Lilo & Stitch

Another great conversation starter:



Why are the sisters yelling?

What are Lilo's big feelings?

What do you think she wants?

Do you think she wants her sister to be her authority? Who was she missing?

Lilo chose sin with her big feelings. That is not the right choice when we have big feelings. It is okay to be sad and miss people we love. It is never ok to choose sin. What could she have done instead?

Stitch also needed a family. How did Lilo help Stitch?

Bad Case of Stripes

A huge part of attachment disorder is not knowing their own hearts. I don't know about your kiddo, by mine will choose food she doesn't like, clothes she doesn't want to wear, activities she doesn't like, and on and on. What is that? Fear of being wrong and therefore rejected, control of parents' time/energy/focus, too busy focused on surviving to think about anything else. I don't know what the core is or if it changes for my RADish. But it is incessant. Questions like, what do you want? or did you like it? are often met with robotic answers or copying the child that answered near her.

This week, we got our children pets. Our threshold right now with a baby in the house, is limited to beta fish. We got home, got them in their containers and then needed to name them. It took girlie FOR. EVER. to choose because we made her choose hers first. No opportunity to copy. Taking waaayyyy too long, her siblings couldn't wait any longer and chose names. RADish chooses a name in the same manner. (e.g. one chooses a name from a movie, she chooses a name from a movie. one chooses a friend's name. she chooses a friend's name. etc) After much encouragement and not letting her copy them, she finally chose a name. We all agreed it was a great choice.

That night, I pulled out this book:



Love this. She totally got it. Without me saying anything, she said, I do that all the time. A great discussion starter!

Back to School

Here come the triggers of school. I thought things were going well. Then I remembered that summer is filled with many days of freedom. School brings back those long days chocked full of resisting the "you need to do this, please" with controlling behaviors.

After catching her making a the NASTIEST face ever at me, I started asking lots of questions trying to get to the bottom of things. Finally, she replied,
"Oh, sometimes, I just like to think about how disgusting you are, mom."

Oh crazies, welcome back. I'd love to say I've missed you, but the twitching keeps me from that.

It then took another hour to get to the bottom of sin and deal with it. But hey, at least it was an hour and not a week. Healing! :)

Happy back to school, folks. Just remember, you are not alone. We love you. Jesus loves you and He will equip you for this school year.