Screamers

I've dealt with a small share of screamers. Hayden was a screamer from the time he was 3 months old (can you say i-m-m-u-n-i-z-a-t-i-o-n?), until he was around 10ish. Thank the Lord he is now an angel. Trey was a RAGER. Not a "bad temper tantrum thrower", but a RAGER. Only a select few have truly understood what I meant by this. His rages started when he was placed with us, at 2, and continued until the latest one in Nov. He's done really, really well this year in controlling his anger. ~smile~ I think a lot of his success, probably most, is how attached he is to me. Now, on the other hand, Sara is not as attached yet. We didn't have her until she was 5.5, and by that time she had already been traumatized by who-know-who doing who-knows-what to her. I have often wished that a video of these children's pasts came with them.

Sara cries daily. At least 1 of those crying jags is accompanied by her screaming at me. Either in my face, or behind closed doors. Tonight she just went on and on and on. Nothing could persuade her to stop. It all started when I reminded her that she had an early bedtime tonight, due to her behavior at bedtime last night. It's hard with these kiddos, you don't know just how much is "drama" and how much is a result of their past. You can't just "close the door" on this kind of crying. It disturbs the rest of the house, and instead of getting quieter... the more you ignore the screams the louder they become. So what do you let them get away with? How far do you let them go? How loud do you allow them to scream?

Tonight I went in there with calm threats of an early bedtime until she could control her response to me. I ended up putting her in a bath with epsom salts. I'll break the news of more early bedtimes after I've had some rest from this crying jag.