Tuesday 27th April: Leave without pay

I think that X is doing it a bit tough at the moment. Her behaviour lately has been off the scale, and Matt, K and myself all have more than the usual number of bruises. Also, before Salome died X was wetting the bed about once a week. Since she died this has increased a lot, and last night X wet the bed three times, and K wet the bed once as well.



Consequently, and futhermore to yesterday's post, as of today I am taking leave without pay from acting like a parent. I will continue to feel like a parent and think like a parent, but for the next 7 days I am trying to act like a competent, lovable nanny. I will keep the girls safe and put food on the table. I will stop the house descending into a pigsty chaos. I will stick to the routines already prescribed, including the current starchart to stop X hitting / kicking / biting / scratching us. But for the next 7 days I am taking a break from trying to change how my daughters behave. I aim to avoid going head to head with them unless their safety is at risk. I will not try to increase their skills and I will not try to reduce their 'challenging behaviour' by introducing yet another blackmail strategy. I will not spend energy and time hounding them to clean up more than they currently do. Instead I will try to spend the next 7 days enjoying my daughters and spending time with them.


Maybe this will help settle X and K. Maybe it will help me settle. Even if it has no positive effects, I need a break from the constant argy-bargy with X, such as the meltdown we had this morning when I asked her to put her dressing gown back on a clotheshanger after she had taken it off. I suspect me taking a break from trying to improve her behaviour won't make any difference. If that's the case, X has been a ratbag her whole life, so another month won't make much difference. If her behaviour does deteriorate further without me hounding her, I guess that tells me that what I am generally doing does have an impact, which would be a positive outcome too. My priority though to see if X needs more comforting and more one-on-one time as she grieves for Salome. I need to scrape together what's left of my Empathy Tokens, sticky tape back together the shreds of my Emotional Resiliance, and get very close to this little person who I love dearly but who is behaving in a way that makes it very difficult for me to like her. I feel very emotionally depleted myself and I find it hard to cop X's physical anger. There is not much fuel left in the tank emotionally, and the emotional demands of the situation are not decreasing.



Here is something that makes me laugh that I've already flicked to some of you. It's Jason Byrnes at the Gala. I particularly like the quote "Don't panic. They're just ramps."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6y_rzNp6b0