Book

I am currently reading, The Great Behavior Breakdown by Bryan Post.  It is a good book.  He references Bruce Perry quite a bit in his book.  Bruce Perry is going to be in our state speaking in April.  I am very excited to be able to go to the conference.  This book by Bryan Post is really helping me renew my parenting skills for traumatized children.  It reminded me of some things I knew, but have quit using. 

One thing, is the positive and negative cycle.  Sometimes I do well changing the negative behavior to positive and diffusing the situation and sometimes I don't.  I have really focused on trying to speak to my children in positive ways instead of negative.  This really gets hard as the day progresses.  My girls seem to struggle more the more positive I try to be.  They appear to get more insecure when we are happy.  I have read that this can make them feel insecure. 

Bryan Post says that love and fear are the two emotions the children function from.  We have had two incidences today where Hannah assumed things were said that were not said at all by anyone.  Having read the night before about how she is functioning out of fear, I gently corrected her assumptions and tried to promote security.  She just assumed these things because in her mind she thought people were being unfair to her.  The good thing is the second incident was with me and she was able to partially verbalize what she was thinking.  If I can keep her from entering the fight or flight mode, she is getting better a talking.  If I can't keep her from entering, we are can't make progress until we can help her regulate again.  I am working on getting to her eye level and watching my tone of voice.  I was very good at this when they first came to live with us, but over time I have forgotten to do this when correcting them. 

I have not read very far in the book, but am looking forward to reading a little bit tonight.  I don't have time to read often, but I am trying to read some when I get in the bed at night.  However, I usually don't make it long before I am sound asleep. 

I will let you know more as I read further in the book.  Have any of you read this book?