Trying it out

Throughout reading The Connected Child I've picked some tools  to communicate and diffuse a stressful situation for a child who's exhibiting maladaptive behavior. What's awesome about what I've learned so far is that I can practice these tools right now in the line of work that I am in--providing massage therapy to people with special needs, many of them who are also children.  In working on my younger clients, I have to deal with maladaptive behaviors frequently and what I've read in this book has completely opened my eyes on how to respond to each situation properly to get them to do what I need during their therapy.  For example, I have a client who has a sever personality disorder that affects his every day life and he often can't sit still or even relax at all. Most of the time he behaves for me during therapy, yet there are times that I can't get him to relax and stop rocking himself, or he will growl at me and refuse to comply with my requests. During our last appointment, I immediately put two and two together with this client and realized that, though he did not obtain this behavior through abuse, he had the exact same fear response that I had been reading about due to his personality disorder.  In the middle of our session, even though I was doing the exact same things he allowed me to do before, I noticed that he was having some difficulty sitting still and complying with my requests this time and that's when it dawned on me to try some of those tools I learned in the book to see if they would work.

Here's what Dr. Purvis says about this fear response, "We have encountered many harmed children who are not truly hyperactive; instead, they are hypervigilant.  This occurs when children were so traumatized by abusive and unpredictable caretakers or situations during their earlier lives that their primitive brain remains locked in a state of high alert, keeping them perpetually on guard." Some of the signs of this is the inability to sit still, are fidgety, have a rapid heart rate while seemingly calm, and have dilated pupils or even unnaturally tiny pupils as well.

Reading further, the book taught us how to respond to a child who's having a temper tantrum (which is usually out of fear/frustration); instead of being stern with them,  talking down to, or lecturing them about their behavior, the best thing to do is to keep a calm voice, get down on their level weather it be kneeling or sitting down, look them straight in the eye, and speak very simple words to communicate what you need them to do.  Dr. Purvis said that children who are developmentally delayed do not have the mental capacity to understand a lecture or complex adult like directions.  So this is exactly what I avoided.  I made sure to bring myself down to his level and looked into his eyes, I spoke to him very softly, and I asked him to take a deep breath and relax so we could finish his therapy and honest to God, IT ACTUALLY WORKED!  He had previously been growling at me and giving me this mean look while refusing to comply but as soon as I applied those principals to our session, he took a deep breath just as I requested, and laid down to finish the session!  Just like that, just like magic. 

I am amazed at some of these things that I am learning during our journey and I'm eager to learn more about how to be the best mom I can be to my son when he gets here.  No matter what his issues are, I promise that I will try 100% to give him the best childhood experience going forward. I will do anything to make up for what he's already been through. All in all, I am honored that God picked me to be someones mom and can't wait to see what's in store for our little family. : )

Hannah


PS: Talk about the grace of God putting me in this line of work so that I can gain some experience before our little one comes home. Wow, I am in awe.