Consequences

[Sherrie1003]

I have been reading lots of posts from old and new stuff and noticed that when trauma is concerned most people don't realize how long it takes the brain to heal.

For a heroin addict, once they stop using it can take the brain 2 years to get back to normal.

I can only imagine that with the trauma our children have experienced it will take considerably longer and may never be completely normal.

I also noticed that when it comes to consequences most of the posts think kids should get cause and effect thinking. But our kids do not. I believe that it is more helpful to teach them what to do when each situation arises. We did this when I was an officer. We would "what if..." every conceivable situation because we had learned through our training that the reason we don't respond is because our brain doesn't have an answer. So, in order to supply it with an answer. or a better answer, as in our kids case, we have to think forward.

I do this with my son and say "what if you feel scared? How can you respond next time? he usually ahs no idea so we discuss the best option, usually I only give him one or two because too many causes him to not use any of them. then, the next time we repeat the process until it becomes a habit. In doing this we can train his brain to respond in a better fashion then self harming. (Which is usual response to any feelings of any kind, good or bad.)

I envision it is like any skill we are attempting to master. We must repeat the steps perfectly hundreds of times before they become a habit.

I believe this "what if..." thinking helps way more then negative or positive consequences. Our children always expect negative so the positive has little effect mostly because they are waiting for the bad anyways.

Retraining the brain is the only thing that works consistently and once the child feels success the payoffs are immeasurable.

Sherrie

[Mama Bee]

That sounds like something that might work.

Right now I feel like I am running around putting out fires almost constantly. It would be difficult to think of all the things they can do. They remind me of Popeye the sailor man's four nephews.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTQLSWt7khQ

One thing that has helped us is to read the Bible aloud every day. The more the better. We read a chapter from Proverbs each day. My ten year old commented today with an aha! moment that if we keep reading it every month soon they will know them by heart. Right. We discuss the subjects that come up in Proverbs and as situations come up throughout the day I can mention how a verse applies to that situation. Two summers ago I was reading the Bible to them for sometimes as much as an hour and a half a day,spread out through the day and there was a positive difference in their behavior. There was nothing else going on at the time such as therapy that could have done this.

[OHGrandma]

Mama Bee, I think you got them with a double whammy by reading the Bible to them.
1st, almost all children and even many adults enjoy being read to.  (I did as a child, but not as an adult.)  Reading to a child quiets them.  I still remember my 6th grade teacher reading "Johnny Tremaine" to us. 
2nd, the Bible is full of wisdom that will sink in to the depth of their understanding.  The 2nd, 3rd, 100th time they hear it they will understand more and make more connections with other things they have learned.

[Sherrie1003]

Mama Bee,

I agree. I read the Bible to my sons every morning, at lunch and at dinner. We use a child's devotion, read the verses, use the Sunday school paper he brings home, and other devotions for Boys we got at the Christian bookstore.

he really loves the stories and reminds me of them when something similar happens. I try to ask him how he can use each lesson during the day to give him a reason to apply the lessons too.

He also loved doing memory verses. He earned a smiley face for each completed one and when he had learned 10 he got a small prize from his prize box or 1 hour of video game time. He loved learning the verses too.

We stopped doing the verses when we started doing the Fall Tree and Leaves, Thanksgiving Wreath and food pictures, Christmas Tree and now a Heart with small hearts. he earns the tokens for doing things like giving hugs, giving of himself, being thankful, showing compassion/empathy or discussing his feelings instead of self harming....

he gets a prize if he earns all of the tokens, for Valentines there are 100 total. He is excited and wants to do it. I do not make him and if he chooses not to he doesn't get the prize, no big deal. But, he didn't get the prize at Christmas so he is trying harder now.

Anyway, I use the Bible for everything. Yesterday was a snow day and since he was with me driving to court for work we discussed him biting his hand when sad, mad or angry. We discussed how Jesus was angry but never sinned and that God gives us the feelings to manage and enjoy and learn from. He doesn't show any feelings at all and self harms when he feels anything so we are making small efforts to recognize feelings and get him to express them not self harm.

