Mental Health Day

Things have been rough at school for The Princess this week.  I wrote yesterday about “Frenemies.”  If you need to catch up on things, read that post first.

The Princess and I had therapy this morning.  If you’ve been reading, you also know she’s refused to participate in therapy the last couple of times.  Today, she worked.  It was hard.  Really.  Really.  HARD.  But she did it.  When we got out to the car, I asked her if she was okay.  She wasn’t really.  I asked her if she wanted to stay home from school today.  Usually, that question would get a, “Um, NO!” answer.  She loves school.  Today, a wash of relief came over her face, and her body, and she enthusiastically said, “YES!”

We ran an errand.  (I’m going to be teaching a parenting class at our county jail and we’re doing the initial set up of that.)

We went out to breakfast.  I hadn’t eaten.  She had cereal, but she could eat again.  We’re skipping lunch since we had the late breakfast.  She talked some more about the girl who’s been hurting her.  We talked about some things she could do.  I reminded her she agreed with me yesterday that if something else happened, I was intervening and calling the counselor at school.  She is ready for me to do that.

Right now, she’s watching a movie – just a few feet away from me.  We’re taking a mental health day.  This is a good thing.  Besides, I had tummy trouble last night and I shouldn’t have eaten breakfast at a diner this morning.  ‘Nough said.

I have never taken a day off with The Princess to just stay home before.  She’s never needed it.  She did today.

Frenemies

I’m not going to make the claim that my daughter is a saint, but when she’s hurt because a “friend” is a mean girl, the mama bear in me certainly rises up.  I hate mean girl stuff.  I remember going through some of it myself when I was in junior high and high school, but I don’t remember it being as pervasive as it is now.  I also think it starts with girls at a much younger age now than it did in the past.  The Princess was dealing with mean girl stuff (including participating in it herself) as early as the third grade.  It is particularly vicious now that she is in 7^th grade.

My girl came home from school yesterday and asked to get on the computer.  I limit her computer use, but she is allowed to use it by going through her school’s start page.  The school district has Google apps set up for students.  They mainly use Google Docs.  I logged her on, and when she sat down, I asked her what class she was writing for in school.  She replied (without thinking fast enough to lie), “Oh, it’s not for school.”  She was writing a note to a “friend” who said some pretty mean things to her the last couple of days.  This is not the first time this “friend” has behaved this way.  I looked over her shoulder and saw she was writing to a girl we know who also has a traumatic past.  We know her from church as well as school.  What really got to me was that she was writing to beg for a restored relationship with this girl – one that would exclude another girl who does not like The Princess and isn’t afraid to say so.


It all sounds so junior-high-ish, doesn’t it?

Being popular.  Being accepted.  -- It is all so hugely important to a 13 year-old girl in the 7^th grade.  It’s her “whole life.”  It’s her social standing.  It’s about how she sees herself.  It’s about judging.  It’s about cattiness.  (And people used to wonder why most of my friends were guys when I was a kid.)  Again, I hate it.  I hate seeing my little girl in heaving sobs over these things.  I hate seeing her go to bed an hour early because she’s literally nauseous from the stress.  I hate the sadness in her eyes, because some kid decided to behave like a little jerk -- a kid who is supposed to be her friend -- and decided it would be fun to hurt her.  I also hate the realization that The Princess has undoubtedly done the same thing to other girls.

We can watch for signs that our girls are being targeted by mean girls (or that they are targeting someone themselves).  Some of the nasty things girls do to one another include:

• Saying something mean and then following it with "just joking"
• Leaving certain girls out of parties/play dates
• Giving someone the "silent treatment"

• Starting rumors/spreading gossip
• Threatening to take away friendship ("I won't be your friend anymore if...")

• Criticizing someone’s appearance (“Why are you wearing THAT?”)
• Forming "clubs" and excluding others
• "Forgetting" to save someone a seat
• Using social media and other technology to send hurtful messages

Of course, the list goes on.  (Feel free to add some of your own experiences in the comments section.)

We need to teach our daughters some specific skills.  I think for traumatized kids, meeting that need is particularly crucial.  Our girls need skills so that they can roll with these inevitable social punches – skills  that anti-bullying education doesn’t seem to be able to touch.  We need to teach them the girl saying mean things to them is most certainly not feeling great about herself.  She is diverting negative attention away from herself, and dumping it onto someone else.  We need to remind our girls to treat one another the way they’d like to be treated – even if someone else is behaving badly.  That doesn’t mean we teach them to be doormats.  It means we teach them to be kind.  (I remember a couple of verses from Proverbs my own mom taught me:  “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.  In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.”  -- 25:21-22)

There are some good tools our kids can use to combat mean girl stuff and bullying.  I’m busy looking for resources today.  This video shows how kids can develop a couple of good comebacks for verbal assaults.  It also instructs parents to teach their kids not to allow the bully or mean girl to get a rise out of their target – to not give the negative attention that is being sought by the aggressor.  While I don’t necessarily agree with some of the examples this guy uses, I think it’s a good idea for us to help our kids come up with some things they can say themselves:

