FEATHER FISH
Educational Advocate
I was watching Dr. Phil the other day (not something I normally do) and one of the guests was a 14 year old girl who, well, you know. She’s a mouthy handful and always has been. Dr. Phil made a BIG deal about how this 14 year old had been suspended once in kindergarten. Once.…
CRUELTY TOWARD PETS (and how I got it to stop…)
I read in one of the many books I have that when a kid with a trauma history sees an adult not protecting pets, it isn’t exactly great for building trust. If an adult can’t protect pets, it’s not a big leap for a child to assume the adult can’t protect the child either.
State Your Case
Allowing Girly to state her case built trust. It helped her learn how to verbalize her feelings, organize thoughts, hone sequencing skills and consider aspects of a situation she’d otherwise not considered. I don’t want to just control her, I want her to make good decisions.
Journaling, Holidays, Trigger Times of Year (and what better looks like…)
Everyone wants good things but if you’re conditioned to lose everything good because you can’t do anything right, you associate good with loss and failure. Better to want nothing. It’s safer. Getting something good immediately triggers feelings of loss. It’s a tricky mess to navigate.
Behavior is Communication (and punitive measures won’t work)
If punishing her worked, she’d of been a perfect child. Punishments actually made her worse. Sticker charts, reward systems, none of that shit did any good because she wasn’t choosing her behaviors.
“What would you do differently?”
She was ALWAYS hitting and touching other kids. She was ALWAYS in trouble for hitting or poking or slapping someone. I spent weary hours running my hole about her behavior.
PLAY THERAPY AT HOME (and how I stopped screwing it up…)
This is the basic idea; the child writes, directs and stars in the production. You follow instructions. If you are required to play multiple characters, you do it. If you’re required to say certain lines, you say them. If you don’t know what to say or do, ask.
The Recipe (to get through emotional storms…)
“It is hard for anyone to actually learn anything until they move out of their lower brain.”
How I Got Her To Calm Down (the day she choked the sh*t out of a kid at school…)
It was fourth grade. Overall, things had been going pretty well but I could feel the tension in the air that morning. Things were just off. It was a trigger time of year. I knew some shit was going to pop off soon. That afternoon, the school popped up on my caller ID. I answered it. …
The Color Chart
Choosing a color that matches a feeling is a very simple activity. It’s so simplistic it almost seems pointless but it was actually pretty helpful.
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Feather Fish 