Thanks so much for sharing. I believe our children cannot heal without God and Jesus to fill in the voids in their lives.

Sherrie

[Mama Bee]

Amen, Sherrie.

[blessingsindisguise]

Retraining the brain is the only thing that works consistently and once the child feels success the payoffs are immeasurable.

And sometimes, unfortunately, their brains are so damaged that their brains cannot be trained, and even if a child does feel success, they are unable to sustain it when they are on their own as adults.

That is my experience with my DS22 and DD21.  When their environments were controlled when they were at one and at the RTC, training happened, there were firm boundaries in place, and they were safe.

Now left to their own devices, the cycle and circle in chaos of their own creation.

It doesn't mean we stop trying, it just means that some here will never see pay offs, and that is ok.

blessings

[anne]

Retraining does work.  Building in the 'what ifs' is a life-time work, but it pays off.  For those children who are not so badly hurt, it saves their lives.  For those children that are mulit-diagnosed and very badly broken from years of abandonment, abuse, and neglect, it helps but unless they can live in an environment for most of their years that structures things like that for them (and they accept it), they can, as Blessings said, go their own way.

For us it wasn't so much that they had to have cause/effect, it was the exhaustion of re-training the brain in the midst of being physically attacked and the children never presenting the same twice to professionals.  I just wish the pre-adoption training was much more extensive than it is because if you are an officer, teacher, social worker, cyw, etc., because of your work training, you can grasp the full extent of these kiddos and how much it takes to help them heal and grow.  We were told our children were in the top 5% of the most challenging children that the team of therapists had ever seen in their combined careers (and one was retiring).  We have retrained and retrained.  As Blessings says, when they get out on their own and they haven't been able to acquire the retraining and healing to the extent needed to cope, they stumble and it gets worse.  In one year, our Dd19 was raped, was engaged twice (once to a gang-banger and now to a suicidal bi-sexual), has overdosed twice, tried strangling herself, plans to jump off a bridge, and has had multiple ER visits.  This is under the care of the mental health system who are setting up programmes for her to continue brain retraining but she won't always go and if she does, she doesn't have the capacity to apply the things learned to her life in the moment.  She's got the skills, she just isn't able to apply them when needed.  The kiddos are at an age now where they no longer accept what we are giving them and the professionals in their lives are either not filling that role or our kiddos are rejecting their help.

That said, the retraining when our darlins were young and the pre-planned expectations, giving scenerios, etc. are what got our children as far as they have been able to come.  We have been praised repeatedly by professionals for all we have taught our children and how far we have brought them.  It's always of value, it just varies in the extent of the outcomes depending on the children.  Good post! Thanks for getting me to think!
 
anne

[TeriPDX]

sometimes, unfortunately, their brains are so damaged that their brains cannot be trained, and even if a child does feel success, they are unable to sustain it

it just means that some here will never see pay offs

It's always of value, it just varies in the extent of the outcomes depending on the children.

So true.   

[Sherrie1003]

Anne,

Thanks also. I am encouraged by your approach as well and agree it doesn't always work but like you, I never stop trying something new or re-trying something old in a different way.

My DS20 is struggling now and seems like a ship without a rudder, but I cannot keep guiding him when he chooses to do his own thing. He is smart and capable but seems unwilling or unable to stay on the right track for long. I stay in touch with him but he needs to stand on his own now. I hate to see him fall, fail and mostly not even try but it's his life now and I cannot keep doing everything for him.

I had to learn everything on my own. I got very little information from any caseworkers or therapists and most teachers knew nothing about the real issues. So, I read every book and article I could and attended training as a foster parent and GAL to learn about brain development, emotional, behavioral, psychological, inherited and every other issue my sons may have just to try and find a path through. I am now much more knowledgeable and less likely to be pushed into a bad direction by people who really don't  have a clue.

Thanks again and we can keep praying and supporting each other in this crazy journey of raising our children.

Sherrie

[anne]

Supporting each other is what it's all about.  Even as a teacher, nothing prepared me for our darlins and I'd already seen a lot.  The more we help each other, the stronger we are for our children!
 
anne