Aug 19, 2014 - WELL THAT WILL TEACH ME

I really should have known better. After almost 5 years, you would think I would know not to make assumptions about how well things are going.  

The transition back to school (which can be tough for a lot of kids, and beyond daunting to a trauma kid) has been going pretty well. Yes, last night was the first night since two weeks before school started that she didn't have nightmares, but that's pretty mild in the scheme of trauma things.  So I was thinking we were doing pretty well. I really should know better......

Tonight it was homework time, then time to head to gymnastics.  That was the plan..  I hear the zipper of the backpack and think to myself that I'm proud of her for getting to her homework with only a little pushback. Then I hear, "This is college level math. Seriously, people, we are only in 4th grade! What idiot thought this should be in a math book for 4th graders?"  And we're off....... (For those unfamiliar with trauma kids, this had nothing to do with math. The assignment could have been to write her name and the result would have been the same. It was about all the changes, trying to stay regulated in a classroom all day, and navigating the social minefield of new teachers and new classmates.)  I walk in and sit down and ask if I can help (again, I really should know better!).  The homework sheet got wadded up (but success, it did not get shredded, which is what happened in previous years) and tossed, followed by the binder and the backpack.  (Yes more success...none of them got tossed at me!)

I walked out to get a both a glass of water and to say my two favorite prayers ("God, please give me the patience to get through the next 5 minutes" and "God, please don't let me screw this up too badly."). When I go back into her room, I tell her to put away her homework, text her coach that we won't be at practice, and we get in the car to go shopping.  Yep, you heard me, shopping. My girl loves to shop. And we got to walk (she's really kinesthetic, and uses movement to regulate...an extra challenge in school), be somewhere totally neutral, and focus on cute bedspreads and redecorate her bedroom in our heads.  Unconventional, you say?  Rewarding bad behavior, you say?  Yes to the first, and an emphatic no to the second.  I was making my girl feel treasured, safe, and way more important than a sheet of math problems.  

To her credit (and yes, to mine), at bedtime she asked me if she could do her homework.  I wavered (it was bedtime, and I was more than ready!), but I knew she'd fret and be up for ages worrying over it, so I said yes. Five minutes later it was done and she was settling in.  She asked me to iron her homework. I told her I would, but as we have learned, it still looks crumpled even after you iron it.  But at least it's not held together by tape!

This is her new teachers' first experience with one of my "homework FYI" sort of emails.  Maybe I should have made the subject line "welcome to the wonderful world of trauma!"

I'm off to tell myself I did a good job handling this one and extend myself some grace for all the times I didn't/won't.

Give yourselves some grace too. Maybe you didn't have crumpled math sheets and sobbing 9 year olds, but I bet you had something.  Grace - we all need it.