Reply to The impossiblity of mothering

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I'm sorry for the difficulties you're having.  I have a child with anxiety and lots of defiance.  One of the things his counselor taught us was the art of special time.  I know you hear lots of "oh, spend 20 mins a day with your kid" advice, but this kind of special time is a little different.  Here are the rules:

1. Child gets to pick the activity.
2. During said activity, the adult is to be actively narrating the child's actions.  It sounds ridiculous and trust me, it feels even more so, but you do so to show your child that they have 100% of your attention.
3. Adult asks NO questions whatsoever during the activity.  Even if you need help with the activity, you still can't ask.  The reason is that even a simple seemingly innocuous question can be taken as a implicit criticism. For example, I might ask my son, "Why did you zig instead of zagging?" but my kid might interpret it as "Oh, maybe I should've zagged, I must've done something wrong."
4. Activity is 20 mins or so each day.
5. If at the end, your child has trouble transitioning away, or just wants and wants and wants like mine does, you can spend a couple of minutes talking about the next day's special time.

Honestly, it sounds totally hokey, but doing this has helped a lot. Our kid reports this therapist how much he enjoys special time and his behavior has definitely improved. I'm not saying it's a panacea, but it might be a good place to start to reconnect while you figure out other issues.

Good luck.[/quote]

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