Ms Ally's New Strategy...???

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Oh - and one more you will all get a laugh about:

Ms Ally gave us a worksheet of parenting communication skills that we were supposed to be working on. It is part of her goal to change OUR behavior - thereby eventually changing difficult child's behavior. There were eight "hot button" issues that we are supposed to 'try and learn to avoid'....and some helpful tips as to how to do that.

1) No Preaching (When I was your age.... or As long as you live under my roof...)
2) No Lecturing about chores instead just assigning them (I've told you a thousand times...)
3) No "labelling" or name-calling (you're worthless, lazy, useless..)
4) No Futurizing (you'll never amount to anything...)
5) Don't Offer Instant Solutions - listen first
6) Don't question teenage angst (what's gotten into you? What is your problem, anyway?..)
7) Be tolerant of experimental behavior (such as strange hairstyles or outfits)
8) Avoid insults and criticisms

So...husband and I sat the kids down and asked them whether or not they ever heard us use these phrases...or call them names...
We went right down the list...and I noted their comments.

For 6 out of 8 items - the children noted that it was not even an issue...it does not happen in our house.

DS does feel that husband gives lectures about chores

And BOTH kids agree that husband's "When I was you age..." stories are hilarious. They especially enjoy the part about "we ate dirt -and we LIKED it!". And that's how we tell them - as jokes. Walked to school barefoot, uphill both ways...all that stuff.

So....

I guess that goal was "accomplished".
 

Marguerite

Active Member
That's the thing, DF - you have already been through those goals. But as you said, you have to show willing in order to move through this stage and forwards.

klmno, I agree, our kids shouldn't be the ones that these people learn on. We need the top people, not the novices. But this is our reality. What I have found, though - when I play willing, do my utmost, make notes, diarise it, hand over copies of my notes (such as your very good example, DF, where you sat the kids down and went through the list) that is the feedback we need to give these people, to help them learn. And in my experience, about half of them do learn and can move on to become a genuine, effective support and ally. But that's over here.

One thing the novices have plenty of, that the experts do not - they have enthusiasm, idealism and drive. We can use that.

We went through this when difficult child 3 was first identified as having language delay. We'd had his name down to an assessment, but somewhere along the way his name fell of the waiting list and we didn't know. So when the authorities checked out my 'story' that we had difficult child 3's name down, they couldn't find it and accused me of lying. Then the ONLY speech pathology help we could get, was to attend a weekly class on "how to talk to your child, how to interact with your child so he learns to talk as children should". In vain did I protest that it was fiddling while Rome burned. At first they said to me, "You aren't talking to him enough, he is not getting the stimulation he needs, this child is emotionally neglected."
I said, "We interact with him all the time; I talk to him and play with him constantly. He has three older siblings that engage with him."
Their response then: "That could be the problem right there. He's not able to get a word in edgewise."

So I couldn't win. I was set up for failure. And channelled into that idiotic weekly class, for 8 weeks. No therapy permitted until I had "paid my dues". it was annoying, we were being told how to slup eggs and I knew how to be a good parent. But any parent who dropped out was dropped from access to therapy. Very, very wrong. One woman I knew dropped out because she had trouble getting there every week.

It was about week three of this idiocy when the dawn broke. Perhaps it was easier because it was a group situation. Each week the kids would go to one room with a child care worker and a therapist while us parents got a talking to in another. We were given a crash course in how to be a loving, playful parent. We were also told firmly, "Keep your phrases simple. Maybe your dialogue is too complex."
I considered this a possibility - I hated being talked down to as a kid and swore I would never talk down to my offspring. It's not a gee-gee, it's a horse. It's not a kitty-witty, it's a cat. it's not a moo-cow, it's a cow. But the speech therapist did teach me a few new things - babies sometimes need more rhyming patterns, alliteration, repetition of syllables. Word association. And if you focus on the main idea and not the rest of the sentence, you van sometimes communicate more effectively.
That was the theory. After the kids were brought back and we were made to put this into practice under the watchful eyes of the therapists, we were sent home to practice for a week. the following week we were put with our kids to begin with, while we did it again. That was when they saw what I needed them to see - difficult child 3 actually RESENTED this and would actively disengage when I tried their version of baby talk. We were playing with a Lego farmyard. difficult child 3 picked up a horse and posted it through the barn roof. "Horse on roof," I said. Therapist shook her head. I was still too complex. "Horse, roof," she patterned for me. I repeated it. difficult child 3 put down the horse and picked up a sheep. "Sheep," I said. He picked up a piece of fence. "Sheep, fence." He turned his back on me, put down the sheep, put down the fence and got up to wander around the room. I tried to call him back. "Look, here is a cow." He came back to me and took the cow. The therapist scolded me. "That sentence was too complex for him to hear," she said.
"But he came back because of it," I told her.
From that point she sat back and watched silently and stopped correcting me. I tried things her way for a while and we saw difficult child 3 cut me off when I tried it. Then I went back to how we did things at home, with me doing everything I could to engage him, and if I found something that worked I would do more of it. She came over to me afterwards, when the kids were taken downstairs again, and said, "I can see you are doing all the right things, according to what your son can handle. he is different; there is a problem there. You don't need this course but the system says you need to finish it, before we can set up the therapy."

