Spent most of the day dysregulated today.  2 hours in serious rage mode.  Told me he would stab me and kill me and no one would find my body.  Even found himself a pair of scissors to show me while he threatened to stab me till I died.



Wait for it...




Then asks if he can sleep in my bed with me tonight!???!!!!





UMMM....NO!

Best Day/Worst Day Activity

It gets worst before it gets better....right?

It seems the more I have been trying to do activities and have discussions with Matthew about the past, feelings, family, etc. the more behaviors I'm seeing.  And I think that's a good thing, for the last year and a half if I felt like I was pushing him to hard I would back off.  I've realized though that for him he NEEDS to be pushed to explore these things otherwise he lets all of these feelings fester inside until we have HUGE rages for no apparent reason.  So I'm going to take the daily uncomfortable small rages as we work through his issues and hope that helps avoid the huge rages that end up with us in the Emergency Room or in residential treatment programs!

Today we took a piece of paper and folded it in half.
The first half we drew our BEST DAY and the second half was the WORST DAY.
I was really surprised at how difficult this was for Mathew.  He was stuck!
Eventually he chose to draw a picture of him getting a good report from school as his best day.
After much coaxing he finally quickly said his worst day was at the bad house with bad Junior, he was the biggest and was mean to me.  Then promptly refused to engage in any more conversation.
I know its a slow process but I just wish we could break through on this soon!  Everytime we get close he totally shuts down.  So we will keep gently pushing little by little till we make more progress.

WORKING OFF NEGATIVE BEHAVIOR

After last night's "episode" I decided to make a chart with all the minutes of chores Matthew has earned for his negative behaviors.  I have a hard time of keeping track of consequences or time owed.  This way he gets to actually cross out the time once he has completed his work. 

So far, so good.  I'm currently relaxing on the couch well he is sorting the dirty laundry.  He has already cleaned the toilet, the dinner table and vacuumed the stairs!  45 minutes crossed off!  I've even told him several times he can take a break, but he just wants more work to cross out his time. It probably helps that we got a netflix movie in the mail today :)

Lets hope the evening continues on a pleasant note, cause I am exhausted from the last week and tired of dodging flying objects

UPDATED:  We still had some issues at bedtime tonight.  However, after Matthew had calmed down and I came back upstairs he asked if he could talk about his feelings.  He said he was afraid I would spank him with a belt and leave him alone like his other mom did.  I told him I would never do that and we also discussed (in very generalized terms) that when he was a baby he didnt get all the things he needed to feel safe and loved and that now it is hard for him to trust others to do those things.  It actually seemed to click with him.

Toothfairy

Matthew lost a tooth yesterday and was very excited about the toothfairy.  At midnight last night he wakes me up to tell me the toothfairy had'nt come.  I groggily look at the clock and tell him it is the middle of the night and he needs to go back to sleep so the toothfairy will come.  About 30 minutes later I still can't sleep so I go downstairs to get his dollar to put under his pillow.  What do I find when I walk down the stairs??  Matthew surrounded by a bunch of snack wrappers.  I very nicely and calmly tell him to get back in bed.  He went to his room and begin banging around yelling louder and louder trying to get my attention.  I again go into his room and tell him that I know he is excited about the toothfairy but if he doesnt go to sleep she wont be able to leave him anything.  He tells me that he doesnt care.  No problem I say but you still need to get in bed and be respectful of everyone who is sleeping.  Well for the next 2 hours I was a b*&%$, the tooth fairy was stupid, laughing hysterically, running all around the house, throwing things.  Had to restrain him twice when he tried to throw object that would have done serious harm to my head.  Eventually he went to bed.  The toothfairy did NOT leave a prize, but did take the tooth and leave him a note about "big feelings".
Today he needed to work it off by cleaning the kitchen floor, small kitchen 30 minute job TOPS.  After 30 minute he has scrubbed about 3 tiles and begins telling me he is done and he wants a snack.  I tell him he cant have a snack until he is done, he throws the mop bucket.  I try to ignore him and tell him that he still needs to get the floor clean or else he can clean up the spilled water and go to bed tonight and finish the floor tomorrow.  He begins hitting me with the brush, throwing macaroni and cheese at me and then running around the house.  I try to move out of the way of a flying book and he slips on the wet floor and bangs his nose pretty good.  It starts bleeding and he is hysterical.  Eventually I get him calmed down and he goes to bed.
Thoughts: 
We did the Best Day/Worst Day activity today, so that may have contributed to the dysregulation.
Between tonight and the last week we have a total of 2 hours still to be worked off......must stay strong NO TV, NO Computer, NO Video Games until this is worked off.
We will try again on the kitchen floor tomorrow.
Should not have left a TV on where he could see it from the kitchen while cleaning the floors

