The weekend!

Was it sunny where you were all weekend? It sure was here! Finally a whole weekend of sunshine! I managed to completely ignore my computer all weekend and successfully avoided the urge to just go check my email. I am one of those compulsive email-checkers. But finally I had enough distractions outside.

The weekend was yet another in the series of "life without a stove". I am so bored with bbqing. If you missed the previous posts on the "stove saga", let's play catch up shall we? Almost 2 weeks ago my stove died and through a long, complicated and frankly boring cycle of phone calls and estimates from various applicance repair and sales companies both local and from some call centre somewhere in the world, my husband has decided that he will order a re-conditioned part from Sears that should be here sometime this century. Then he, my repair challenged husband, will fix it himself. Because as he said "how hard can it be to slide one electronic computer thingy out, and put the sorta-new one in.?" Exactly. ?????

I had the best intentions of going for a run while my youngest played soccer on Saturday morning, but then I ran into another mom I hadn't seen for awhile, and we proceeded to spend the majority of soccer discussing FASD, our children's challenges, etc. etc. and surprise surprise I ran out of time. Then it was on to my oldest daughter's soccer game in Penticton. My middle daughter struggles so much with her social skills and it's always so obvious at something like one of the other kids' games. She knows most of the other tag-along sibs that are there, but she really doesn't have the confidence or ability to initiate anything with them. My son has no problem hanging out with the other dorky 9 year old boys, but my daughter just doesn't have those skills. So she ends up sitting by my lawn chair with the other moms. Even if other girls her age ask her to come play with them she won't. But I guess she doesn't really mind; she's happy enough to sit by me and play in the grass. It's me who keeps hoping she'll make some friends, or make the effort to play with the other girls she knows. I gotta keep reminding myself that she's happy the way it is.

That reminds me of a conversation I had with another mom of kids with special needs. Lots of FASD, ADHD, etc. in her family too. We were talking about how frustrating it is when our child with FASD messes up (again), doesn't remember the consequences from last time (again), can tell us all the right answers (again), yet still repeats the same behavior (again). But the frustration just seems to be on our part, because our kids don't seem able to process our social cues that we're frustrated, and once us parents have finished with the blah blah blah blah blahs, the kids are la-dee-da-dee-da on to the next thing while we're emotional dishrags. I was raised that when I got caught doing something wrong, I was supposed to be remorseful for an undertermined length of time. I'm not really sure how long that was supposed to be, but as long as I behaved as if the punishment was torture and if I seemed to regret whatever it was that I had done wrong, then all was right with the world.

But for our kids with FASD, remorse or regret rarely, if ever, enters into it for them. And what the heck is up with enjoying the consequences of their behavior. How is picking up pinecones for an hour because you broke off $200.00 worth of sprinkler heads in the neighboring orchard fun? What's with the singing while you're doing this? You're supposed to hate doing this so you won't repeat the behavior. Sheesh, hasn't this kid read the same parenting books I have? It's taken me a long time to finally accept that these kids don't show remorse for a variety of reasons, not the least of which could be that they don't even remember doing what ever it was they did. Or perhaps it's that they have my attention and that's all that matters. Logic in their brain is not the same as in my brain. Will this stop them from repeating this again? Probably not, but hey, there has to be some consequence for the behavior right? Right?

I keep trying to remind the lesser-challenged child that he doesn't have to go along with what she does, and just because she's older, it doesn't mean what she does is right. I know what he's thinking.."Yeah but, she always comes up with the fun ideas that involve destroying things with sticks." Hard to argue with that logic.

We recently had a session with a behaviorist regarding all three of my little darlings. He had a few good points that were good to hear again. Little tidbits such as "shut up". In other words, fewer words are better. I know that already, but in my ongoing attempt to help her take control of her challenges, and understand them better, I get her to repeat back to me what I've said, ask her what she could have done differently, give her the words to use, yada yada yada. According to the behaviorist, it's an exercise in futility because it's been seven years and she's still not altering her behavior. Instead, tell her how it is using short sentences, small words, and there's no point in having her repeat it back cause it obviously isn't helping. So basically, save myself the frustration and forget the explanations. It is what it is.

I get what he's saying and I will do it cause it does make sense. It's tough though when two out of the three kids can learn from experiences, while one can't. It's hard to help the two that can understand that the one who can't, actually can't. From a kid's perspective it's gotta be even harder than it is for me. I can see the big picture, the kids can't. Guess I should bring out the Brothers and Sisters in Adoption book again eh?