As a parent of a young teenage girl who is also a hurt child, it’s hard to determine where to draw the line on how far I go when I become involved.  The mama bear would very much like to rip into the jerky little frenemy and give her an education she’d never forget.  However, I think it is much more effective to keep the lines of communication open with my own sweet girl, so that she is able to continue to feel she can trust me with her hurts.  (Of course, if there were physical danger involved, I would do more than teach her to handle things – I’d be involved in a heartbeat.)  By keeping those lines of communication and trust open, I am in a much better position to teach her enduring social skills she can carry into adulthood.  Because let’s face it, there are a lot of adult mean girls out there, too.

Be kind to one another . . . (Ephesians 4:32)

It Is SO Worth It

I’ve written a lot about The Princess’ struggles of late.  Until recently, I considered her the “easier” of my two youngest children.  The truth is, both The Princess and Youngest Son have good times, as well as not-so-good times.  Sometimes, one of them is struggling with a particular trauma trigger.  Most of the time, issues can be dealt with immediately, using therapeutic parenting techniques.  The trigger is calmed.  The child becomes regulated again, and we move on.  Sometimes, the struggles last a while.  That’s what’s going on with The Princess right now.  However, Youngest Son is doing very well – the best he’s ever done since coming home 4.5 years ago.

This time last year, we were dealing with a ton of “stuff.”  Youngest Son destroyed property at church, and at home.  He stole expensive electronics.  He lied constantly.  He sneaked around behind our backs, and he thought it a grand challenge to defy us at every turn.  He was very hurtful to me, as well as to his sister, and he was in constant, CRAZY competition with the men in our home.  We received increased mental health services, and he had changes in meds.  There were many tearful times of frustration for me, as I wondered if this boy would ever “get it” – get it that he was loved, cared for, and worthy.  We plodded along, doing the things we know to do with kids who are terrified – and that’s just what he was – so very afraid and unable to trust.  He was afraid we could not take care of him.  He didn’t like the limits on his world, because he did not understand how those limits are the care he needed.  He thought he needed to do, and to get for himself, just as he had as a young child.  He didn’t trust us.  He didn’t know how.  And yes, he wanted to test us to see if we, and our love, were real.

It was very hard.  In our lowest moments of our own fear, we wondered if we’d made a mistake bringing him home.  We stuck with what we knew we were supposed to do – what we knew was our only real chance for change.  With struggle, we passed that test.  Our son learned there were natural consequences to behavior and that he was old enough to have to deal with those consequences.  We would stand behind him, but we would not stand in front of him and shield him from those consequences.  He learned we still loved him, even if he lied and stole property.  He learned that in our family, we make things right when we’ve hurt someone else (whether or not we meant to do so).  He learned relationships matter, because we required that he make things right with those he’d harmed.  Then, last summer at youth camp, he stood to give his testimony at a campfire.  He told everyone he was glad he’d been adopted and that he’d gotten a second chance in life.  He apologized to his brothers and his sister, who were also there. 

This year, he’s going back to camp as a volunteer junior counselor and will be working with junior high kids.  He’s come a long way.

I am not going to say Youngest Son is completely healed.  He still has trust issues.  He still has to take meds and may need to do so all his life.  In therapy, he’s still working out what’s real versus what are fantasies about his past.  He still has nightmares.  He is still learning the things we are trying so very hard to teach him:  to be responsible, respectful, appropriately resourceful, and reciprocal in relationships.  He has become a young man who cares about other people, but not just for what he himself can get out of the relationship.  In fact, he has become very interested in “being there” for other former orphans.  He cares deeply for the families we know in the process of adopting children, and he wants to be a good role model for their kids when they come home.  He is still a teenager.  He still has snarky moments.  So do I. 

High school is also good for Youngest Son.  His grades are good.  He’s engaged.  He’s a good example.  He does his work, even when he doesn’t like it.  His teachers like him.  And, he WANTS to please them (this is HUGE!).  I’ll admit, however, I feared his going to high school very, very much.  He’s surprised me. 

Youngest Son is learning to trust, because we are parenting him in the way he needs to be parented (for the most part – no one is perfect).  We still keep his world relatively small.  There is a routine to his life, so he knows what to expect, and what is expected of him.  He has shown responsibility in the care of his possessions, and the respect for other people’s possessions.  He does his chores (often without being asked).  He even has real conversations with me.  He jokes around with me.  I have much more hope for this boy, today than I did one year ago, when I did not know for sure if anything we were doing was ever going to make a difference – if we were ever going to break through and start to see some healing.  Yet, he is gaining knowledge, skill, self-control, and good judgment.

Youngest Son is growing up.  Yes, his traumatic past will always be a variable for his life, but I really do think he’s going to make his (very good) way in this world.