When your nurture is taken over by your nature...sadly
Recently I attended a Foster/Adopt conference and I came home with so many great nuggets of information. I did not attend because I am thinking about foster/adopting a child (at this point in my life) but because my kids are not my own and they do come from a background like most foster/adopted kids. They have seen death. They have witnessed (possibly experienced) emotional and physical abuse. They have been ripped apart as family and sent to three different homes (there are three kids, I only have two) not of which were with people they really knew, trusted or had a relationship with. So with the knowledge of that I have been suggested to treat them like foster/adopted kids.
I have heard that a lot over the last 2 years but never really understood until I went to this conference. IT WAS EXTREMELY EYE OPENING. I won’t touch on all the great information I got about my kids but get to the point of this post. Surprises…they are gone. What I mean by that is my children do not take well to surprises. Yes, they love gifts and surprises that are not seen before they are given – like holiday stuff or birthday gifts. But, you can’t put them in a car and just say wait and see. It stirs up so much anxiety in their brains that it is no longer fun for them. They will worry the entire time until they get to the destination and then it will take time for their brains to relax. These type of kids are used to living in the flight or fight part of their brains. They ask more questions than I have ever wanted to answer. Where are we going? Who is watching us? What time will we be home? Why are we going? How long will we be there? What are we doing today? Why? These are asked daily over and over again.
The hard part about this is I love to surprise people. I feel like it shows love and that I was thinking about them. When my plans are foiled I get annoyed. Sadly that happened this morning when my little girl decided to wake up much earlier than she was supposed to. No school today, she “should” be sleeping in. But seriously, who sleeps in when they are 7 and have no school. I of course can’t remember this at the time and get a little upset and tell her to go back to bed. When I was her age my mom was still asleep and I never asked I just got out of bed and watched TV. I turned out alright, WHY CANT I JUST LET GO OF THIS? Who the heck knows. All I know is that I never remember when it is happening, only after I’ve said go back to bed or make a big deal out of it.
So I decided since she was good enough to go back to bed without too much of a temper tantrum that I would make her breakfast and turn the tv on something sort of educational and tell her she can get out of bed before I leave. NOPE, 2 minutes before I am ready to surprise her she is out of bed begging to watch TV and again I am annoyed. My head said “seriously! You try to do something nice for her and she just ruins it.” THEN my mouth says “No one can do…” you know the rest. She feels bad, I feel bad as soon as the words pass my lips. Do I stop there? NOPE my hurt ego wanted to surprise her and it was ruined. DROP IT TERRI! Her face was so sad it broke my heart, but that didn’t stop me. L Ok there is one lesson her this morning. She did promise her Grandmother that she would not bother her very early in the morning so I did have the “right” to remind her that promises are very important and they mean we will do what we said we promise. She apologized and I should have just said thank you. But of course I did not. I could go on, but I’ll just say that when I get home today I need to sit her down and really apologize to her. My conduct and words were unnecessary. Not showing her what a woman should really be like. Bad examples lead to bad followers. I need a do over!
Why do we instinctively know things but still don’t listen to ourselves? How is it I know she just needs a flexible mom. One who goes with the motions and I am one at times but not always. Why do I push her away when I should just embrace her uniqueness. Time to forgive myself for not being perfect and try again to do better. They need love…I have love to give.
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