Emma

The battle continues. Given the opportunity Emma will sneak off to other rooms and try to find anything edible, this includes John's prunes!

She snuck off when Sarah was watching the kids and got into Sarah's bedroom.  Another night when I was out grocery shopping and John was in charge she snuck into the master bedroom and found a stash there.

I found evidence of her thievery in her room.

A pattern has surfaced, if mom isn't watching she can sneak off. She is good.  She is very quiet.  She uses excuses; going to the bathroom or getting a drink of water to leave the room.  She might even just wait for a distraction to sneak out.  The thing is I notice.  I watch her go get water and make sure she does only that. 

Talking with Emma I realize that she has always taken from everyone.  She admits that she has done it since she came.  This isn't something new.  She takes from my mom, Easter candy, Halloween candy, Christmas candy, John's office, Sarah's stash, my private stash.  We have been working hard at clearing up our stashes but we seem to have too many.

I noticed that when the stashes started disappearing she started destroying other stuff.  She was taking feminine products from the bathroom and tearing them apart in her room.  Now she gets searched before she goes into her room.  When she can't find candy in Sarah's room she takes other items and throw them away.  She admitted this.  There is no consequence that will prevent this behavior.  The feeling of power she gets from doing it is just too strong.

Since I am the only one in the house who is able to keep her in my line of sight she is only allowed out of her alarmed room when I am able to watch her.  My computer is in the family room so she does come out often.  But when I need to cook dinner and can't watch her she goes to her room until I am finished.  At one point she was tossing all her books and lost them for a day.  She hasn't tossed them since and is currently reading the Junie B. Jones series.

When I say alarmed room I do not mean locked room.  I buy my alarms at Walmart.  These alarms have two options, one beep or a long continuous siren when the door is opened.  The alarm is set to one beep.  If she really needs to come out she can, however we will all be aware of it.

When I explained the new rules to her she was fine with it.  She seems content with having to be in my line of sight at all times. I wonder how long we will have to maintain this level of vigilance.  Looking at her old paperwork I realize that she came with this issue.  She has perfected her sneakiness over many years.  I don't think that it will be an issue that will go away any time soon.

One benefit is she is finally eating!  She now has seconds and eats appropriate amounts of food.  She continues to eat the lunch that I provide for her.  I believe that we will do that until the end of the school year.

I am planning on doing some of the play therapy with her that I did when she first came.  I hope that since we are being very vigilant on preventing her stealing that we can move forward in other areas.  We also have started doing weekly family meetings to talk about our week.  Honestly, we are doing about the same things that the kids have done in therapy.  I have contemplated therapy but have been so frustrated with finding someone who actually understands the issues.  At this time I am rereading my attachment/ODD/trauma books and plugging away.  If anyone has a good book to suggest please let me know.