Tailspin
Little has had a really good few months.
Something clicked with her over the summer holidays and she seemed to be feeling so much more settled and confident in herself. I don’t know if it was the adoption order finally being granted (she was very aware of what this entailed and had been anxious to legally change her name for ages) or us having all spent a prolonged period at home being a family without the distraction of school, but things just felt a lot calmer. She’s had the occasional wobble since and we’ve still had to be very aware of her triggers and head things of at the pass, but on the whole things have been stable for the last 5-6 months. With her at least anyway. Tiny has made sure to fill the void so we don’t get too complacent, but that’s a whole other story...
Something has happened in the last week or so though that has sent Little into a tailspin. We’re still not entirely sure what is at the heart of it... her behaviour was gradually slipping over a few days last week and no obvious trigger has made itself known as yet. We’ve done a lot of wondering aloud, but so far all we’ve been able to do is rule things out. The months of calm had raised our expectations though and we were caught off guard when it happened. Our therapeutic masks slipped and we got locked in a bit of a power struggle. Little got scared and the tailspin sped up.
So now we’re in full damage limitation mode. There’s no quick fix and nothing to be done except to batten down the hatches and ride it out. Little is clearly testing to see how much she needs to throw at us (literally and figuratively!) before we ask her to leave, and has admitted as much. So we’re throwing all the nurture and resilience we’ve got back at her. Lots of babying, lots of connection, lots of little gestures to let her know we’re always thinking of her. We’re letting all the attitude and most of everything else slide and just concentrating on keeping everyone safe.
The most difficult thing though is that her aggression is mostly directed at Tiny these days. Primarily because when she’s wobbly she sees any attention we give him as a threat to her survival, but probably also because she knows that that is the one thing we won’t let go. This morning she took his favourite dummy twice and put it in the bin, then swept all the bowls off the breakfast table when I gave it back to him (because obviously that means we love him more). She spent a considerable amount of time trying to pop a balloon which was lying around, and which she likes playing with, because it was his. Eventually we managed to engage her in a pretty energetic game of hitting the balloon as hard as we could to get some of the aggression out, but it wasn’t long before we had to drag her off Tiny, kicking and screaming.
She’s at school now and I’ve had a word with her teacher to let her know what’s going on, as her behaviour at school is also understandably deteriorating. It’s heartbreaking to think about how fragile her sense of security is and how frightening it must feel to be her right now.
Let’s just hope the storm dies down a bit soon. And if not, at least we’ve recent had our carpet replaced by laminate so cleaning up hurled Weetabix is a darn sight easier than it used to be!
Something clicked with her over the summer holidays and she seemed to be feeling so much more settled and confident in herself. I don’t know if it was the adoption order finally being granted (she was very aware of what this entailed and had been anxious to legally change her name for ages) or us having all spent a prolonged period at home being a family without the distraction of school, but things just felt a lot calmer. She’s had the occasional wobble since and we’ve still had to be very aware of her triggers and head things of at the pass, but on the whole things have been stable for the last 5-6 months. With her at least anyway. Tiny has made sure to fill the void so we don’t get too complacent, but that’s a whole other story...
Something has happened in the last week or so though that has sent Little into a tailspin. We’re still not entirely sure what is at the heart of it... her behaviour was gradually slipping over a few days last week and no obvious trigger has made itself known as yet. We’ve done a lot of wondering aloud, but so far all we’ve been able to do is rule things out. The months of calm had raised our expectations though and we were caught off guard when it happened. Our therapeutic masks slipped and we got locked in a bit of a power struggle. Little got scared and the tailspin sped up.
So now we’re in full damage limitation mode. There’s no quick fix and nothing to be done except to batten down the hatches and ride it out. Little is clearly testing to see how much she needs to throw at us (literally and figuratively!) before we ask her to leave, and has admitted as much. So we’re throwing all the nurture and resilience we’ve got back at her. Lots of babying, lots of connection, lots of little gestures to let her know we’re always thinking of her. We’re letting all the attitude and most of everything else slide and just concentrating on keeping everyone safe.
The most difficult thing though is that her aggression is mostly directed at Tiny these days. Primarily because when she’s wobbly she sees any attention we give him as a threat to her survival, but probably also because she knows that that is the one thing we won’t let go. This morning she took his favourite dummy twice and put it in the bin, then swept all the bowls off the breakfast table when I gave it back to him (because obviously that means we love him more). She spent a considerable amount of time trying to pop a balloon which was lying around, and which she likes playing with, because it was his. Eventually we managed to engage her in a pretty energetic game of hitting the balloon as hard as we could to get some of the aggression out, but it wasn’t long before we had to drag her off Tiny, kicking and screaming.
She’s at school now and I’ve had a word with her teacher to let her know what’s going on, as her behaviour at school is also understandably deteriorating. It’s heartbreaking to think about how fragile her sense of security is and how frightening it must feel to be her right now.
Let’s just hope the storm dies down a bit soon. And if not, at least we’ve recent had our carpet replaced by laminate so cleaning up hurled Weetabix is a darn sight easier than it used to be!
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