I found that to be a very frustrating 8 weeks, but at the end of it difficult child 3 was put on the list for one-on-one speech therapy. We were also shunted in to a couple of other programs. The quality of the service was poor, but it was better than nothing. Just. We were at the beginning of the search for answers and help, not knowing what was available or what we needed.

My point it - I had to play willing, even though it was garbage, in order to get the help we desperately, urgently needed. And because we did the right things and also communicated the level of problems, they did change tack for us and made their help more appropriate.

It is a shame we can't just fire the people who don't get it right. The scary thing is, Mrsammler, is that Ms Ally in this situation is the best person DF has found in this system to date. We've been following her journey in this for a long time. It really is a case of "better the devil you know..."

We don't have the luxury of choice. All we can do, is educate and train the very people whose education and training should already be optimum, but isn't.

However, I have found that once we get these people on board and with a better understanding, we tend to do a lot better because that person's understanding is specific to our child.

We gotta win sometimes!

Marg
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
The other problem is... years on the job doesn't necessarily bring experience. We've had people involved who were in their "first year" - and actually cared, AND had some common sense, AND would listen and work with us, because they knew that they didn't have all the answers. We've also had people with 20 years under their belts - and zero in the head, and less in the heart; these were on a power trip, and their job was to refuse as much help as possible.

So... if we have the option, we take the person with both experience and heart. If we don't have that option but do have some choice, we take the person with heart - its much safer.

But, sometimes we don't have any options at all... and its tough. We've just been through a tamer version of this...

DF - you're doin' GOOD.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Sadly in our area the principle that people rise to the level of their incompetence seems to be the rule. If someone is really good with clients then they are promoted to a position that is mostly paperwork. Those that are HORRIBLE with clients, even truly make things far worse, are kept in that position for a LONG time until they "get it right". Often they are there long enough to learn enough about the higher ups to use that info to hurt ANY client or family that complains or upsets them.

As soon as people get ANY experience they are hired away and paid better, so the county people are ALL either terribly green or they are the WORST that exist. Either way, it is really HARD to find good tdocs here, even though we have a university that trains them. It is like teachers here. Our district will NOT hire anyoen with experience. ALL new hires have had at max 1 year of experience as substitute teachers. Others want more money. Our teachers do not dare to strike. Our superintendents have said for years (at least 4 different ones) that the teachers can strike if they want. They will ALL be fired and school will open up in less than a week with all new teachers. They truly could do this for every school in our district. There are that many applicants wanting jobs in this town and that many new teachers being certified who want to stay here for a couple of years. So our teachers either have a spouse with a good job here or they started very new. It doesn't pay to get a graduate degree in our town if you are a teacher because they do NOT give mandatory raises if you have a higher degree. They are supposed to but just don't.

EIther way, sometimes nothing helps. And getting a good therapist can be incredibly cost prohibitive. Most of the really good tdocs in our town do not take insurance at all. Or else they only take 1 kind and are super specialized in the type of client they accept.
 

keista

New Member
Oh Daisy, my deepest sympathies that you have to stick through this ridiculousness. Your OP had me shaking my head in disbelief, but his latest list is from Parenting 101. 99% of all parenting books have that list in it.

Like you said, goal accomplished. If she doesn't believe you, she can ask you kids for their evaluation.
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
I currently work with a guy who used to be a childrens services caseworker.

He worked with them for 15 years. During this time he got very frustrated by the system.

The system would tell him he HAD to do X, Y and Z - even though in many cases, clearly that wasn't working. He says he watched many new caseworkers start - then leave, disillusioned, within a year or so.

The problem then becomes... The new people are untrained... Once they begin to "get it", they become frustrated and quit, moving on to other jobs... The ones who stay are "by the book", and as we all know, the book may work for one child but not for the next.

He has been out of the "system" for ten years, but he understands... One of the few.

(Of course, there are always caseworkers like the GUY who came in and told husband - "Why don't you just give her (BM) custody and walk away - like a good father would? UGH!)
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
UPDATE:

Today, I gave Ms Ally not only the notes from the kids regarding Parenting 101 - but I gave her a copy of the certificates from the parenting course we took two years ago.

So - instead of working on "Lesson Two" from Parenting 101....Ms Ally and I basically just talked. And she told me a lot of what's been said here: about how good caseworkers are hard to find because they get burned out so easily...and those that stay are heartless and mindless, simply going by the book....and too many psychiatrists have 'issues' of their own to really help anybody.

And that the system is not really designed in a way that actually helps anybody - it's just a lot of paperwork.

So I am definitely seeing that she is required to complete certain exercisies - regardless of the circumstances...and she's doing her best not to be too redundant.

I guess we'll see what happens next?
 
Top