Callie: Oh hell no. No doctor is sticking anything near my girly parts.

*****

Me: Yeah, besides, you could get an STD and die.

Bug: Not me, I got the shot.

Me: The shot doesn’t prevent all STDs.

Bug: Well that is stupid. What a rip off.

*****

Izzy: I can’t wait to start school. I want to find out who the boys are.

Callie: That was so not the right thing to say on the way back from getting birth control.

*****

Bug: I want birth control.

Me: Why in the world would you need birth control?

Bug: I want it.

Me: Bug. You don’t have your period and you aren’t having sex.

Bug: So?

Me: So then birth control is pointless for you.

Bug: Yeah, but I don’t want bilogic babies. I want to adopt.

*****

Me: Maybe I should add that to the family rules. No sex allowed.

Callie: Yeah, no sex until you turn 30.

Bug: Then Geo can have sex. Did you know he was allowed to have sex once? Because he got married. So he was allowed.

*****

Callie: They were really nice to me. But still it was like, “Hey, nice to meet you, let’s chat, now let me attack your cervix with a brush.” And then Snowbaby got a lollipop. SO unfair.

*****

Bug: Mom, do you have genital warts?

*****

Bug: Well, if you guys have any questions about the sperm and the egg you can ask me. Mommy bought me a book.

Bug: MOMMM! MOMMM! UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Me: What is wrong, Bug?

Bug: It is Bubba! HE WILL NOT CLEAN UP.

Me: Calm down. What is wrong?

Bug: I told him to clean up his room and he is not doing it. He is making more of a mess!!

Me: Well, how did you learn how to clean? You didn’t know how to clean when you first got here.

Bug: You taught me.

Me: Well, you have to teach him. He doesn’t understand what ‘clean up your room’ means. You have to show him what to pick up and where it goes.

Bug: But I told him to pick up his stuff and he said NO. And I am getting SO FRUSTRATED. I don’t understand why kids don’t listen! They don’t do what you tell them! You try to give them a simple thing to do and they won’t do it! UGHHH!

Me: Hmm. Well, I understand completely Bug. I think you are doing a good job.

Bug: You are lucky I am so well-behaved, Mom.

It is so nice to have Buggy home. While she was gone, my dad cleaned out her room really well. She had been moved in there when she and Butterfly were unable to share a room, and it had never gotten set up nice. I cleaned out the closet and hung up posters for her. She wanted one of those mosquito net looking canopies so I got that for her. My dad moved a bookcase in her room and organized all the books and cleaned out her desk.

She was thrilled. This morning she got up and made her bed and picked up her stuff without complaining.

She seems a lot more balanced. There is some indication that she might have bipolar disorder, which does seem to fit how she acted before. Since she has been back, she seems a lot more even.

I forgot how big she is now. She is as tall as me and actually weighs a few pounds more. She is going to be tall and beautiful. I can tell.

One issue Bug has is control. She wants to be in control of every situation and she manipulates situations as well as she can to put herself in control. Her therapist was able to give me some good ideas regarding that. It is very normal for her to feel this way, in fact, I have a lot of control issues myself related to my sexual abuse, so I can understand where Bug is coming from.

One thing I’ve learned from her therapist is to give Bug as much control as possible, while maintaining control over her control. Does that make sense?

For instance, Bug is now on a daily schedule. Her schedule is broken down into 10, 30 and 60 minute chunks. Her day is scheduled from the second she gets up to the second she goes to bed. I made the schedule, I’m in charge of enforcing the schedule, and I even keep track of the time to let Bug know when it is time to move to the next thing on her schedule.

But at the same time, the schedule gives Bug freedom to control what she does. She is given slots of time to work on particular school subjects, but she is permitted to determine what lessons she wants to work on. (If she doesn’t do an adequate job during the week, she has to make up work on the weekends.) She has free time allotted where she can pick what she wants to do. She has reading time where she can choose what she wants to read. She had free play time scheduled with Snowbaby where Bug can decide what they play. She has quiet time scheduled where she can decide whether she wants to nap, read, write or do art work.

