.  We spent another 3 hours.

He calmed down.  He was heard.  He relaxed.

I reminded him that this is what normal functional families do, they talk to their mother.  The mother relays the message to the child’s Dad. But, the wife cannot force anything with her husband.

I said “I cannot promise you that your Dad will change his ways.  But, I can assure you that I will talk to your Dad and you must believe that I will do what I promised you.  Do you trust me that I will tell your DAD exactly what you have told me?  Look into my eyes, please.  Do you trust me with this job?”

He said “YES!”

God’s consolation

You may very well understand how defeating it feels when your RADish children shoot arrows at you on a daily basis.  It is heart-wrenching.  It breaks your heart because it consumes you. It takes a lot from you.  You are being self-less.  You are being generous of your time.  In return, they are oblivious to all your efforts and shoot another set of arrows.  You wonder if these arrows are directed intentionally to sabotage your efforts or are they unintentionally thrown at you because of their illness.

Today, my 12 year old son was again being difficult.  So difficult that no matter how much I try to explain to him what I am trying to do, it is just not getting in.  I always forget the fact that RADish children cannot take the benefit of a lecture.  They zone out.  They throw out a pity party and suck you in on how their life is miserable.

It is very painful to go through this.  I feel that I cannot take it any longer.

My 16 year old daughter, who I mentioned earlier was healed by God, came to me.  She talked to me about how much she appreciates our bond now.  She told me that she feels sad that the other kids cannot see my goodness.  She told me that she understand my sufferings.

God is so good that she sent this child to “console” me when I feel so tormented by the enemies whispers that my kids will never change.  God sent this child to give me hope. It renewed my spirit.   We, mothers of RADish children, need HOPE.

THe Miracle of Blended Families

In the Summer of 2008, I was going on a retreat to EWTN with my sister and her family.  I brought my 1 year old son and my then-14 year old son.  I left all the other kids in the house.  At the same time, my husband and I were having some marital spats.  Nothing serious except that I had my PMS so I was threatening divorce.

I did not call them on my first day.  I wanted to be alone to reflect about our lives.  I went for spiritual direction.  My confessor told me a great advice about my stepchildren.  The priest told me that by virtue of my marriage to their father, the children of husband, my stepchildren are biologically mine.  Why?  God has put us together, we became ONE.  Whatever constitutes him, becomes mine.  Whatever is mine, is his.  Whoever is part of my life, is part of his life.  Whoever is part of my life, is part of his life.  His biological children are my biological children.  My biological children are his biological children.  This is the miracle of the sacrament of marriage.  The grace of the sacrament of marriage is so powerful that it was able to unite our biological children and make them ONE with me.

Each day we are living with this miracle.  We have setbacks when we listen to the devil, that it will not happen.  God has proven to our family that He has us covered.  The sacramental grace of marriage can restore our family to healing.  It is very beautiful to be part of this grace.  God is working on our family.  In return, we pray unceasingly to His Blessed Mother to help us.  We practice an hour of family prayer daily.  We consecrated our family, each member,  to Jesus.  This is not the hard part.  The most difficult part is waiting for God’s miracle to unfold.  Sometimes, I get very impatient. My husband is my solid rock telling me — “You will see –  Trust in God.”

Losing their control

RADish children feel losing their sense of control at one point in their lives.  Thus, they feel a sense of powerlessness and thus their drive to control their world is very obsessive.

When they were young and they were neglected, no one was there to feed them when they were hungry.  They actually felt like dying.  So every time they see people eating, they just have this feeling that they also have to eat or else nothing will be left for them.

If you keep denying them of treats, they would really feel very sensitive about it.  Sometimes, some of them will act it out by displaying rage.  Other children will act in by stealing.

What worked for our RADish children affected by this behavior is to talk to them about “stress”.  You have to cite instances where they were stressed out and they have this urge to take something and it comforts them.  We also told one of our kids about the feeling that hunger has on them, it makes them feel like they were dying.  We assured them that they should trust us their parents and they will be fed.  It is important to teach them “self-talk”.  We let him talk to himself “I trust my parents, they won’t let me go hungry and die.”  It has been working for a week now.

