Robbie asks for something!

I am not sure if I have ever clearly articulated how trauma and loss has  impacted my middle son's fear of drawing attention to himself.  Clearly he needed to be removed from his first family for safety but some of the foster placements had issues that were significant and harmful.  I think he decided very early on that the safest way to exist was to become invisible.  He asked for little, he drew little attention to himself.  In this way he could not be disappointed if he asked and was told 'no' and he was probably in a number of instances safer because others who were unsafe, did not notice him.  Of course the down side to this is pretty obvious.  He has not been in a dangerous placement since he was 5.5 when he was placed in our home.  But by then, it was habit.  It was his life.

At first I thought that he didn't ask for things because he didn't know what to ask for.  And there was that component.  A lack of positive experiences and exposures make it hard for a kid to know what they want  to do.  I was happy to sort of guide him and let him sample things.  He tried karate, he tried basketball, he tried baseball.  He tried afterschool programs.  He tried a science camp, an ecology camp.He tried a course where you learned to draw cartoons.  But did he ASK for any of these things?  No.

And the downside of not having the courage to ask for things is that at some point, a kid DOES realize that they have wants and needs. And they try to take things into their own hands.  We have had significant issues of trust based behaviors--sneaking things of his own and others, dishonesty in a myriad of ways.  And always, my discussion with Rob has centered on how sad I feel that he doesn't trust me enough to give me a chance to say yes.

So you have to know I was over the moon with excitement when I saw he sent me an email to my FB account.  "Could I have piano lessons please? " Love Robbie  Well you sure can!  And I have been grinning like a goof all night because he asked.  I have totally no idea how I am going to afford piano lessons but it is going to happen.

Sue Blaney posts some cool parenting tips that I get weekly  They primarily deal with teens and I have always found them helpful.  She once advocated texting with teens because this is their preferred communiction style and they are more likely to open up, be less defensive and confrontational.  My guy isn't the latter two anyway and my phone is a minutes phone that doesn't even DO texting so I kind of wrote that idea off.  But email.  That works.  And works in much the same manner.  I can do email!