BRAIN

I've been reading on the brain again.

Warning. I am trying to make sense of my jumble thoughts by writing.

I've been reading and watching lectures and trying to understand the brain in an effort to understand the best way to work with Missy. I want to know if it is possible for a person like me to facilitate change in another person's brain and help that person make better choices.

Seeming rather impossible right now.

Without the Holy Spirit we haven't a chance in the world with Missy. I understand that.

We are changed or transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2) . Scientists can actually see those changes taking place as positive thoughts take the place of negative thoughts, as pathways are built for new thought patterns.

This renewing of the mind...

It isn't instantaneous ~ Poof! All of a sudden the entire brain is remodeled after a quick conversion prayer. God works the change in us as we learn through His help to bring all the thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Christ. This is the "Grow in Grace" experience, "from Glory to Glory".

This bringing into captivity our thoughts...  ~this seems to be where the GREAT difficulty lies.

A person has to choose which thought to think, but when the pathways and grooves are DEEP in the wrong patterns, a person with little understanding of the issues at stake will naturally flow with in the old channels. They go with the path of least resistance, so for this little person whose hereditary tendencies, and nearly 9 years of cultivated negative thought, this child that has been handed a cognitive impairment to boot, WHAT HOPE has she outside of a TRUE MIRACLE?

It was a HARD day yesterday. LOTS of screaming out of control for little reason that I could even see. There was a good couple of hours while the respite workers were here. The screaming stopped when they arrived. The screaming resumed shortly after they left. NOTHING was ever right or good or happy from the moment she got out of bed. She was a misery. We allowed her to go back to bed to avoid a major blow up in front of our company. She chose to get up at around ten but was demanding and snarly still. Our company was gone by then. She never greeted them or showed her face....they even had a little girl.

Giving her space and time alone did not work. Allowing her to just play did not work. NOTHING.

We worked hard with her. We talked about choices. Finally last night we started to make some progress.... we could hold up two fingers and give her the choices. She was starting to actually choose the good one of her own will. BUT this pointing out of choices had to be done every thirty seconds.

I am not exaggerating.

"Choose."  (holding up two fingers) "Cry and give into your emotions, or do what daddy said."

Each choice took about 20 to 30 seconds to make. The face would reflect her thought exactly. There's no guessing.

We would have her state her choice, repeat after us, whatever, and eventually she would do what her dad asked. Then we had to start all over again because she refuse to acknowledge me. I had to call her on her manipulation every little bit. Sloppy, inaudible speech, using an imaginary physical ailment to escape the hard work, pretending not to hear, giving just enough to make it look like she might be obeying, but reserving some portion of her obedience... eventually she stopped and she hugged me.

This morning she was refusing to get out of bed for the sister who was going to help her get ready for school again.... I called her to me and we hugged and we prayed and she said she would make the right choice. I dismissed the big sister and decided to work through this with her myself. We were able to get a good choice about three times and then she shut down on me.

She and James went to school in pj's. Their hair was not combed, their teeth unbrushed, she refused to drink her shake and she managed to dumped it on the counter and floor. We scooped up off the counter and tried again to no avail.

I called the school and told them how they would be arriving and that I needed someone to tell them that it was not acceptable to arrive at school like that.

James isn't struggling so much. He's just slow. He did cry a lot when I asked him to do anything that took him away from his Lego yesterday.  Both in the morning and in the afternoon they were both crying very loudly for a long period of time. I pretty much ignored it. He finished his tasks and did them very, very well and then went back to his Lego and was fine until to the NEXT time. I didn't try to work with him on it. It seemed superficial and likely to become a "THING" if I pushed it.

A friend wrote a sweet story on him... I know this kid has a good heart. He has habits to overcome and self to put aside, but he is a genuinely caring person. You can read the story here.