Tonight, David’s mouth was flying. Some of the vilest things I have ever heard him say. they don’t need to be repeated here. except to say that he is planning to accuse us of child abuse. He has made that claim before. I have zero interest in beating him. I don’t think it would do any good. I use pressure points when I need to. They stop him cold.
Tonight was something else. He wanted attention. So I gave it to him.
i didn’t restrain him. I didn’t use pressure points. I just gave him a big hug that lasted for 20 minutes. No force. I told him that I loved him. Eventually he stopped.
By the way, he hates hugs. Or so he says. In the end, I gave him all of the attention that he wanted. And I didn’t strain my voice yelling. Because as any parent of a kid with reactive attachment disorder will tell you, you will strain your voice, and not accomplish much.
Do I think that this will be repeatable? Sadly, no. I don’t. Maybe a month from now, but not tomorrow.
The evening started with him being told to take a shower. A simple rule is that we don’t start the water running until we are ready to get in the shower. He will gladly run the water all day long if we let him. Then he forgot a shirt. Underwear. So was traipsing around with his pants around his ankles looking for clean clothes. He is 14. Things went down hill from there, until I gave him a hug. (yes, he was fully dressed by this point.)
What I don’t get is, until bath time, we had an awesome day.
There is your answer, “Until then we had a good day.” Having a totally good day would be giving over to much control, so he made sure you knew where he stands. BUT the fact that he allowed you to hug him for 20 minutes is awesome, he is obviously healing, even if he doesn’t allow a repeat for another month. Oh, and knowing RAD, today might be awful but that just goes to show you are touching his heart…he is reacting! Way to go!