Parenting 101

I've been thinking lately, about how my expectations and theories of parenting have changed in the last few years... been washed away really.  I could title this post, Things I Thought I Knew About Parenting.  Or maybe, Why Control Freaks Make Bad Therapeutic Parents.  Which is to say, when I parented neuro-typical, securely attached children, I was a bit of a know-it-all-control-freak.  And it worked pretty well.  I was the parent that "ran a tight ship" and people respected me for it.  I was organized, and prepared, and always had a plan.  Don't get me wrong.  My children didn't march along in perfect rythym to my plan.  I had downright difficult children.  The fact that I wasn't a pushover, and maintained a lot of structure was part of the reason that my most difficult child eventually began to succeed.  It's probably partly why all of them  have done as well as they have.

So when I began to think of parenting children of trauma, I mistakenly thought this approach which had worked so well with my difficult, yet securely attached child, would work with my difficult traumatized child.  Meh.  Not so much.  At first it was a free-for-all.  I had expectations, and so did my children, and NONE of them were even remotely the same.  For all intents and purposes, we were speaking different languages.  I wanted them to behave a certain way, and they had no interest in behaving that way, and I had no idea how to get them to comply, and they were completely uninterested in complying.  And round and round we went.  Not much that had worked with my bio children worked with these girls.  I had emptied my entire bag of tricks, and I was still stumped.

I also talked way too much.  I wanted the girls to understand why we did things certain ways.  I wanted them to see that these were good, healthy ways to do things.  In short, I wanted them to want to do things my way to do the right things.  Words, words, words.  We were drowning in words, and remember, we weren't even speaking the same language.  It was a complete waste of time and energy, and I was still stumped.

Not that I hadn't been poring over the books and websites on attachment and therapeutic parenting.  I was.  But someplace in me, I just didn't want to believe what I was reading.  I thought that I had this parenting thing down, and given enough time and commitment, I could lick this thing using conventional means.  I didn't want to let go of my conventional means.  It meant that I had to let go of my dreams for my beautiful family.  It meant that I would have to start parenting in a whole new way, that was totally unconventional, counter-intuitive, and really, really uncomfortable.  For all of us.

But as you know, we can't just drift down the River of Denial forever.  Real life slaps you upside the head, and at some point you have to start telling yourself the truth.  So I began to change my approach, and as much as I hated, hated, hated it, we began to see positive results.  The results were small, and slow, and I would get ridiculously excited about every tiny step forward.  I would express my excitement, and grant privileges and rewards for hard work, and I would get slapped upside the head again.  

Over time I learned to contain my excitement, whether it pertained to good news or bad.  Keep a level head.  Keep a level tone.  Praise was given in a monotone, with stripped down phrasing.  When dealing with poor choices and behaviors, I have learned phrases like "I can't MAKE you make good choices" and "Well, I'm not going to lose sleep over this."  

Success began to replace failure, and order replaced chaos.  Unhealthy behaviors changed into healthy ones, good habits were being formed, issues were being worked through.  What I wasn't prepared for, was that success still felt like failure.  When I went about forming my family it was all about relationships.  I had a vision for my relationships with my children.  I had a vision for their relationships with one another.  And that's the one thing this control freak cannot control.  I cannot MAKE my children love each other.  I cannot MAKE my children love me or their father.  I cannot MAKE them want to be a part of this family.

Now don't get me wrong.  I believe that some, or even all of my children may get to a place in life where they want all of those things.  But we're not there, and I don't think we're even getting close yet.  And yet my children are teenagers, with one foot out the door, wanting to taste independence.  It's a mystery how God will make it all come to pass, and without the grace of God, I would have no hope for our future.  

At present I admit that I don't know  how it all works, or even if it can.  It's an endless cycle of having to provide structure and safety to a person who lacks the capacity to understand that this is done out of love, not pure meanness.  It's trying to find opportunities for relationship that won't be misinterpreted as weakness, and thus exploited... or as a threat, and thus rejected out of hand.  It's reaching for something, and hoping the capacity is there.  It's investing all that you have, and not really knowing anything for sure, and all the while grieving a little, that this is the road we found ourselves traveling together.  Still we travel together, and that has to count for something.