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The patience of a saint
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<blockquote data-quote="susiestar" data-source="post: 532013" data-attributes="member: 1233"><p>whatamess, I think your statement that people always expect the child to change but not the parent is interesting. It sure is the opposite of most of what we experienced with Wiz. With the exception of a few teachers, everyone told us that we had to change the way we parented and handled Wiz, that the teachers had to deal with him differently, that we were the problem, not him. it took a lot of searching and several accusations of doctor or therapist shopping (we were accused of doing this to find someone who would tell us it was okay to 'abuse' Wiz by expecting him to not hurt other people and to 'abuse' him by making him conform to basic societal expectations like not throwing a screaming fit for 45 min in the grocery store because we wouldn't give him three candy bars - not one but three or more. The vast majority of tdocs, psychiatrists and even many teachers, not to mention other parents, thought we should give him what he wanted so he would 'behave' and we felt it was highly inappropriate, but we were told that WE were 'abusive' because this.), and even accusations of having abused him by having another child, as though simply having J was some type of abuse, which is nonsense and crazy. If that was abuse, every family with more than 1 child would be abusive. It just isn't so.</p><p></p><p>I look at parents like DaisyFace who are told over and over again that their child is fine and they need parenting classes, and like the other parents who were told that if they 'just' spent 30 min to an hour per night on 'quality time' with their teen then the child would not run away, use drugs, have a mental illness or developmental delay and wonder what the 'experts' are smoking that makes this seem rational. Because it seems totally delusional to me, and most of the advice we received from 'professionals' seemed like this. It took YEARS to find docs who saw that our child had to make some changes and until he did, NOTHING we did or didn't do would mean ANYTHING in terms of making any change in our child's behavior. we know because we tried almost everything except the truly stupid stuff that would hurt the rest of the family, esp the other kids.</p><p></p><p>I think we need a balance of changing our parenting AND expecting our child to conform to reasonable expectations.</p><p></p><p>I also think that the cultural differences are probably a big part of the problem with J and Malika. Malika wants her child to fit in, but the very early years of his life were NOT spent training him the way the French children are trained. He was raised in another culture and country, and those early years are crucial to how a child learns everything from behavior to thought to everything else. so it will be harder for J to behave like the french kids, and when his adhd is added in, it will be vastly harder. I also think there is an element of resource allocation problems that is part of the challenge with J.</p><p></p><p>Malika, NONE of this is meant as criticism. I was NOT saying that you are expecting j to change everything or you to change everything. I was saying that we had a radically different experience than whatamess - and giving examples of how radically different it was. </p><p></p><p>i mentioned resource allocation as a problem. Because I am disabled, I look at this a little bit differently than many. I have only so much ability to do things, so I have to carefully choose what I am going to do. I think most of our kids have a simlar problem, not lack of energy in the tradition sense, but lack of ability to cope. there were a lot of times that we wanted to go to a festival or something on the weekend but couldn't because Wiz used up all his coping at school that week. He worked HARD to get into as little trouble as possible and just couldn't handle going to some new event around people, no matter how special or cool or interesting it was. We often got the constant "NO" response from Wiz when we pushed to do something "special" on a weekend when he simply didn't have the ability to cope. He was unable to tell us that he couldn't cope, couldn't handle going to the event, or doing what we planned, esp if it was something that he really wanted to do. But his behavior showed us that he needed to take it easy.</p><p></p><p>Even though thank you is a easy child, he also had this reaction to things. for him it was due largely to sensory input, and to a big degree I think it was for Wiz too, but it wasn't all due to that. </p><p></p><p>NONE of my kids could handle doing a lot of after school activities. Wiz and Jess were allowed ONE activity that met ONE day a week. One weekday and Saturday was okay in 2nd grade for Jess IF she napped after school at least 3 days, and for Wiz it was 6th grade before he could handle it. thank you was able to handle more than 1 meeting a week for about 2 mos at a time starting last year (5th grade). But by the end of th 2nd month he was a MESS. He also would start napping after school by the 3rd week of meeting 2x per week plus saturdays. </p><p></p><p>ANYTHING we pushed them to do, even big grocery runs, caused real problems for them when they were over-extended. I used to hate Christmas because with all the parties and events and concerts, my kids were a total mess. </p><p></p><p>I am VERY aware that J is not scheduled like this, and that you would NEVER allow that. But maybe his "NO" answers to everything were his way of telling you that the bike ride was too long esp with the other activity planned. or that they were both too much and he needed some time iwth a calmer activity or time to do something calm of his choosing??? </p><p></p><p>we all worry about harming our kids with our parenting - this worry is a big part of what makes us good parents, in my opinion. parents who don't have this worry are often the worst parents I have ever seen. in the long run, all you can do is the best you can do. You have NEVER woken up and asked yourself, "How can I harm/hurt/mess up J today?" I know you and I KNOW that this has NEVER crossed your mind. So you are doing your best, and for the most part J is a delightful young man. He may not be the ideal french child, but the ideal French child sounds a bit boring to me. I grew up with kids who never broke a rule, never had an idea that an adult would not like, and they were awful to be around, even for the adults. Mostly because they were boring and 'holier-than-thou', caught up in being perfect and in how un-perfect you were. I have faith in you, and your parenting. You are learning what J needs, and he is learning how to live in his current society, even though he may not ever fit in 100%. Even with that, you are a great mom, and are doing a great job.