Playing both sides

In a long talk yesterday over lunch Scott and I discussed Sam. So much junk going on in trying to help him. A huge shame, but seemingly the way of life for Sam. His in home intervention faxing paperwork that stated Sam was a threat to other and himself, indicating a need for a higher level of care. In our talking we realize others look at what we do critically. Scott and I believe that perhaps the line of thought "on the other side of the fence" is....

1) Sam can't get by with anything because we are watching him constantly, creating a fishbowl for Sam.

2) We hold him to a level of accountability he cannot maintain.

3) We talk about his behavior in front of him, causing Sam to have low self-esteem.

Scott and I both nod at one another as we talk about these...the answer is yes, yes and yes. We truly cannot change who we are not on these three things.

1) We are unwilling to allow something to happen to Sam or others because we were not being attentive. If I had a child with diabetes I would not stop testing their blood sugar. Even if it was uncomfortable and bothersome...watchfulness in that case is SAFETY. We feel the same is true of the level of watchfulness with Sam. The one time I did leave him in the van alone he stuck his finger in the cigarette lighter and burned the tarnation out of his finger.

2) Sam could not live with accountability. He is rarely held accountable to the degree the other children are. If Sam looses all composure the key to us is calming down, being reasonable, talking about the issue. There are natural consequence and redirection but RARELY do we impose additional consequences because Sam would never recoup from the issue. We would be punishing the whole house to days of bad acting.

3)I understand the talking in front of kids about some things...but in truth? Samuel is 14 and he needs to understand and work on correctly his behavior. It really really isn't secret. If he were overweight we would not talk about him being fat, we likely would talk about eating healthy. Same is true of Sam...we try not to talk negatively, not humiliatingly, but how do you sugar coat so much of Sam's behavior? The answer? You don't and you can't.


We will be having a TN Care hearing next week to decided if they will help Sam or not. Scott has spent, literally, HOURS preparing for that hearing. I know Sam will never understand the "why's" of what we do or the motivation. It sure isn't because finding him help is the easy way out!!