Frustration

Disappointed.

Troubled.

Baffled.

Dismayed.

Worried.

Unsure.

These are feelings that parents of special needs children feel almost every day.

The key is not giving in to the emotions.

But some days are more difficult than others and emotions can get the best of you.

I'm in a little battle with my feelings this morning.

I'll fill you in on our latest dilemma.

Lily's behaviors tend to be cyclical.

For a while, she will engage in something like biting, for example. No one is safe - except for children.  Thankfully, she has never taken a bite out of another kid.  But any adult is fair game, including her older sisters, therapists, and Sunday School teachers.

This behavior will go on for maybe a month or so and then all of sudden, without any warning or explanation, it will just stop.  No more biting.

Of course, many times it is simply replaced with another lovely behavior, such as pulling hair or pinching.

And the cycle begins again, just with a new behavior.

So the days of our lives can often be measured like this:

Biting. Gone. Pinching. Gone. Hair Pulling. Gone. Biting. Gone. Pinching. Gone.....

Get the idea?

Currently, we have one behavior in particular that has stayed the course for a while now, maybe 3 months or so.

And we are at a complete loss as to what to do.

Lily is hitting herself in the head.  Hard.  With a fist.  And when her fist gets sore, she'll use her open palm.  And if her hand gets sore, she'll hit slightly softer.

It is painful to watch.

While Lily has an amazing tolerance for pain, it has to hurt.

She doesn't do it nonstop throughout the day.  It seems to come in spurts.  She'll go an hour or so with no hits and then the next hour, she'll so it 50 times.

There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.

I can be playing with her on the floor, giving her my full attention and she'll hit.  I can be driving in the car with her and not paying any attention to her at all and she'll hit.  I can be in the kitchen while she's in her room and she'll hit.  She'll hit when she's eating.

It's just crazy and incredibly frustrating.

Not to mention how much it freaks other people out if they see her do it while we're in Target or something.

Her therapists are trying something new at school today and we'll see how it goes.

But I'm fighting that hopeless feeling because we've all been trying new things for a couple weeks now and come up with only brief moments of improvement.

It's hard not to feel discouraged.

I'll be spending some time today doing research online and looking through my many books for some possible solutions or things to try.

In the meantime, here's the Scripture I have running on an endless loop in my head these days:

II Corinthians 4:8
"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;  perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned;  struck down but not destroyed."

Got any suggestions for me???  Would love to hear them!