So for those of us attempting to support our children who come with a range of trauma and problematic starts in life; we spend a considerable amount of time observing – thinking about and trying to work with their coping mechanisms…
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I admit that I am an older mum, but my brain hasn’t gone to mush. I am not stupid, in fact I am quite clever – so why does the playground expectation and language floor me every time?
I left my nearly 10 year old daughter at home, on her own, for the first time last week.
I knew she was tired and that a 10 minute walk to collect her sister from a local playdate would be met with moaning and groaning, so I gave her the option of staying at home whilst I popped out…
I underestimated how hard parenting is.
I love my child dearly and parenting him has turned out to be both more wonderful and more rewarding than I could have ever imagined but also much much harder than I ever thought.
It’s hard, testing work and it’s difficult to navigate.
We sense a change.
A small change, but a real change and – fingers crossed – a fundamental change. Although of course we could be wrong – we certainly have been before….
We think we are seeing signs that our younger son’s anger and the screaming and shouting that are a consequence of that anger are being controlled. They are still there, still part of our lives, but it’s somehow feeling different. There now seems to be a desire from him that was clearly not there before, a desire to bring our ‘battles’ to an end. It’s clearly a struggle, but a struggle that maybe he is winning. Slowly, gradually he seems to be taking control.
Of course there are negatives – unexpected worries, stresses and difficulties that we have to deal with everyday, but this blog is just about the positives – which thankfully dominate our lives and put the negatives into perspectives.
A greasy winter’s day a couple of years ago I was walking down the street, as you do, pushing a newly arrived Jack in his buggy and my goddaughter by my side. My little brand new family and hers were heading off for some half term shenanigans.
Dear Grandparents.
Being the birth mum it seems that people simply put all the blame on your daughter, even the birth dad gets overlooked by most – regardless of the obvious fact that he failed our sons just as much as a parent.
….We were somewhat surprised and we had a number of questions, not least of which was why she felt she needed to be in a straight relationship to have children, we were even more surprised when the answer was that her therapist had said raising children in straight relationships was of course better than raising them in gay ones.
…The envelope had come from the local authority so I assumed (wrongly) that it was the long overdue contact letter from birth mum but out tumbled all these pictures of a beautiful teenage girl who looked remarkably like my own daughter – but older.
