Everything In My Power
As a mother parent you do whatever you have to to protect your children. You walk through fire, across broken glass, and leap tall buildings in a single bound (OK so maybe that’s Superman), but you get the picture. It’s our job to take care of it, to make it happen, and to fight what needs to be fought. What happens when the person hurting your child, IS YOUR CHILD? What am I supposed to do with that?
This time of year is hard for Sam. On the plus side he did get a behavior report from last week telling me he was doing fantastic. He was working hard and redirecting well. Then Friday is began to fall apart, by Saturday it was a disaster. I began to rethink everything. By Sunday he had hurt himself. His little arm bruised and his nail bed raw from picking and chewing. It was still escalating and I knew it would get worse before it got better. Monday night we had to restrain him in order to keep him from really hurting himself or someone else.A year ago I would have felt like this was the end of the world, but thanks to “My Ponytail” I have been keeping data on Sam for years. (It’s normal …for him. Every year we struggle from the week after his birthday until Christmas, then it gets really bad until after April Vacation. After that it is great until about June, and then we fall apart again until school is done. )
He went to school today, he had a rough day and would not redirect. I hate homework time but I was able to get him to do some of it. He seems a bit better tonight so we may have turned the corner for this run of bad things. I can hope.
As I watched him tonight nibbling the apple crisp I made for desert I couldn’t help but think about how far we have come just to get here. I look at the remains of the last four or five days, the bruises, the broken toys, and the fluttering of his fingers in his lap and all I can think is that I would do anything to protect him, but I just can’t protect him from himself.
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