So Bug feels like she is in control of what she is doing during the day, when in reality she is following a schedule that I set up that dictates what she is allowed to do. She is so excited that she gets to pick what she does during the day, without even realizing that she is, in fact, doing what I tell her.

We’ve only been doing it since this morning, but it has been very effective. Bug has been working hard, with no complaints. She knows when she is allowed to do certain things, so she doesn’t keep coming in here and asking if she can do this or that.

It is a very good technique for us, I think. It helps Bug feel in control, it allows me to maintain control without having to fight her for it, and it gives her a sense of stability.

If anyone is interested, I can post the schedule that we are using.

I learned some other techniques that I’ll talk about in the next few posts. Bug is also going to do some guest posting. She was very thrilled to get your messages. “I’m so famous!” she said.

I know that are problems aren’t going to go away right away, but I’m hoping with some new techniques, the right balance of medication, and a little bit of effort on both of our parts, she will continue to improve and be able to heal.

I have been meaning to post about this.

Baggage:……and so we’ll try to do something fun tonight. I know it won’t make up for it, but at least you might feel better.

Bug: (Coming downstairs) How can we do anything fun? We have to go all the way to their visit.

Butterfly: There’s no visit.

Bug: Yes, you have a visit today.

Baggage: It got cancelled.

Bug: Oh no! Butterfly, I’m sorry. That sucks!! (Hugs her) Want to go play with me?

The second part of Bug’s behavior chart is called “I caught myself being good.”

When Bug is asked to do something and she does it without arguing/tantruming/talking back, she is supposed to announce, “I caught myself being good.” Each time she does, she gets to put a sticker on her chart. When she gets 15 stickers, she gets a special treat. It only counts when Bug notices her good behavior and announces that she is being good.

This works very well. First, it encourages Bug to take responsibility for her own behavior. To notice times where she is making good choices/bad choices. It also works to stop the back talk, simply because she is too busy saying that she was caught being good to argue with me over whether she should need to pick up her shoes. It also encourages her to gain attention for positive behaviors, not negative.

Bug also is motivated by the stickers. We have a giant sticker box and we use cool stickers for this part of the chart. Last night she got this big Bambi sticker and was excited.

The two parts of the chart complement each other as the more she catches herself being good, the more she thinks about the consequences of her actions. It also helps her express her emotions in the correct way.

The only thing is that she sometimes forgets to do it. She is easily reminded though because Geo will start doing it himself. “Hey, Geo, can you hand me a Pepsi?” “Sure, hon..I AM BEING GOOD! GOOD BEHAVIOR.” Then Bug usually will try to find her own instances of good behavior.

It is much more effective than when I try to find instances of her being good. And helps a lot with the talking back.

*********

Bug’s St. Jude Progress:

Fundraising Totals:

Total Gifts: 8
Dollars Raised: $195.00
Total On-line Gifts: 3
Total On-line Dollars: $75.00
Total Off-line Gifts: 5
Total Off-line Dollars: $120.00
It is not too late if you want to donate. Just send me an email or leave a comment if you are interested.

Technorati Tags: behavior, behavior charts, St Jude, mathathon, parenting 

Thank you for all the words of support. I found them incredibly reassuring. At some point during my half asleep crying last night, I told Geo “I am going to invite everyone from my blog over for a big party.”

So no more crying stories…

I haven’t talked much about Bug’s behavior plan. The first step in making a behavioral modification plan is to identify the behaviors you want to work on. You then want to put those in positive terms.

Here are Bug’s:

Bug will demonstrate she can be trusted.

Bug will demonstrate good hygiene by taking an appropriate shower, wearing deodorant, brushing her hair, wearing a bra and brushing her teeth for two minutes at least two times a day.

Bug will express her emotions in a calm, friendly, kind way.

Bug will consider the consequences of her behavior before she does the behavior.

