Hi Nicholeen,
Thank you for the advice last week about my daughter who pulled me to the floor and accuses me regularly of waiting to kill/starve her and says that I hate her.
– it appears that my 13 year old daughter has undiagnosed and untreated aspergers and attachment issues and I have been a "lasse fair parent" who went from one extreme to another and I permitted a lot of drama around me.
for background I started a home based business just after she was born and became very anxious and disorganised in my life and didn't know how to relax and bond and didn't know how to give her the gentle character development that I ought to and simply responded to her screaming to tell me what she needed. She was regularly having meltdowns at age 7. I was attempting to homeschool/unschool her, but I admit it was just neglect and I see the error of my ways. I paid for coaching from someone who taught "real love" but ended up coaching me to give some very sever consequences including making her sleep locked in our garden shed and missing meals, cutting off her long hair etc. without giving clear skills of what good behaviour looked like..I started to distrust the advice and left the program. Your skills training has been a wonderful start and she was trusting it, but it appears she's processing for the first time the abuse of being locked in the shed etc (3 years ago) and yes I have been feeling remorse – I have admitted it to her that it was wrong &I asked for forgiveness from her – even gave her a "pay out" to say yes it was real – I feel like she does need to process this as I suspect some kind of PTSD is manifesting. She hates the school she goe to as there's lots of drug addicted parents & nasty kids & it would be my dream to homeschool her but I feel exhausted by the constant conflict at the moment over everything I ask her to do. eg. her duty to mop the floor, to be dressed by 9am, and then any work eg. math. She is very controlling of everything and (I mentioned before her father & I appear to have all the 9 narcistic tendencies – although we are both bible believing faithful Christians and want the best but our communication style isn't yet fully consistent or uplifting )
She is taking out her discomfort by picking on everyone close. question: do we focus on trauma recovery, do I take the time to homeschool? i feel like its a chance to really set her life on the right path, but worried I would do more damage if I am not held accountable for a plan!