Jungleland
Welcome to my jungle!
with Aly's interpretation of reality lately.
Our difficult child, Aly, is having a difficult time with telling the truth, embellishing the truth, and right out lying. This is happening at school now as well as at home.
Bizarre stories are being told and when she is asked about them, she either denies saying them vehenmetly or starts crying saying we or school staff never believe her.
Now it has gone a step further and she told her school counselor (or at least we think this is who reported) that her little sister "J" was scared of me and that I spank J all the time.
And you guessed it, CPS is now involved and they have interviewed both girls and husband and I. Oy vey!
Have husband or I ever spanked J? Yes, of course, but rarely as J is one you can look at wrong and her behaviors stop. I do not believe in using spanking as a first line of discipline especially with children like J who respond well to short time outs or "do over" chances. And we haven't spanked Aly in forever, spanking was never a good choice of discipline for her.
We explained, as well as we could, to the SW from CPS the nature of Aly's disorders and we think she "got it" but who knows. Next step is follow up with the girls and discussions with Aly's tdocs, teachers, etc.
We are not overly concerned about the outcome of the report of "abuse", but we are concerned about Aly's hold on reality. She told my friend's 9 yo daughter that we have a horse that is expecting a baby any day and that she has to watch the monitor 24/7 to make sure the horse is ok. She also told another child that a horse died in our pasture and she had to dig the hole and bury it. She told my friend's husband that she was in contact with her bio mom and we were working on her returning to her.
And on and on it goes. We are having to explain things to so many people, we are feeling like we are constantly on "clean up duty". This makes me sad but at times angry as well. I think I am struggling mostly with the guilt of feeling angry at Aly when clearly she, at this time, is not capable of seeing the damage that can be done by some of her "stories".
We were very careful to tell both girls that we are proud of them about talking to a trusted adult that they were worried about spanking. We want them to know they can tell if someone is doing something they feel uncomfortable about and they are NOT in trouble. I pray they got this message.
We will be starting with an in-home Behaviorist in May and it can't come soon enough. I pray that having someone in our home, will help all of us gain better tools in dealing with all of these types of situations.
Thank you for letting me vent. I am so thankful for my on-line family!!
Hugs, Vickie
Our difficult child, Aly, is having a difficult time with telling the truth, embellishing the truth, and right out lying. This is happening at school now as well as at home.
Bizarre stories are being told and when she is asked about them, she either denies saying them vehenmetly or starts crying saying we or school staff never believe her.
Now it has gone a step further and she told her school counselor (or at least we think this is who reported) that her little sister "J" was scared of me and that I spank J all the time.
And you guessed it, CPS is now involved and they have interviewed both girls and husband and I. Oy vey!
Have husband or I ever spanked J? Yes, of course, but rarely as J is one you can look at wrong and her behaviors stop. I do not believe in using spanking as a first line of discipline especially with children like J who respond well to short time outs or "do over" chances. And we haven't spanked Aly in forever, spanking was never a good choice of discipline for her.
We explained, as well as we could, to the SW from CPS the nature of Aly's disorders and we think she "got it" but who knows. Next step is follow up with the girls and discussions with Aly's tdocs, teachers, etc.
We are not overly concerned about the outcome of the report of "abuse", but we are concerned about Aly's hold on reality. She told my friend's 9 yo daughter that we have a horse that is expecting a baby any day and that she has to watch the monitor 24/7 to make sure the horse is ok. She also told another child that a horse died in our pasture and she had to dig the hole and bury it. She told my friend's husband that she was in contact with her bio mom and we were working on her returning to her.
And on and on it goes. We are having to explain things to so many people, we are feeling like we are constantly on "clean up duty". This makes me sad but at times angry as well. I think I am struggling mostly with the guilt of feeling angry at Aly when clearly she, at this time, is not capable of seeing the damage that can be done by some of her "stories".
We were very careful to tell both girls that we are proud of them about talking to a trusted adult that they were worried about spanking. We want them to know they can tell if someone is doing something they feel uncomfortable about and they are NOT in trouble. I pray they got this message.
We will be starting with an in-home Behaviorist in May and it can't come soon enough. I pray that having someone in our home, will help all of us gain better tools in dealing with all of these types of situations.
Thank you for letting me vent. I am so thankful for my on-line family!!
Hugs, Vickie