My ‘Why’: The Journey To Understanding My Difficult Child

When I think of my ‘why’, I think about the rollercoaster of turmoil and pain my family went through when we were initially trying to figure out what exactly was going on with my youngest babe. Everyone’s parenting journey is different and the ways in which we come to our parenting styles is also different. Some will parent the way their parents did, some will do the exact opposite, some will search for a way that worked for the parent’s needs, and some will search for a middle ground that benefits both parent and child. 

I knew that I wanted to parent a different way, but this ‘way’ hadn’t presented itself. Initially, my parenting style had a lot of child led play and learning, but our living situation (we lived with my in-laws for a couple of years while saving for our first family home) left a lot of rules and parameters to what was allowed. 

When I had my second babe, I knew that I needed to dive more deeply into how I wanted to show up and be a model for my girls, but I fell into parenting the same way I was parented. I was very quickly shown that wasn’t going to work. 

They were pushing me to grow into this new Mother. Honestly, in the beginning it was daunting trying to forge a new path when I felt like there were no road maps to help me. In the early days I learned a lot about trusting my Self, my own intuition, and the guidance of my girls. 

But my why is not just ‘parenting a different way’, my why is so much bigger. When you look at parenting from this view, it’s limited to the view of the adult teaching and molding the child. Parenting to me is a child coming into your life to push you, the parent, to grow into a new way of being and showing up in this ever-changing world. Parenting is a child coming to you to show you where you have grown stagnant, where there’s still opportunities for change. 

As my youngest grew, it was evident that she was going to be my challenge. As parents, we all have that one child that just defies all odds, the one that pushes all of your buttons, the one that makes you want to pull your hair out some days—or most days.

When we began our journey with our babe, we were told everything is ‘fine’ and ‘normal’. You really grow to resent that word, normal, because at some point you realize that ‘normal’ is just numbly walking around hiding the underlying issues. 

At first, our pediatrician said there was nothing wrong with our babe and she’ll most likely outgrow this stage. It was only when I came in for a wellness check up, missing the top 10 layers of my nose because she had bitten it the night before, that our pediatrician believed me when I told her that my sweet child had the frequent tendency to be extremely violent.

At this wellness checkup, I had what seemed like a laundry list of things that were ‘wrong’ with her and disrupting all of our lives.

My little never took a nap and any time alone seemed like torture to her. At night, bedtime would take an average of two to three hours to get her to sleep. There was a lot of trips to the potty, to get water, lullabies. We tried night lights, sound machines, but nothing seemed to help her get to a space of sleep.

My fiancé and I would take turns, totally tag-teaming it like wrestlers on tv, because one of us would make her mad or one (usually me) would need some recovery time before going back in again. It is beyond heartbreaking when you’re trying to Love and console a small child and they only want to hurt you in that moment. Each night we would sit on the couch and nurse our battle wounds. Often dad would have scratches on his face and I would be covered in bruises from her flailing limbs and bite marks. But once we got her to sleep we knew that wasn’t the end of the night. She would wake up nightly and it would be impossible to convince her that it wasn’t morning and we had to go back to sleep. She would be up some nights for hours. 

When I say exhausting, that doesn’t even begin to cover the the physical, mental, emotional pain I felt as her mother. I felt like as a parent I had failed, as a mother I had failed even more.

There was a lot of violence that would just burst out of someone who was so small it was startling. We were all on the receiving end of her kicking, hitting, biting, hair pulling, head butting. Her body was a weapon that she used often and rather well. When she lost her tiny strand on her patience, she would start throwing anything within reach, no regard to what she grabbed. She loathed leaving the house and would often Houdini her way out of her five point harness car seat to simply throw a bigger fit and be able to reach others to hurt them.

