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My husband and I are new foster parents with a pre adoptive 3 year old boy with special needs. We began the transitioning in November and got our placement the week of Thanksgiving. Although there are many wonderful and ammazing moments there are also lots of very hard times. The past 2 days were very difficult. In the begining things weren't simple but we were able to revive ourselves. Now visits with B Mom are quite often...supposed to be twice a week but that hasn't fit into schedule yet. That has a whole pile of emotions as well but my reason for posting is discipline and struggling with the times when he won't do what he needs to to get out of trouble and just digs a whole deeper. Today the big moment was when he jumped on my stomache...he weighs about 35 pounds fully dressed and I have medical issues....the pain was pretty bad and my husband who naturally protects me was angry.
How can we get the emtional support we need for the times that are difficult for us without looking like we can't handle it?
thanks
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Visits are notorious for causing all types of behaviors in kids. You haven't had him very long and he has had years to develop bad habits and behaviors. He probably had no idea that jumping on you would be a problem. My own two foster kids do this and they are only 15 months and 3 yrs old. They have been taught by their parents that body slamming is fun.
As for digging himself out of a bad situation, that isn't possible for a 3 yr old really. When he displays a behavior you don't like, tell him so and give him a time out. Time out gives him a chance to regroup his emotions and thoughts and to sort of re-set himself. When he's done with time out, tell him again in as few words as possible what he did and why it wasn't acceptable behavior.
As for the emotional support, I get mine here and from my family. If he has problems that you feel you simply are not prepared to handle, I would suggest talking to someone with your agency about some training in that area and asking here on the forums too.
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Thank you very much for the advise and help!
Things have been going much better since we discucussed this and so on.
I would like to clarify that this wasn't a slamming into me thing....it truly was a jump on me as if I was bed to jump on or something with double pressure times. It probably would have been very painful for healthy people but was also scary and more painful than it would have been because of my conditions. He was described as hyper previous to the placement so I suspect others have had similar difficulties.
I have taken the suggestions from this and my other thread and I appreciate it a lot. His ability to understand what he did wrong seems to be improving.
Thanks again!