...A little help... :-(

exhausted

Active Member
Oh I just read you earlier reply-
I was raised in a military family. I had a tough, drill sargent dad. There is good and bad from that, as there is from all parenting styles. I'm a teacher and we tend to like to have things under control. Boy have I had to add to my bag of tricks! Kids are just plain wired differently today. And our difficult children maybe missing a few wires! I really love the Love and Logic stuff-puts a lot of responsibilty back on the kid and allows some natural consequences. But, nothing works all the time. I know, having worked with behavior disordered kids and my own "funky" kids, that relationship is everything. I also know the more I "take control", the more they fight me. That doesn't mean they don't have be respectful, but should they choose to be, consequence will happen in a matter of fact way.Your intentions are all good. Again, from my mistakes at micromanaging,pick the big battles like school and safety. Stay the course and know you are not alone. Hugs!
 

Star*

call 911........call 911
Just sending you hugs!!!!!

I would checking into -

Ditching the authoratian parenting - apparently this is not helping now, it will not help in the future, and it's only going to continue to frustrate everyone in the house. Changes are going to need to be made. I too, was an authoritarian at one time. Go outside, stand in front of a tree and tell it "CHANGE INTO A BUNNY." stand there for a day - (get the idea?) One of us had to change - it could either be a child, or myself. I picked the most logical choice and began learning how to parent a difficult child.

How do you even being this when you are SO sure that the way you have been doing things has worked for years and years with millions of other children, including possibly your parents and yourselves and now all of a sudden (BLAMO) you have a child that is resistant to even the slightest commands and you cant begin to fathom how this could be coming from the genes of TWO parents who are order takers?

Get into therapy. For yourself - there IS help for you. If you don't like calling it 'help', and since you are both military. Then consider this child an insurgent in your own home. If it were an enemy combatant? What would be the first thing you would do? Call a commander right? Find out what the strategy was to either convert or rid yourself of hostiles? So as in any conflict? There IS a strategy - who has that? A therapist. Ahhhh ha. Someone who helps you find and gain access to the play book of hopefully effective communication, better parenting this unique child, understanding, one-upping, and abilifying yourself to do battle. (so to speak).

Once you have that under control? Know it will be a long conflict. Also know it may serve you well to get yourself into therapy for "battle fatigue". Yup - no different. This disorder is wicked, cunning, manipulative, and hostile like you can't believe and just when you think you have it cornered, and adjusted - WHAM...so you need to learn defensive tactics like - rest, relaxation, control, breathing exercise, anger management.

And finally - you need to have all the troops on one field. You and your hubby need to be on board with the same parenting and make a united front, know how to detach, set boundaries, limits, stick to them - but BEND a little so that it's not all a concentration camp.

Hopefully - you can go from authoritarian to middle earth and completely avoid wishy-washy door mat parents who give in and just don't do anything because they get so battle-fatigued they give up. Personally you sound too strong to me - but it happens to the best of us. I did it all - not fun. If there were a congressional medal of honor for parenting? We'd all get one. Mostly? I'd be like Forrest Gump and have to show you how I got shot in the kiester - but that's another story.

Hugs -
 
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