Therapeutic Parenting Fun!

Parenting a child with attachment difficulties is challenging. It's walking on eggshell, weighing every word and ignoring all of the natural emotions and reaction they provoke in you... every waking minute!! It is tossing all the conventional parenting methods out the window and learning new skills that go against logic and reason.

Occasionally, however, there are moments of fun and humor.

Sometime when we all "join in" a behavior it can be uproariously fun. Sometime prescribing a behavior has been fun. There are times when we have total recall and say just the right thing and see a connect that actually make Mr. T and I high-five in celebration.

The most recent fun we have been having is with nurturing.

When Middle-One is looking for a fight and has that look in his eyes that screams disgust and distrust, we have been moving in and giving him lots of loving eye contact, soft reassuring words, physical contact (a quick touch or squeeze because he recoils).

It has him totally freaked out right now! He is trying for and expecting anger and getting nurturing and comfort. He doesn't have any idea what we are doing and it has him wild eyes and watchful.

This week he was trying very hard to make me angry. We were sitting in chairs facing each other and I reached out and tapped his knee. He "wiped" away my touch. I tapped him again and he "wiped" it away again. So I smiled, laughed, leaned in and began "tickling" him and telling him that I loved him and understood that it was scary to come back home but that it was ok and we were going to take care of him.

It just threw him off completely sitting back, with a baffled, uneasy look he asked.

"WHAT are you doing!?!"

LOL... I'm helping you to attach, dear son... and enjoying the process