School Update - 1 week

The first week of school in 1st grade turned out to be very promising. A night and day behavior compared to Kinder. I am still sensing a bit of stress. As she proudly says, "there was no hitting, no spitting, no running away". There is also a bit of separation anxiety, and fear of bonding with new teacher and aid. Fear of being hit by the teachers and the "big kids". At least she was able to deal with it. Fortunately we have been able to help her right away. As much as the school wanted us to seek outside help and counseling for her, the professionals we started with were no experts in children of trauma. Trauma are experienced in different ways but even a separation from a main caregiver at an early development age can be traumatic to a child and manifest itself in what people like to call "bad" behavior when in reality is a cry of fear and a cry for help and understanding. Keeping this in mind at home we were able to address her behavior in that way and guess what, it worked a lot better than time-outs or taking things away as a punishment. We have made such good progress that Papa, Mama and Grandma want to cry of joy when we see how she dealt with school this week. We are not letting our guard down. As much as I hate labels or diagnoses I think Kristina may suffer for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and Reactive Attachment Disorder both a very mild case in my opinion but nonetheless continues to require attention now before it is too late. I think that her feeling the love and our understanding allowed her to express herself now and I am glad for that. I do not want bottle up issues to pop out when she is a teenager of an adult.
I saw in a post a mom trying to raise their kids not as victims, and I stopped myself to think " Are we doing that?" and my answer was no. We are not living in the past and trying to blame the past. We are allowing the present love to help heal the wounds of the past no matter how they came about.
As a last comment I thank God for some how directing me to the yahoo group "Daily Reflections" and Heather Forbes and Bryan Post with the Beyond Consequences, Logic and Control paradigm. It works like magic. Love never fails! For sure it is not easy especially when you are used to the traditional way of parenting and you have your own fears that you have experienced as a child that you prefer to keep suppressed instead of understanding them and dealing with them, so that it can allow you to be present with your child.
I also thank grandma and Papa for believing in me when I directing them to the BCI way and their willingness to try it too.