Of course, those aren’t the only things that Bug needs to work on, but those are the ones we are focusing on.

Bug has a behavior chart. Each night, after we clean the kitchen, Bug reads out each behavior. We discuss whether she did a good job showing that behavior today. If so, she gets a checkmark in that box. If she demonstrates three out of the four behaviors, she gets thirty minutes of family game time. If she demonstrates four out of four behaviors, she gets forty minutes.

The important thing is to reward what she has done. If she doesn’t get a checkmark in a particular behavior, we mention why, but we don’t lecture. The chart is for catching good behavior. Bad behavior can be dealt with separately.

There are a few things with this chart system that are different than ones I have done in the past. First, Bug gets rewarded each day vs. each week. She responds better to that. Bug reads out her own behaviors to get them drilled into her head a little more. Bug also is getting checks based on her good behavior instead of her bad. In the past I had a system where she would get a check mark if she was bad, and if she got three checkmarks she lost TV time. She is much more responsive to the chart now that it is in positive terms.

The other day when it snowed, she went outside and made this tiny little snowman. She banged on the playroom door and I opened it so I could see it better. After I had seen it, she threw it up in the air. It broke into pieces, half of it landing inside on the playroom floor.

Her eyes got really big and she said, “Oh no! I didn’t think of the consequences of that ahead of time!”

More on her behavior plan to come…

Technorati Tags: behavior modification, star charts, consequences, rewards

Bug had her second basketball game today. I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but Bug is Bug’s actual nickname. Not just her internet name. Last week I was told before the game that under no circumstances was I allowed to call her Bug in front of other people. I was not to yell, “Go Bug!”

It was hard, because we really do call her Bug 90% of the time. She even calls herself Bug when she signs cards or pictures she draws.

During last week’s game, the Dad sitting next to me kept screaming out to his daughter. “Come on Muffin! Go Muffin!!”

So this week I’m sitting in the stands and the game is about to start and all of a sudden Bug is running up into the stands. She bends over and whispers into my ear.

“You can call me Bug, Mommy. If Sam’s dad can call her Muffin, you can call me Bug. It’s OK. I’m not scared anymore.”

Technorati Tags: nicknames, basketball

Me: Hey Buggy, you know that we all aren’t going to die from global warming, right?

Bug: I know, Mommy.

Me: Ok good.

Bug: Some people are going to die before global warming kills everyone else.

Me: Oh.

Bug: Yeah, like they will die of old age. Like GEO! HE IS OLD.

Technorati Tags: global warming

Yondalla posted another excellent post about behavior modification and why it sometimes does not work with hurt children. Or why when it works, the kid gets angry or upset.

It actually has a lot to do with what I was talking about yesterday. I am very well aware that a lot of Bug’s issues stem from a lack of consistent parenting as well as from ODD/ADHD. But I am also well aware of the fact that she has certain behaviors that are directly related to the fact that she had trauma in her childhood.

And it make sense, doesn’t it? How many of us, who have also have had trauma in our childhood, have behaviors related to that? I know I do. I know that things that I do or things that upset me or triggers I have are directly related to feelings of guilt or shame or anxiety or fear.

So if I am 28 and I’ve had 15+ years to process what happened to me, how can I expect little Buggy to not be reacting to things that happened to her?

And not that I am saying to excuse the behavior. I’m not saying that it is OK for her to do the things that she does, anymore than I think my own undesirable behaviors are OK. But they are understandable.

As parents, sometimes we simply react. We simply react to the behavior at hand and yell or punish. We don’t often think about why it is happening. Or you do, later on. For instance, when I am tired, I am impossible. I’ve been known to be sitting here working late at night and for Geo to walk in the room and ask where the milk is and for me to have an all out sobbing fest. It is just what happens to me when I get really tired. Don’t kids act the same way, when something simple is bothering them? Now imagine they’ve got things that aren’t so simple that is bothering them?

