Handling Emotions

Last night, we had another emotional outburst. She started saying all sorts of negative things and I just said very little while I was giving her a bath. She said she wanted to just go to sleep with no stories. She got dressed and ready and was half crying the entire time. She started to cry harder and I told her how proud of her I was for letting herself cry. Again, she seemed shocked that I said that and almost stopped crying immediately. I continued to carefully choose my words, but was all positive. After she stopped crying, she was lying down. She told me she wanted to hit herself on the head. The last time she was in ne of these moods, she took my hand and tried to make me hit her on the forehead. I caught on before she did it, because she did it to me before. So I told her she could hit the pillow as much as she wanted because she couldn't hurt the pillow and she might feel better. I was questioning myself if it was good to encourage her to hit something, but it's hard to think it all out when you are in the moment and your child wants to hit herself. She said she didn't want to and threw the pillow. I jumped on that one and said, "Wow, good throw!" I gave her another and asked her to see if she could throw that one farther. She threw it and again I complimented her ability. Luckily we had 4 pillows, so she got 4 throws in rapid succession. She wanted more, so I picked them up and let her throw them again. We repeated this a couple more times and then everything was suddenly okay again. She said to me, "I'm back to being happy." I told her how happy I was that she was feeling good again and how proud I was of her. These episodes wear me out, but I think I handled this one better than in the past. Even though I think about what I should say, sometimes I say the wrong thing, not realizing where it will lead.

Today is conference day and I hope I am ready. I am very fortunate to have consulted with a former teacher and fellow adoptive mom who has coached me from her very experienced perspective.(Thanks EB!) I am a very wordy person, so this is going to be a challenge, but I can do it. At least I think ; )