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="susiestar, post: 532013, member: 1233"] whatamess, I think your statement that people always expect the child to change but not the parent is interesting. It sure is the opposite of most of what we experienced with Wiz. With the exception of a few teachers, everyone told us that we had to change the way we parented and handled Wiz, that the teachers had to deal with him differently, that we were the problem, not him. it took a lot of searching and several accusations of doctor or therapist shopping (we were accused of doing this to find someone who would tell us it was okay to 'abuse' Wiz by expecting him to not hurt other people and to 'abuse' him by making him conform to basic societal expectations like not throwing a screaming fit for 45 min in the grocery store because we wouldn't give him three candy bars - not one but three or more. The vast majority of tdocs, psychiatrists and even many teachers, not to mention other parents, thought we should give him what he wanted so he would 'behave' and we felt it was highly inappropriate, but we were told that WE were 'abusive' because this.), and even accusations of having abused him by having another child, as though simply having J was some type of abuse, which is nonsense and crazy. If that was abuse, every family with more than 1 child would be abusive. It just isn't so. I look at parents like DaisyFace who are told over and over again that their child is fine and they need parenting classes, and like the other parents who were told that if they 'just' spent 30 min to an hour per night on 'quality time' with their teen then the child would not run away, use drugs, have a mental illness or developmental delay and wonder what the 'experts' are smoking that makes this seem rational. Because it seems totally delusional to me, and most of the advice we received from 'professionals' seemed like this. It took YEARS to find docs who saw that our child had to make some changes and until he did, NOTHING we did or didn't do would mean ANYTHING in terms of making any change in our child's behavior. we know because we tried almost everything except the truly stupid stuff that would hurt the rest of the family, esp the other kids. I think we need a balance of changing our parenting AND expecting our child to conform to reasonable expectations. I also think that the cultural differences are probably a big part of the problem with J and Malika. Malika wants her child to fit in, but the very early years of his life were NOT spent training him the way the French children are trained. He was raised in another culture and country, and those early years are crucial to how a child learns everything from behavior to thought to everything else. so it will be harder for J to behave like the french kids, and when his adhd is added in, it will be vastly harder. I also think there is an element of resource allocation problems that is part of the challenge with J. Malika, NONE of this is meant as criticism. I was NOT saying that you are expecting j to change everything or you to change everything. I was saying that we had a radically different experience than whatamess - and giving examples of how radically different it was. i mentioned resource allocation as a problem. Because I am disabled, I look at this a little bit differently than many. I have only so much ability to do things, so I have to carefully choose what I am going to do. I think most of our kids have a simlar problem, not lack of energy in the tradition sense, but lack of ability to cope. there were a lot of times that we wanted to go to a festival or something on the weekend but couldn't because Wiz used up all his coping at school that week. He worked HARD to get into as little trouble as possible and just couldn't handle going to some new event around people, no matter how special or cool or interesting it was. We often got the constant "NO" response from Wiz when we pushed to do something "special" on a weekend when he simply didn't have the ability to cope. He was unable to tell us that he couldn't cope, couldn't handle going to the event, or doing what we planned, esp if it was something that he really wanted to do. But his behavior showed us that he needed to take it easy. Even though thank you is a easy child, he also had this reaction to things. for him it was due largely to sensory input, and to a big degree I think it was for Wiz too, but it wasn't all due to that. NONE of my kids could handle doing a lot of after school activities. Wiz and Jess were allowed ONE activity that met ONE day a week. One weekday and Saturday was okay in 2nd grade for Jess IF she napped after school at least 3 days, and for Wiz it was 6th grade before he could handle it. thank you was able to handle more than 1 meeting a week for about 2 mos at a time starting last year (5th grade). But by the end of th 2nd month he was a MESS. He also would start napping after school by the 3rd week of meeting 2x per week plus saturdays. ANYTHING we pushed them to do, even big grocery runs, caused real problems for them when they were over-extended. I used to hate Christmas because with all the parties and events and concerts, my kids were a total mess. I am VERY aware that J is not scheduled like this, and that you would NEVER allow that. But maybe his "NO" answers to everything were his way of telling you that the bike ride was too long esp with the other activity planned. or that they were both too much and he needed some time iwth a calmer activity or time to do something calm of his choosing??? we all worry about harming our kids with our parenting - this worry is a big part of what makes us good parents, in my opinion. parents who don't have this worry are often the worst parents I have ever seen. in the long run, all you can do is the best you can do. You have NEVER woken up and asked yourself, "How can I harm/hurt/mess up J today?" I know you and I KNOW that this has NEVER crossed your mind. So you are doing your best, and for the most part J is a delightful young man. He may not be the ideal french child, but the ideal French child sounds a bit boring to me. I grew up with kids who never broke a rule, never had an idea that an adult would not like, and they were awful to be around, even for the adults. Mostly because they were boring and 'holier-than-thou', caught up in being perfect and in how un-perfect you were. I have faith in you, and your parenting. You are learning what J needs, and he is learning how to live in his current society, even though he may not ever fit in 100%. Even with that, you are a great mom, and are doing a great job. [/QUOTE]
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