jlt080405

We're here for you, y'know. Feel free to vent - you may find that you're not the only parent who's dealt with something like what you're going through.

Anything we can do, just ask. :heart:

Well thank you imp appreciate it.

I took a week of emergency leave from work, my partner and I are committed to doing whatever is necessary to help our daughter through this.

So last night I played mindless arcade games for hours. hmm, well, i think that will indirectly help the situation, emotions were getting overwhelming, didnt really feel like reading about crime...

at any rate, I am sure others have been through similar situations, it is the severity of joeys bahavior that is concerning us and the fact that it has gotten so dramatically worse the last week or so.

Most of the research has shown that we really need to change our complete approach to her care morning to night. With some new approaches designed to encourage constructive behavior as opposed to unknowingly and unintentionally furthering destructive.

OK today we are taking the little on canoeing. This should be fun she loves water as both of us do. I wonder if we have aaaannnny chance of making the trip without tipping lol. well, the river we are going down has average currents of 4.4 MPH so I am thinking that with a little luck and even less skill we will have fun regardless! whoooo hooooo 87 today! Perfect for this trip.

So how'd it go? :)

well, we detoured from our original plan. Took joey canoeing it was a 2-1/2 hour trip. We stopped and played in the water and joey behaved amazingly well, considering that at about 2 hours into it she exclaimed "this is BORING" lol. That feeling ended about 5 seconds later when our canoe rounded a curve in the river and we passed a momma duck and her 7 babies taking a nap at the shore within 4 feet of us. Of course, we had no film left at this time, 5 minutes earlier jess said, we have one pic left and i am saving it for a good one, then a fishfly and dragonfly both decided to pay me a very close and friendly visit so we had to snap that last pic. we had bought a disposable waterproof camera for the canoe trip so that ended up working well.

We then decided to go to the very small saginaw zoo for a couple of hours since they were open until 8pm, that was a hoot too. We took our digital camera to that and had alot of fun. As soon as we transfer the disposable to disk and upload from our digital i will post a few from the small but very fun family adventure.

The trip was therapeutic for all of us during this crazy and amazingly challenging time so I am very glad we went. We decided today that after jess gets home from work tonight we would take joelle to an evening showing of Wall-E since everytime we see the commercial she seems excited. She does very well at kids movies even at the theater so I suspect tonight will be a nice get away for all of us as well.

We are also enrolling joey back into pre school early next week so that should be fun (yeah right lol) but i think taking a week off of work was definately necessary and although not the "vacation" I would have opted for, surely has made a huge impact on joelle's behavior so definately weeelllllll worth it. :) <3

OH yeah p.s. somehow we managed to not tip the canoe the entire trip...

Awww, i can't wait to see the pics! You have a gorgeous family, and you're doing a wonderful job. I love canoe trips - we haven't been in a long tme and i'm feeling the float trip jones :)

Joey's lucky to have such loving, caring parents.

I hope you'll take a little time to take care of you soon, too. :heart:

you are a special one Imp, i suspect that is why so many people love you!

Minor setback, couldn't take Joey to the movies, she was completely out of hand for 8 hours straight :(

Sorry to jump in if I'm not wanted but I have a long history of working with children with severe behavior disorders and the one rule of thumb is to love your child. As long as your child knows this things will turn out ok. I do not recommend venturing into any sort of pharmacological treatment especially when your little one is only 4 years old. I know that it can be very trying on a daily basis but you must ensure that it doesn't affect your relationship with your partner. Sometimes kids go through phases in which they push and test limits (to the edge and beyond) but you must keep in mind that this too must pass. I encourage you to get out and do some things with your partner and try not to talk about Joelle the entire time. Just don't second-guess yourselves. My bet is that you're doing fine- the mere fact that you're worried about it and trying different tactics shows that you're both dedicated and loving parents!