Mandalas

Printable Mandalas


Not feeling too creative or energetic after several days of "episodes" as I like to call them, whats a gal to do??
Give them some mandalas to color!

Mandalas are simple designs of colorful curved shapes with a prominent center.  What I like about them is that many people believe that coloring the mandalas provides a comforting rhythmic activity causing soothing relaxation and stress relief. 

 

 

SO I broke out the Mandalas last night.
Well we were coloring them I brought up this opportunity to ask him what makes him happy.

He brought up some interesting things and I wrote them down so I can remember to bring out those things when were having a rough time!

Introduction

Im currently typing through the pain of my left arm that is now missing a huge chunk.....shout out to my friend R.A.D. on that one!  Should have seen it coming, we here have been having a great couple of days, we touched on some deep issues that I have been ignoring for the past year and a half and responded well SO self-sabotage here we come.

A little background as we go forward....Im a single mom with three adopted boys. 
The oldest Matthew, age 7,  has been diagnosed with everything under the son since he came to me 1.5 years ago, including but not limited to:  RAD, Bipolar, PTSD, PDD-NOS, ADHD, Adjustment Disorder, ODD, Anxiety, Depression.  Whats that you say?  You cant think of any other possible psychiatric diagnosis he could be diagnosed with......dont worry, Im sure next week they will throw something else out there!  Im also petitioning a new diagnosis be added to the DSM-IV.... "Sh*tty Childhood".  We will beginning homeschool in a few weeks as he is "no longer welcome" at his current school, more to come on that Im sure.
The middle Jay, AGE 3, is currently in a special needs preschool class due to behaviors, still trying to figure out how much of that is learned behavior from watching older brother and how much may be true disability.
The youngest Joel, age 18 months,  lets just say there is a lot of hope for a smooth ride on this one :)  One can dream right??

SIDEBAR:  Arm is killing me!

Gingerbread Man Feelings

THE GINGERBREAD MAN:  FEELINGS ACTIVITY 

I saw a Youtube video that had something similar to this, but we adapted it to discuss how Matthew's big "mad" feeling covers up the true feelings he may be having and how its had to determine what the true feelings are when we let the big feelings take over.

1. I started by taking a piece of brown construction paper and drawing two gingerbread man shapes on it for Matthew to cut out.

2.  Once we had the gingerbread man cut out, I asked Matthew to tell me some feelings.  He told me happy, sad, and mad.  Later on in the activity he also brought up worried.  He seems to be able to identify feelings when asked but still has a difficult time identifying anything other than mad in real life situations.

3.  I told him I wanted to start with sad and asked him what color he thought sad was, he picked blue.  I asked him where in his body he felt it when he was sad.  He immediately said his legs.  I asked him what happened to his legs when he felt sad and he told me they felt tired.  WOW!!  I never even thought about that but so true!  I told him I felt sad in my heart, so we drew sad on our gingerbread man.

 4.  We did the same thing with happy and scared.  You could add other emotions in but we are still working on the basics!

 5.  When we got to mad I told him that when I feel mad it makes my whole body mad.  I had him show me what it looks lie to be mad (he is a pro at this :) ).  We talked about how often times that mad feeling covers up the real feeling we are having underneath and it is so hard to figure out the real feeling if we let the mad cover it up.  Then we drew mad covering everything up.

 6.  We talked about things we can do when we feel mad, such as breathing, taking time in our room, reading a book, doing a puzzle, etc.

 7.  Then we turned the gingerbread over and decorated the other sides however we wanted to and hung them on the tree!

I also love Christine Moers video on Feelings for our kiddos!