No one can tell you how isolating this kind of child can leave you. When they are around others they are often perfectly fine, so people don’t believe you when you try explaining your literal pain each day. I found myself never going out because I didn’t know what my child would do. I didn’t feel comfortable with play dates because of her unpredictability and my mind would race with the ‘what if’s’. When she started hurting us in the car, we stopped going out. We took shifts in leaving the house and staying home with her. Honestly, it’s crazy to reflect back on all of the concessions that we had to make during that time for her—for all of us!

When I do look back now, I see how we could have done things differently, met her where she was at in the moment quicker, but that’s why hindsight is 20/20. In the beginning she just seemed really headstrong, strong-willed. From birth she had always had trouble sleeping, but at this point sleep was almost nonexistent.

We had tried everything. We purchased a weighted blanket to help her sleep, we tried lovies that had heartbeats inside them. Then our pediatrician recommended starting melatonin at bedtime to help her slow down to get to sleep, but it made her midnight wakings so much worse. Then the doctors recommended we up her melatonin dose to help her stay asleep longer, it caused awful night terrors that we couldn’t wake her from or sooth her from.

So, one of our first steps was seeing a neurologist to see if there was an underlying cause for her sleep issues that may be leading to her behavior issues. He recommended a sleep study to make sure sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome wasn’t an underlying issue. I was dreading the sleep study. My mind kept racing in circles of thinking.

She’s so hard to get to sleep. How are we going to do it in a different space? What if she gets violent there? What if she doesn’t sleep? 

Dad was the one who became great at calming her and getting her soothed to sleep so he went with her to the study. Because it was so late when they arrived and everything had to be set up, she went to sleep right away with no issues. When we went to get the results of the sleep study, there was that word again, normal. Everything was fine! 

But how?! 
There’s definitely something more going on here.
This isn’t normal!

The neurologist even went so far to do a test to make sure epilepsy or silent seizures weren’t a cause. But again, completely normal! Can you sense the frustration I was feeling? Even now it’s so easy to become enraged with all that was happening and the lack of help or support I was receiving. 

Don’t think that I was wishing and hoping to find something wrong with her. Not at all. But I did hope that there would be someone to point and say, ‘Here! This is your issue. Now we can work to correct it!’ But that didn’t happen.

When we went back to our pediatrician with our results she was just as bewildered. So now our next steps were a little harder to come to terms with as a parent. We were given a referral to see a psychologist for an evaluation. 

The evaluation had a ton of introductory questions just to see if we qualified for their services! None of the questions, or my answers, made me feel good or confident about my Self or me as a parent. The evaluation determined that we could benefit from some of their services. 

Next, came a super long meeting with the psychologist where I was told that she didn’t present strongly enough in any area to be diagnosed with an actual disorder. We have a history on both sides of the family of having bipolar disorder, but that wasn’t it. My babe definitely wasn’t autistic. The only thing they’d say is she was borderline having was oppositional defiant disorder. 

Should I feel happy about that? 

Because I definitely didn’t. 

I had gone from ‘normal’ to ‘not bad enough’ in the span of an hour.

But, what she did suggest was medication. 

The first meeting. 

The first meeting of my child, the lack of knowing or understanding, and the only thing the psychologist could suggest was medication. ‘Medication is the only thing that’s going to get you the results you’re looking for.’

Internally, I was so mad and angry and irate with this person. ‘Medication!? For my newly turned four year old!? HECK NO!!’

The whole time, the only thing that I wanted was tools, tips, tricks, techniques, something that I could do at home to help her, meet her where she’s at in the moment. Definitely not something to numb her out. 

So, her first recommendation was behavior therapy. You may be reading this and thinking, ‘Well yeah, that will help!’ It didn’t. Why? This is the most frustrating part—I was already doing and implementing every suggestion she had for me and more. 

Mindful parenting 

Incentive charts

Weighted blanket

Essential oils

Early intervention

Redirection

Positive mindset 

Breathing techniques 

Shortened outings

Separation 

High energy activities 

Tactile activities 

And more that escapes me.

