Busy Brain In the Wee Hours of the Morning

Why is it that I get so tired during the day....sometimes for days on end....but when I get in the bed the least bit early, I wake up at 3:00 am??? Whatever it is that causes it, that is where I am. Awake. Wide awake. No hopes of going back to sleep. At least not until it's time for the kids to wake up. LOL.

While suffering from insomnia, I took some time to revisit an online RAD support group that I have belonged to for years and years. I remember when I joined that group. I was desperate. I didn't know what the heck was going on with my daughter, and I needed help. Unfortunately for me, life became even more hectic and all-consuming, and I sort of forgot that I was even part of this list. When I revisited the site and read some of the emails from "RAD newbies," I can't help but remember the stress of those early years. Thank God for the progress we have made.

Don't get me wrong. We still have plenty of problems....as evident by my "Actual things said in the Gottlieb house..." blog. LOL. Or any Benjamin Blog you choose. We definitely have plenty of moments where I wonder if it will ever get better. However, things have changed in such fundamental ways. Yes, most of my kids have changed. They have made progress....more progress than I thought was possible, honestly. The real eye opener, however, came when one of the cries for help on that list reminded me of how *I* have changed.

Thank God for the wisdom of Nancy Thomas and Deborah Hage. Thank God for "99 Ways to Drive Your Children Sane." It should be called "99 Ways to Keep Your Sanity When You Feel Like the Whole World is Crazy."

Dealing with RAD can suck the fun right out of a home. The RAD children make life so difficult that you have the urge to build an inpenetrable fortress. A wall around you to keep the pain out. At first, the pain is almost too much to bear. It keeps coming at you and coming at you. You question yourself: What did I do? I wanted to help this child....instead, I'm hurting my entire family. You beat yourself up because you can't "fix" it. Moms are supposed to be able to fix it, right?

And then, for me, that pain became resentment. Oh, how I resented my daughter! How I wished that I could go back in time and NOT do it. I just wanted it to be over. I could not imagine my life being like this from now on. I started to turn off my emotions. I just decided I wasn't going to let her hurt me anymore. Or at least I was going to pretend that she didn't hurt me. By sheer accident, I found something that actually started to work! LOL. When I didn't show that she hurt me, she didn't get what she wanted. I didn't give her the reward she was looking for.

Out of desperation, I started searching and searching and searching....and found Nancy Thomas. I thought....what? This woman is nuts! This stuff isn't going to work!

So I went on about my own way....trying to do it the way I *knew* I was supposed to do it. This knowledge was, of course, based on years of college and teaching experience and parenting. Ha! Guess what people! You can't take "normal" parenting strategies and expect it to work on RAD kids!

Finally, when I reached rock bottom, I was so desperate that I decided to try Nancy Thomas' way of doing things. To my surprise, it worked! Then the next idea worked! And the next... Now, I'm not saying that everything worked. Of course not. Not every idea works with every kid. You have to tweak it. Sometimes you have to fly by the seat of your pants. You have to be creative.

That is where everything changed for me. It was a subtle change...but very real. Instead of seeing this as a battle that had to be fought, I started to view it as a challenge that I was choosing to take on. I started to force myself to think of it as a game. A back and forth of mental prowess.

No one is so shocked as I am that my biggest mental foe turned out to be a 9 year old girl. LOL. Doesn't say a lot about my brain power, now does it? When it came to parenting this child, the degree that I spent tens of thousands of dollars earning.....and will be paying for from now on....was worth nothing more than the piece of paper it was written on. However, a paperback book that cost me $13 changed my life. If you are a RAD parent, and you don't have "When Love Is Not Enough," what are you waiting for?!? Go order it now! LOL.

So what changed? It's simple. I decided to start putting fun back into my family again. If my daughter wanted chaos, then by golly, she was gonna get chaos! But it was going to be chaos that I chose. I was going to be in charge of the chaos.

My theory is that RAD kids crave adrenaline. Normal feels scary to them. Scary feels good. It's a paradoxical situation, to be sure. So how do you combat this? You get silly. You wear weird hats. You moo like a cow. You throw pancakes across the table like a frisbee. You find joy and hang onto it with all of your might. And if you are so deep in the mire that you can't find joy, you fake it. Seriously.

Mike and I are terrible at fighting. Really. On March 15th, we'll have been married for 12 years. You know what our secret is? We can't have a darn argument without laughing. I think, in part, it's because Mike is just this big ol' teddy bear kinda guy....and although he can get cranky and take on his "umpire" persona, for the most part, he's just a big ol' kid. When I get mad at him, which I frequently do, and start grumping at him....he usually says or does something that inevitably makes me want to laugh. Oh, I fight it. I try to hold it back. I even get mad at him for making me want to laugh when I'm mad. But usually, the urge to laugh is far more powerful than the urge to be mad.

One day it hit me...why not use this on my kids? So I started doing anything I could do to short-circuit their attempts to make me miserable by doing everything in my power to make them laugh. Obviously, there are times that you have to be serious. You can't laugh off animal cruelty, for example. But you would be AMAZED at what you can choose to laugh off.
Pooping in a bucket? It's hard to laugh when you discover it in your kid's bedroom...but you gotta admit...it's funny. Peeing on a classmate? Well, I'm sure you are grinning a little bit right now at the very idea of that one!

I'm not saying you can laugh at everything, but come on, in order to parent these kind of kids, you absolutely have to be able to NOT take yourself too seriously. You have to be willing to look like a fool in public. If you're not, you might as well hang up your keys because you're not going anywhere for a very long time.

For me, the secret was to not allow my children to know that I was embarrassed. Is it embarrassing to have an 11 year old pee on herself in public? You bet. However, ask yourself: Who owns the embarrassment? It shouldn't be you. If you are owning the embarrassment, you need to return that gift to the generous person that gave it to you in the first place: your kid!
If anyone is still with me on this long, winding road, I leave you with this bit of wisdom. LOL.

Laugh. Laugh whenever you can. Smile if you don't feel like laughing. Pretend you are holding back a laugh. Practice saying things like, "Oh, you are so silly!" in the mirror so that you can repeat it convincingly to your child.

Put Jolly Ranchers in your socks and when things look like they are going to blow, drop to the floor and claw at your feet, screaming, "Oh, my feet! My feet! Something's in my sock!" If the kid won't come to your aid, pull your sock off by yourself. Picture a pinata bursting. Candy flying everywhere. Even the most hard nosed kid in the world is gonna want a piece of that candy!

Kid picking a fight? Before you turn around to look at him/her, pull the wad of gum out of your mouth and stick it on your nose. You'll feel stupid, but you'll look even more ridiculous! That kid is gonna at least be confounded for a few seconds...even if they don't laugh outright.

Short-circuit the anger. Do things to add chaos to your life.....but chaos that you control. Organized chaos. Planned chaos. Don't be afraid to be silly. It might seem hard at first....especially if you have been living in a state of doom and gloom for a while, but it will get easier.

Anger is like a comma. When in doubt, leave it out.

When in doubt....laugh.