So yes, like Yondalla says..these parenting techniques are great. They can work. They can help you stay calm. And besides, we should be praising our children more. Teaching them more. Punishing less.

But they aren’t a cure. They aren’t a fix. They aren’t even really what you need to know in order to take “behavioral” foster children.

Go read what Yondalla says. This is one reason I have 300 blogs in my reader, because I learn so much from other people.

As an aside, I had a good talk with Bug yesterday. She cracks me up sometimes. I had finished talking about the teacher and all that and then I said, “Oh, by the way, you can not pour full glasses of orange juice and then leave them on the counter when you go to school. Can you give me a reason why not?”

And Bug said, “Yeah! Because it is wasteful and it is half-butted.”

Hahahaa. I love that “half-butted” is my kid’s new descriptive phrase.

I also noticed that her behavior was so much better in the afternoon because she took her medicine when she got home from school. In fact, I was downstairs and I didn’t hear her moving around. (Normally it sounds like there is an elephant upstairs.) I went upstairs and she was sitting quietly in her room, weaving a potholder.

She used to take 5 mg of Adderall when she came home from school, maybe that would help.

But we had a good night:

Talking back/Arguing: 2

Tantrums: 0

Lying: 0

And I was praising like crazy since I felt bad about yesterday. We had 7 praises and 1 criticism.

Now the real question is: How am I going to get through tonight with no Grey’s?? Considering the TIVO is on my dresser, so I’m guessing Geo won’t be TIVOing half of it for me.

Technorati Tags: behavior, foster care, abuse, Grey’s Anatomy, parenting 

First off, thank you to all of you who gave me some great suggestions on how to feel better. And thanks to those who were excited about my p*rn venture. I would get started on it tonight, but you know..no energy.

Anyway, last night we had behavior class number two. A lot of it was reiterating what we learned before. We also went around the room and talked about the behavior that we wanted to work on with one of our kids. Tantrums. Sexually acting out. Bed wetting. Not coming when called for dinner.

We also talked more about pure descriptive praise. Pure as in we don’t qualify it with a “but” statement. Descriptive as in we are talking about a specific behavior. You don’t want to make a comment about the worth of the child (or adult). So I shouldn’t say to Bug, “Wow! You are such a good girl! You cleaned your room!” Bug’s worth as a good or bad person shouldn’t be determined by the cleanliness of her room. Instead, I should say, “Wow! I am proud of you for doing such a good job on your room. It looks great!” And remember, it is all about praise. I can’t follow that up with a “But your bed doesn’t look really good.” What you could say is “It looks great! Here, let me help you fix your bed.”

You want to praise positive behavior whenever you see it. Praise her for the behavior. Not, “You are a great basketball player” but “You practiced really hard at basketball today.”

The goal is to get the child to have internal motivation. For her to actually WANT to do the right thing. That is why punishment is not very effective. It just makes her want to not get caught. But by focusing on what she does right, hopefully she’ll decide she wants to do it for herself.

It is hard though. If you take an honest inventory on how often you praise your child and how often you praise your significant other, you’ll often find that you don’t do a good job. Like I said before, I am very guilty at doing the the “You did great but…”

The other thing we talked about is establishing a baseline. If you have a child who consistently exhibits bad behavior you might catch yourself saying, “Bug always tantrums. Bug always talks back. Bug always gets up out of bed. Bug always lies.”

And it may very well feel that way. But chances are that Bug doesn’t ALWAYS do it. But when you are dealing with bad behavior on a constant basis, you can get frustrated. And when you try to modify a child’s behavior, and you don’t see results you may be tempted to give up and just decide that the kid is a brat who is ruining your life on purpose.

What you need to do in this situation is set up a baseline. Write down three or four behaviors that you want to work on. Now, let’s count. How many times did Bug tantrum on Monday? How many on Tuesday? You should do this for a week or two. Once you have established a baseline, you can set a goal. But your goals should be small. If Bug tantrums an average of 11 times a day, your goal should not be for her to stop tantruming all together. That is too much. Of course, that is your ultimate goal, but in order to get there she is going to need to tantrum 10 times or 5 times or 3 times a day. So start off small. If your kid wets the bed every night, try to get it so they only wet 5 nights a week. Not only will you be able to see some progress, but your child will get a sense of accomplishment.

