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Poetry Two

Count Your Blessings

Shattered Dreams

How then do we parent children when they are hitting out? Positive parenting says to use time out, natural consequences and rewards. These are all great and should be used. But what about the child who has had excessive time out and Time out doesn't work and is just not appropriate? I am going to try and answer this by relating some of the experiences and strategies I have found helped me. But remember each child is an individual. What works for one doesn't necessarily work for another.

When my son was going through some of his worst times. I kept a behaviour diary. This was useful because I was able to see the small steps that we as a family were taking.

Here is entry from that diary (this particular night had entries until 2a.m. the next morning):

Wed 17-11-99

Time: 5:30 p.m.

Harley wanted ice cream and I said no because he hadn't touched his dinner. He then went to the freezer. I shut it and he tipped the bin out. He started running about saying that he was going to get some ice cream. I caught him and carried him to his room. He bit my finger. I carried him to his room and placed him on his bed. He kicked me. I tried to hold him so he couldn't hurt himself or me. But he grabbed my hair pulling out a clump. I finally got him under control. He said he would calm down and take some 'safe time'. But as soon as I left the room. He began banging on the door with a toy truck. I went back in and got hit on the leg with the truck before I could remove it. I removed the truck from the room and anything else I thought could be used.

He then found some books that could be used as missiles at the door. I opened the door and he took off. He said that he would watch TV and that that would calm him down. I didn’t allow this and placed him back in his room. He took off outside. I went to retrieve him. He said he was giving himself "safe time". As this is the strategy I am encouraging for him to use for himself I said that was good and praised him for using it. I said I would be back in five minutes and we would then have to clean up the rubbish bin that he tipped over. 3 minutes later he came upstairs and cleaned up the rubbish bin. He never mentioned the ice cream and ate a small amount of dinner.

This entry showed the use of safe time. I have used this with my son, as time out is a trigger for him. Both my children had been confined to their rooms for days and weeks at a time, as a punishment during my relationship with their father and time out was inappropriate. I call it safe time and ask the children to find a safe place to stop what they are doing, Think about something else they can do and do that. The control is then placed in their hands and they seem to respond quite positively. This night's entry was after months of using this method.

Something else I use with my children is to encourage them to make the house rules and consequences for breaking them. We put the rules on the fridge. Often the consequences that they come up with are way over the top. That’s when I step in and make the consequences livable.

I also try to encourage them to express there feelings in words (But not words that hurt) and art. And in other ways that doesn't hurt someone else. I usually say something like "It's alright to be angry, you have a right and I would be angry too. But you don't have a right to hurt someone. Of course my children are old enough now to understand that and if your children are younger it needs to be simple. The message I am trying to communicate is that anger is ok. It is just not ok to hurt someone else.

Dissociation allows a child to block out traumatic events in their lives. It is in a sense a way of coping with abuse. Often a person displaying symptoms of this disorder will have erratic mood swings, behaviour changes and memory losses. Essentially dissociation involves losing touch with reality and can range from mild day dreaming (which most of us do) to chronic dissociative states such as Dissociative Identity Disorder. My son used to tell me about secret worlds that he used to visit with his friend (a wolf). He also used to switch into another personality called the "Tenth Shadow" this personality was boastful and aggressive. He hasn't dissociated for a long time. This disorder usually occurs when a child is traumatised before the age of six . This is because a natural part of childhood is imaginary play. When a child is traumatised then sometimes imaginary worlds and friends can become a real part of their life. This is not an imaginary disorder. For the person it is part of their whole being. Don't get me wrong not every child who has imaginary friends or secret worlds are dissociating the diagnosis needs to be made by a psychiatrist.

PSTD is the most common effect of domestic violence on children. The symptoms are often confused with ADD or Asperger's syndrome. These include poor attention span, hyperactivity, screaming fits, and nightmares. Aggression in children or withdrawal are common to this disorder. Both my children and myself suffered with this and are still coming to terms with the abuse we received.