"Blowing Up the Bridge:
This can be a helpful image for parents to remember to protect themselves from being set up for repeated disappointment and frustration.
It works like this. Think of yourselves and your AD child on opposite banks of a river with the goal being to bridge the river.
Why?
Your child has some success maybe a few good days at school or some unusually good behavior at home.
As parents, your hopes begin to rise, and you start walking out on the bridge to meet and congratulate your child. After you have gotten out on the bridge, your child “blows it up” with some new misbehavior that wipes out the previous spark of success.
Everyone winds up “in the river”.
You are feeling disappointed / frustrated / angry / betrayed.
Your AD child is feeling empowered: “Ha! I got them again.”
In order to avoid handing your child the power to disappoint you, you should stay on your side of the river and communicate your expectation that your child build the bridge all the way across with some reliable, real change.
You offer heartfelt congratulations only when your child steps off the bridge onto your side of the river.
It’s a matter of disciplined patience and timing on the parents’ part.
Your therapist can guide you in deciding when the child has accomplished sufficient change to be acknowledged"
*******************************************************************************
This can be a helpful image for parents to remember to protect themselves from being set up for repeated disappointment and frustration.
It works like this. Think of yourselves and your AD child on opposite banks of a river with the goal being to bridge the river.
While the idea of “meeting halfway” seems the obvious plan, this can be a trap/mistake with many AD children.
Why?
Your child has some success maybe a few good days at school or some unusually good behavior at home.
As parents, your hopes begin to rise, and you start walking out on the bridge to meet and congratulate your child. After you have gotten out on the bridge, your child “blows it up” with some new misbehavior that wipes out the previous spark of success.
Everyone winds up “in the river”.
You are feeling disappointed / frustrated / angry / betrayed.
Your AD child is feeling empowered: “Ha! I got them again.”
In order to avoid handing your child the power to disappoint you, you should stay on your side of the river and communicate your expectation that your child build the bridge all the way across with some reliable, real change.
You offer heartfelt congratulations only when your child steps off the bridge onto your side of the river.
It’s a matter of disciplined patience and timing on the parents’ part.
Your therapist can guide you in deciding when the child has accomplished sufficient change to be acknowledged"
The above passage is from an article
found in entirety at
Author is not identified.
I would LOVE to give credit where credit is due!!!
(formatting, font size, boldness etc is mine)
*******************************************************************************
We have LIVED this over and over again. We have learned through EXPERIENCE that we need to have compliance or we ALL will be devastated when "mid-bridge" our RADs bring out the "explosives."
We are not safe on the bridge with our RADkids.
"The Bridge" is a journey our kids need to make on their own...
for the sake of their own mental health.
Our "failure" as loving parents to "meet our kids halfway"
when correcting their RAD behaviors
when correcting their RAD behaviors
has been perceived by some
(ignorant of the complexities of RAD)
to be "evidence" of
poor parenting at best
and
"abuse" at absolute worst.
No comments:
Post a Comment