Last night I typed that I was going to rise above, remember?
And this morning I just blogged about how my day could not be ruined with the success in my weight loss.
Well, Salinda is trying her hardest to make me a liar. She has work crew this morning, a consequence of one of her many probation violations. I woke her up 30 minutes before time to leave and she didn’t get up. I woke her up again 15 minutes later only because I don’t want to her to spiral down like she usually does.
Her pattern is to screw up in some way and then, paranoid by the possible consequences and believing the worst is going to happen, she makes it worse and worse and worse for herself by making poorer and poorer choices until she bottoms out and faces legal challenges.
So, this morning I tried something different and tried using a sense of humor. Told her she should get up because this would be a perfect chance to be really mean to me and she likes that so much she needed to get out of bed so she could do it some more. I also reminded her that she needed to babysit today and that if she skipped work crew she would not have permission to babysit.
Now, if I could have just controlled my heart rate WHILE she was swearing at me, being verbally abusive, swearing, and taking out all her anger on me, then I would have been completely successful. however, I did control my mouth for the most part, which for me is a huge battle.
So, one of either three things will happen: 1) She will change her mind about getting up and storm around here making everyone miserable all day; or 2) She will come stomping out of her room soon yelling at me because I am not in the van waiting for her; or 3) She will give me icy cold stares and refuse to say a word.
And, since I have to go endure the beginnings of one of those three now, you’ll have to tune back in to hear the rest of the story.
Claudia,
ReplyDeleteJust a thought, and not a criticism, as you are a hero of mine. But Salinda is old enough to have her own alarm clock, be responsible for setting it, and responsible for getting up and ready when it goes off. It is nice of you to provide transportation (which perhaps she should be paying gas for), but you shouldn't have to do everything and be the only one concerned about whether or not she complies. Perhaps you could sit down and talk to her about a new approach.. one where she takes some accountability for herself. And if she does not, then she should have the logical consequences that ensue. I'm sure there are some legal consequences for her not showing up for her work detail.. I'm not sure she should be shielded from them. Salinda seems to treat you like crap unless she wants something, demands all kinds of independence but forever is looking for you guys to bail her out... maybe if you can remove some of the emotion from the situation, and just talk about choices and consequences of actions, etc, that might help (YOU, at least).
Like I said, I think you are an amazing inspiration and I don't mean any of this as criticism, given that I don't have any teens (yet) myself and know not of what I speak.
Corey