Check back with me on this.

Some Things Do Not Make Sense

Our 8 year old boy does his homeschool where ever I am at the house.  He usually stays with me in the bedroom while I do some writing.  He drags his Saxon Math work.  It takes him 4 hours when it should just be two hours.

We devised a strategy of just doing 5 exercises and then quick break and then do the next 5.  For some reason, yesterday, he did Lesson 24 again.  It took him 4 hours to do it when it was a re-do.  It took him 4 hours to cheat by copying his previous answers.

Many of the actions of our RADish kids do not make sense.  It is not logical at all.  At least in their world they are being logical.  Are they doing this intentionally?

I do not think they do it always at will.  Sometimes, I think they do not see any reason or sense to life.  They just do what you want them to do in order to survive but really their world is very different.

I spent so many countless hours supervising this child.  I can be very creative with him in explaining a point, some lessons in life to help him.  But, it seems that he has developed his own system to what he will follow in his life.  Yes, would you believe at 8 years old?

There are days that he will decide that he cannot hear well.  So when I call and call on him, he would not answer.  I yell so hard to call him, then he will slowly go to you like a sheep.  I would ask him why he does not hear.  Duh, where is my question coming from.  Of course he heard it.  But, I was curious to know why he did not respond.  Curiosity can kill a RADish parent sometimes.

He said, he was praying to his Guardian angel.  He might have been.  So, I told him that next time, when I call him, I expect him  to tell his Guardian angel “My Mom is calling me, you know you want me to say “coming”.”

ANother time, I yelled for him and he did not come.  This time he said, the priest said that he should pray in the morning and he just wants to obey the priest.  I told him, “the Fourth Commandment says “Honor Your Father and Mother”, if you have a chance to ask the priest again, I can assure you he will tell you to obey your mother first.”

Our Church always emphasizes “Obedience”. And RADish children have a problem with Obedience.  Even our normal strong-willed child has problems obeying, what more a RADish child whose world is different?

It is very frustrating isn’t it.  But, you know what the evil one is telling me “Why?Why? Why? do you have to suffer all these nonsense.  Give up. Let them have it. “

It is easy to whine and give up.  So very easy.  But, I have learned to distinguish these voices… the torments.

If Jesus came to the world to save the sinners, surely He would want us to save our children who are lost.

There might be no satisfaction at all from this kind of life.  But, you were chosen from many women to be the mother of this child.  Pray unceasingly for the grace to bear the cross.  Do not let the evil one win.  God can save this child.  He promised us He will.  We just have to trust Him.

When A Stranger Calls You Mom

16 Year Old Daughter made "i love you" breakfast

I just finished reading the book “When  a Stranger Calls You Mom” by Katharine Leslie, Ph.D.  It is a very thorough book.  She is very accurate in identifying the traits of traumatized children.

However, after reading the book, I got very disturbed.  I think it confirms a lot of my doubts about my situation.  It validated what I feel towards my children.  It gave me an eerie feeling because I do not agree with many of her actions plans even if it makes sense.

If I was a newbie, I would take her advice to heart just like I did the past year.  I absorbed all literature by Nancy Thomas because it explains so many similarities with my situation.  I do give credit to Nancy Thomas and her work in helping traumatized children but I have to admit many of her strategies are for the short term only.

Dr. Leslie, in her book, is an advocate of Nancy Thomas parenting.  The focus is to accept the reality of the needs of traumatized children, know that it is not largely your fault, and be proactive about your situation  by following some suggested steps.

In my experience with traumatized children, it is very very difficult to put a label to their disorder.  It varies per child.  The healing depends so much not on our own efforts alone but on God’s healing.  The traumatized child is unable to attached in healthy ways.  A parent will have to continue supporting this child even if she does not get any satisfaction in return.  Thus, parents end up with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome in the process.