The final thing we talked about what being clear in your requests. If you have a kid who complains or tantrums at every request, you need to be very clear. You need to say, “Bug, please go set the table now.” Two things that work for me that go along with this. #1 is that Bug has a timer that she can clip onto her pants. We set the timer for everything. “Hey Bug, I bet you can’t clean your whole room in five minutes!” She studies for 30 minutes. She has 10 minutes of kitchen time. Saying, “Bug, go do your ten minutes in the kitchen” works much better than “Bug, go clean the kitchen.” Also, assume your kid does not understand what you want done. Especially if you have not raised them from birth. Bug has a list on the fridge (Entitled ‘How to clean the kitchen so mom does not cook peas everyday.’) It lists what she needs to do in the order that she needs to do it. It is very explicit. “Throw trash in trash can. If trash can if full, take out trash bag. Tie it up. Go to drawer and get out trash bag. Put new trashbag in trashcan. Then throw away trash.” Having this visual reminder is very helpful, especially for a kid who has ADHD. I’ve mentioned this before but I made the mistake in assuming Bug knew how to do things. If you get a kid from foster care, don’t assume that. Take the time to explain. Even if they are your bio kid, make sure that your kid knows what you want them to do. Try to only give one direction at a time. “Bug, go pick up all the dirty clothes on your floor. Ok, now go make your bed. Ok, now go put your books away.” It is a lot less overwhelming than “Bug, go clean your whole room.”

I have homework this week, and I’m hoping some of you will play along. The goal is to keep two charts.

The first is a praise/criticism chart. Pick a kid or your significant other. Now count each time you give them pure descriptive praise and how many times you give a criticism. Come up with a total for each day and a total for the week. I did this for today. Bug had a bad day today and I found that I criticized her four times today and only praised her three times. Boo! Obviously I need to work on praising her more, even when she is acting crazy.

The second is your baseline chart. Pick three or four behaviors that you want to work on with your kids, spouse, or even yourself. Now count each time that behavior occurs. Here is Bug’s for today:

Talking back/Arguing: 11 times

Tantrums: 2 times

Lying: 0 times

The only other thing I wanted to tell you about the class was that Bug actually attended the first hour because Geo was going to pick her up and got lost. She was so cute. We were watching these videos and had questions to answer and she raised her hand to answer the questions. Here she was, in a room full of adults..no kids and she felt confident enough to raise her hand and give an answer. She also listened very closely when we went around talking about problem behaviors and made little comments to me (Oh, that’s bad! Oh..I used to do that! Haha! I do that now! I bet you are glad I don’t do that!) When it was my turn to say Bug’s problem behaviors she started giggling and the teacher said, “You do those things?” and Bug said, “Yeah, but I’m working on it.” Haha. She said it was the best class she has ever gone to and she wants to go every week.

Oh, and one more Bug story before I go.

Bug saw her birth certificate today.

“WOW! COOL! Can I bring it to school and show my teacher?” she asked.

“No, Bug, we can’t lose it.”

“It looks different from my other one in my life book.”

“That is because the one in the lifebook is just a copy.”

“Wait. This is messed up. It says you adopted me when you were 17.”

“Well, actually Bug, this birth certificate is kind of silly. They make these as if I gave birth to you. Which we all know isn’t true because your birth mom gave birth to you. But it is just how they do it.”

“So then why does it say you are 17?”

“It means that if I had given birth to you, I would have been 17 when that happened.”

“Well that is just stupid. YOU CAN’T GIVE BIRTH WHEN YOU ARE ONLY SEVENTEEN!!!”

Technorati Tags: behavior modification, praise, parenting, chores, birth certificates, adoption