What to do when your kids turn your home upside down
A lthough there’s a long-standing tradition of blaming parents for the behavior of their children the truth is that genes are the more common culprits. Most parents do a human job of raising their kids — sometimes arousing unbelievable reserves of patience love and skill and other times behaving like animals overcome with fight-or-flight chemistry.
Yes abusive parents do harm their children but the vast majority of parents raising troubled children in today’s parenting-conscious world are more the victims than are their kids. Perfectly lovely imperfect parents who are managing to raise a houseful of well-adjusted kids often find themselves overwhelmed and confused by a single child — one who is far more challenging than the others one who just doesn’t respond to the normal interventions that seem to work just fine with everyone else.
“The other kids in the family are afraid of him — and for good reason. Whenever he enters the room a problem comes with him. Soon someone will be screaming and he’ll be yelling that he didn’t do anything and he always gets blamed for everything. We all tiptoe around him.”
Rather than feeling self-compassion parents drained by the difficult perhaps aggressive behaviors of their behaviorally challenged youngster often experience guilt.