The behavior therapist was just as frustrated because she knew that she wasn’t really helping me with anything. The lowest I felt was one day we had a tele-health appointment with the therapist and my babe threw one of her typical ‘fits’ and began hitting, biting, hair pulling and screaming. I couldn’t even disconnect from the session, I literally just had to hang up. We made it maybe three months, if I’m being generous.

I felt such disappointment and frustration with my Self, with my ‘care providers’, and yes, with my babe. I was literally doing it all, trying everything known to woman, and none of it was helping her or us. The hardest part was seeing the hurt in my babe’s eyes and not knowing how to reach her when she was in that space. 

We went back to the psychologist and this time we were referred to occupational therapy (OT). Honestly, this is where we saw our biggest growth and what helped the most! Through OT, we found that she had a lot of sensory issues. This was our first actual thing, diagnosis, we could point to and help her to work on. OT was actually gifting me with actual tools to use in the moment and afterwards to help us all work to minimize these interactions in the future.

While in OT, we were working on core balance, hand-eye coordination, among other things. The structure and the work was so good for her. We were seeing so much progress. But after about six months of therapy, we were told that we had met all of our goals for therapy and we were being discharged because there was no more care they could provide for us. Even though I had an extended referral from my pediatrician, we were told they would approve her for care because she was doing ‘so well’. I felt like we had been making such progress and now the one service that was helping us all, was denied to us. 

For a few months we tried just using our tools at home and focusing on homeschool, but it wasn’t long before similar issues were coming up again. We needed something that was going to be long term and sustainable for our family. 

After a particularly trying (awful) morning, I searched to find a family therapist that we could all receive the help we needed. I was so fortunate to find a mindful family therapist in my area. I didn’t make it through asking about the services she offered before I completely broke down and balled my eyes out. I felt like I did everything I could and nothing I did was working. I felt like I was still failing in my role as a mother.

We are now on month three of family therapy and it’s been amazing. I can’t point to why. Maybe both the girls enjoy having time with someone outside of the family to talk with, maybe it’s the consistency, maybe it’s helped with self-regulation. I don’t know. But I do know it’s working and it’s helping us now. 

The only thing that has worked and continues to work is creating that connection with my girls—both together and separately with special one-on-one Soul Time. It has been the easiest and hardest thing to do everyday. To selflessly show up and give and give each day. I found my Self in the beginning of all of this shutting down each time I sensed a fight coming on, but now I know I have to take a deep cleansing breath and focus on heart-to-heart connection. I still can’t point to one thing or one moment that it all just turned around and went ‘right’, because each day is still a journey and we still cycle through these emotions.

But I can tell you that the days when I’m worried about me, my schedule, and my to-do list, those are the hard days. But when I focus on my girls, connecting with them, living in the moment, those are the days that we all usually make it all the way through with little to no issues. 

So, while some of you are upset that you read through this whole post and you didn’t find the golden nugget that worked for us that might work for you, I hope that I have at least planted a seed for the importance of a genuine connection with your kiddos.

Is it easy?

No. 

Is it fast? 

No. 

Is it worth it? 

Every. single. day.

Because you are working on creating your strong foundation in Love and trust, that will carry through your entire parenting journey as they continue to grow and walk through life. I believe that all of the tools and the tips that I have acquired from my own lived experiences has helped me immensely, but without the foundation of genuine, Unconditional Love and connection, no tips, tricks, or techniques would have ever helped. 

Try starting small on your journey of connection with your littles. Start by setting aside 15 minutes of Soul Time with each of your children. This is undivided alone time with them doing an activity of their choosing. Even if you gather ideas (that you’re ok with following through on) and let them choose, they will be so receptive to that time with you (and the appearance of choice and control they have over their time).

If you find that your child doesn’t want their time with you to end, that is showing you that they were starved for special attention and a special connection with you! Set boundaries in the beginning of your time together, so that everyone knows when the timer goes off, time is up for today until tomorrow.

I truly hope that you enjoy implementing your Soul Time with your babes. 
Leave a comment and let me know your favorite way to spend Soul Time connecting with your littles!

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