It is not easy.  You have to a complete change of  attitude towards your family vocation to make it work for your family.  How can you heal a child who cannot trust you?  Your consistent loving behaviors have a great effect only when it serves the purpose of the child, otherwise, they do not remember.  It is a consistent set back.  You move forward 2 steps, you move backwards 3 steps.  It is emotionally draining.

If the healing that comes from God takes place, the healing is very authentic and genuine.  It can only move forward.  We’ve seen it happen to our 16 year daughter.  Two years ago, she had no hope.  She continually goes back to her negative loop no matter how much we revised our parenting strategies to be therapeutic.  She changed because God healed her.    It did not happen overnight.  It was a concerted effort on  her part, us (parents) and God.  She reached out to God.  We reached out to God.  God reached out to us.

What is the language of love of your child?

Our 12 year old is our weakest link.  They say that the “weakest link” in your family shows the dysfunctions in your family life.

When I came to the family, he was 7 years old.  He was very ADHD.  He was very vulnerable to stress.  He was always in trouble moving from one accident to the next.  The teachers in public school could not stand him.  He gets on the nerves of his own father. He had hallucinations when his birthmother tried to get her rights with the kids.  He heard voices, he says.  We found him hiding in the closet.

He was a very sweet boy.  Yet, his own siblings berated him and further put him down.  He struggled with his oldest brother who bullies him.  He struggled with his sisters who constantly put him down.  I tried to protect him.  I tried to figure out what was his problem.  I brought him to therapy and so how he would lie and manipulate the therapist.  It was on those moments that I saw the this boy is the most of RADish of all our kids.  I think, it is this boy that cannot handle “stress” or have no healthy coping mechanisms to handle stress.

Recently, I have a feeling he has Asperger’s syndrome or high functioning Autism.  He does not understand social cues.  He is a wide reader with a rich vocabulary.  He is very articulate.  He has bonded with his oldest brother and thus, he has turned me as his enemy.  This is something I expected to happen but I can’t believe he would not remember at all the good things I have done for him over the years.

I represent for him “things that were taken away from him”.  I represent the “time less or away from his Dad”.  I represent the “toys that were taken from him” because they were misplaced or stolen.  I represent all the “hard rules” in our family.

It is getting harder to reach him as the days go by.  He has made up his mind that I failed him.  He will just survive but he is full of resentment and anger for the life he never had.

I am not reaching him in his “language of love”.  No matter how much I care for him and love him, he will never get it because he has a “language of love” that translates to love when he gets it.  It is obvious that I have failed to get “love” across to him.

Do we go on continuing to love them the way we love or do we reach out and find out what is their language of love?

Is it “physical touch”?

Is it “words of affirmation”

Is it “quality time”,

Is it “gifts”?

Is it “service”?

I tried all the above to him and he appreciates it, yet he does not remember. The key things is he does not remember.

These 5 languages of love was taken from the book of Dr. Gary Chapman.  I think this works for normal kids but for RADish kids, I really doubt.  I do not think RADish kids measure LOVE in these  5 categories.

Support Groups are invaluable

We attended our monthly support group meeting today.  Our chairperson invited a therapist.  Our topic today is about having a self-care plan.

I realized that my husband does take care of my needs and our children but he is not at all taking care of himself.  I felt enlightened.  I should be doing more for him if I cannot do more for the children.  He should be my priority.  At least I will have a certain degree of success and positive feedback if I work hard to make him happy.  We  resolved to keep our marriage stronger by not feeling guilty about taking time off from the daily stress of living with RADish children.

Self care plan includes journalling, hot baths, walking, exercise, connecting with friends to name a few.  If you are going to make blogs, it need to be positive.

My husband and I resolve to go to mass as often as we can for spiritual strength.

We also resolved to make it a habit to strengthen our marriage and go away from the kids every now then.

I feel very renewed with my marriage and commitment with my husband and you know what? It creates such positive feelings about your attitude towards your RADish children.  You feel stronger together.

The reality is we are doing a great job as parents to these RADish children.  They will be far worse if we do not take time to take care of ourselves because ultimately we will be burnt out and sink deeper to depression.  We need to be strong together as a couple to help these kids.  The needs of RADish children is emotional demanding.