Picture Of Self Worth

One of the things I struggle most with in the way we have to parent Sarah is how to build her self worth while teaching her that she needs to value others and be more compliant. It's a very slippery slope, and I am reassured by therapists that her self worth will come when the attachment starts getting strong. As you could imagine a child (or anyone for that matter) who is floating around in the world unattached to anyone probably wonders if it's because they are bad, or somehow cause their relationships to crumble. Sarah has basically no sense of self worth....none. Don't get me wrong she is very self-minded but that is not self worth...and having the combination of the two is very dangerous.

I have been reading about how taking pictures of your child's projects can help build their self worth. So yesterday I told Sarah it was Lego time and that I wanted her to take her time and make something she felt proud of, after working for about 20 minutes this beautiful child whom I have had to teach how to play normally lifted this little Lego tower and proudly showed me, I asked "can I take a picture of that? It looks really great and I can see how hard it was to build" her smile got bigger and I could see the glint of pride in her eyes, she then asked mom will you put my picture on your Facebook and in your diarrhea (which is her for diary and that is what she calls my blog), I smiled and said of course and let her watch my phone as I posted it. I will obviously be using this technique again in the future, as I refuse to believe that there is no way to build her self esteem before she attaches more.

A Day At The Ball Park.

I have to share something, we have been having a particularly difficult time with our little adopted daughter lately and for my hubby's birthday we got tickets via discount tire for a Bee's game so as we were getting ready to leave my mom offered to keep Sarah, since outings like that tend to trigger her and then the whole outing turns into keeping her on tight restriction. Anyway so we left her home to go get a kids meal and spend time with Grandma. We normally park in a business parking  lot to the west of the stadium and so this time we were surprised to see that it was under new ownership and the new company was asking for voluntary donations of any amount for their foundation to help kids healing from trauma...needless to say we said yes and donated. As we parked and walked past the building I saw two women standing there and asked them if they worked with this foundation and one of them said she started it. I told them thank you for creating this because families like mine need it, that I have a kid who has had a traumatic childhood and explained some of what we were dealing with, both the lady and I were in tears and choked up as she said "she is the kind of child I created this for" All I could say was thank you and walked away.
This place is called "The Utah House" and is run by St Anthony's Church, however they take children and families of any race or religion. They take medicaid and can work with insurance, they provide therapy and other resources for children who have suffered abuse and trauma. I am so glad resources like this exist.

http://www.utahhousetreatmentprograms.com