Hello everyone,
I hope you and your children are doing well in these difficult times.🥰
Seeing all the journalists talking about it and especially “supporting” my children’s behavior and “crises”, I realized that I wanted to share with you how things are going at home with this pandemic! I promise: you are not alone and we feel and live the same thing! ☺️
First of all, I’m happy to have had our bi-monthly appointment with the behavior therapist this week because it was good for my daughter and for us too! Even if after the session she is tired and has a lot of questions, she is still more serene 😇. And on top of that, the therapist gives us, reminds us of the tips to follow or put in place! 👍🏻
In fact, for several weeks now, my daughter has been suffering from ODD (oppositional defiant disorder), especially the provocation: as my husband would say “she’s always looking for trouble (sh..)” 🤪. I will say, in a more polite way 😜, that she is looking for the slightest pretext to start a conflict, especially with her brother but also with us: a hurtful word, an opposition (you say “white” she says “red” – a little wink to her favorite color 🥰). Then she also comes into her teenage years so it doesn’t help!
She is “short fuse”, that is to say that the slightest small change of routine, unexpected, annoyance, etc… will take disproportionate reactions, will lead straitght to a provocation, a confrontation. As a result, she gets very tired and so we do! Her brother was hurted sometimes without even understanding what is happening to him… It’s not easy to manage: intense and “painful” for everyone! 😩
By discussing with her, we managed it ans were able to understand one of the reasons, even the main reason of this come back of provocation 😉: the covid-19 and especially the fact of having to wear a mask all day long! 😷
But unfortunately, we don’t have too much control over it, whether for her or us 🙁. We have to follow the school rules (linked to government guidelines) and deal with it!
In discussion with the behavior therapist during the appointment, she explained to me that the period of adaptation to these new measures at the new school could take a few months because it is a big change in addition to the move to Ottawa.
Furthermore, the fact that the measures change regularly (sometimes we say closure, restrictions and a few hours later we say “ok you can do that”), it is not easy for my daughter, and even my son, to continuously adapt themselves when they need to stick to a very stable routine.
All of this puts a permanent amount of stress on her that she finds hard to deal with and hard to accept because she doesn’t understand why we are doing all of this? For her “covid is poop, it sucks” 😩. But for us it’s also difficult to manage it because we have to deal with our own anxiety and at the same time try to reassure them and defuse conflicts. It’s an exhausting time nervously, emotionally and physically.🌈
My son is also having a little trouble but he doesn’t have to wear a mask ☺️. What makes him sad is not being able to play with his friends and go trick-or-treating. …. Sometimes he has a disproportional reaction 💥 to a small thing and with fatigue, he doesn’t manage his emotions as well.
Even us, adults, sometimes we have a hard time dealing with it and like my big girl or my little prince, we crack, we can’t stand anything! To my husband, it is really the weather vane side of the measures and their reasons that are not justified: it’s not clear! he really has difficulties with that! For me, it’s rather the consequences this pandemic has on our children that affect me the most… Every day i’m writing positive thoughts on my notebook to try to take this as “Zen” as possible 😊😉! I am less afraid than I was with the first wave because between EFT, the positive writings, the appointments with our therapist, I am able to better control my hypochondria! 😷🤪. But some days it weighs on me a lot, makes me sad for my such beautiful children that they can’t play like they used to at school, see friends outside of school….
It affects all of us! And unfortunately we don’t have a lot of wiggle rooms: we move forward step by step, and we follow the rules…. Hopefully it won’t last too long🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻! And we adapt, we try to be creative, like on Halloween when we go trick-or-treating at home 😜 (advice from my friend Céline and our behavior therapist) with maybe a little drive to see the decorations! 🎃💀👻
In addition, to help children and adults 💙💖💙💖, we try to stay calm at home as much as possible on weekends, to go out and get some fresh air, and especially to avoid surprises, impurities and other problems because at the moment my daughter is not managing them well at all and even my son needs to reassure himself by imagining his week’s program. On top of that, we allow my princess to stay longer quietly in her “cave room” to do what is good for her, and we are a little more forgivingness (but not always, sometimes we crack 😫😉).
And you, did you set up new things, new routines for this very particular and complicated period?
Don’t hesitate to share your tips and tricks with me or to comment here, it could help other families, other people!
Take care of yourself and your little family! 🌈🌈🥰🥰💙💖
The most important thing, I think, is really to listen to each other, to do what is good for ourselves, for our children, in order to live this complicated period as well as possible!
I send you all my support! Courage and once again take care of yourself 🥰🥰🥰 1…2…3…Let’s Share!!!!😊😊😊😊
