The Traumatic Child

I am screwing up my kids.

BK has been getting in trouble at school every day. And not just a little bit of trouble. I'm talking about the principal has me on speed dial kind of trouble. Spitting in a kid's ear. Stealing from the book fair. Pushing a girl to the ground. Throwing all the playground equipment over the fence.

He's only 5. This is not who we are. This is not who HE is.

I have tried every punishment I can think of.  I've spanked. I've not spanked. I've taken away toys. I've taken away weekend fun. I've pretended like it didn't bother me. I don't know what else to do.

I recently read this article about children who were adopted. The article says that adopted children, even those who were adopted from birth, suffered a trauma that most people cannot possibly understand. And although the article was a little hippie crunchy for me, the article made sense. No, BK didn't go through any trauma after birth. But when you spend 9 months attached to someone, being a part of someone, and then you're separated from that person at birth and you never see her again, that's got to be traumatic.

So now, whenever there's a stressful situation, these traumatic feelings come back subconsciously, so the child reacts however he can, usually violently.

The question is, how do you deal with that? The article recommends the 10-20-10 rule: 10 minutes of quality time in the morning, 20 minutes of quality time in the afternoon, and 10 minutes of quality time in the evening. The idea is that children who suffered a trauma need to know that the people who love them  will always be there for them.

So, I'm going to try this. The 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes at night will be easy, but I'm wondering how I'm going to do the 20 minutes in the afternoon. I was thinking maybe I could get his teacher involved? Maybe have him spend 20 minutes after school just one on one with the teacher, before he goes to his after school program?

I don't know. I'm really just guessing here. Dang kids don't come with instructions. Maybe he'll grow out of it? Again, he's only 5. And Bug had behavioral problems when she was in kindergarten, too.

What do you think? Is there any hope for us?