Self-Esteem

One of the things I've been working with Penelope on is her self-esteem. It's a daily part of her healing anyway, but we have been focusing on it more because it seems to be a real part of how she approaches her daily decisions.
First of all, she finally FINALLY got her detention for her tardiness. I'm not sure what happened behind the scenes at school that finally had this happen, but I was secretly ecstatic, openly unmoved by the news. My final plea to the school when discussing decisions Penelope has been making as a result of her low self-esteem was "Do you know what would help her self-esteem? A detention. The detention is a consequence of her tardiness and in turn enforces boundaries. Boundaries are enforces giving incentive for Penelope to make the right decisions. Right decisions result in positive consequences which boosts her self-esteem." Makes sense to me.
I asked her if getting the detention was going to help her with her tardiness issue. She said "Oh yeah! Mr. Bear told me that I was going to get a detention for every tardy from now on. Not after 3 like before." Her eyes were big and she said it with a scared look on her face. I said "So you had to talk to Mr. Bear when you got your detention slip?" She said "Oh yeah. I don't want to have to talk to him again!" I laughed and said "So was it the detention or having to see Mr. Bear." She hesitated and said "Well.....both I guess. But he scares me! He must have read my letter!" The letter she is referring to is a writing assignment where the prompt from the teacher is that someone comes to the class and says to that "You must go to Mr. Bear's office. He wants to see you at once." The class goes "Ohhhh" and then the student is suppose to finish the story. Well, her assignment consisted of Mr. Bear's office actually being a dungeon with torture devices and Mr. Bear is an evil vampire that turns students into vampires and turned her into a vampire. She had found vampire and dungeon graphics to put on her final typed draft. See, Mr. Bear is the Asst. Principal and disciplinarian in the school. And he is also a very tall, broad shouldered, serious looking man. Very intimidating when he needs to be I'm sure. Perfect for his role. I laughed when she told me that he read her assignment. I said "Now now, why would he have read your letter? How do you know?" She said, "Because when I went to his office, he said 'Welcome to my.... dungeon' with a smirk on his face! I about died!" TOO FUNNY. I can totally picture her expression!
Anyway, she hasn't been late to school since and honestly, the mornings go way smoother now.
She is still struggling with baby-talking or immature speak and body language at school. I have always associated this with fear and insecurity. She doesn't feel safe. I believe it started up when she finally started to feel remorse for abusing her cousins. She felt unsafe because she feels like there is no hope for her to be a good person because she keeps doing really bad things. It's something we've been dealing with.
I also believe that after I processed and regulated my own emotions about what has happened and the stresses in my life, I was able to focus more on helping Penelope become more regulated. We have started going to church again. We are not going to the same one that we liked so much. I think it fits more with my beliefs regarding all religions and beliefs but it was very small and didn't meet our special needs as it relates to Penelope. This particular church is a very large non-denominational Christian Church. Our friend and Penelope's tutor Laurie invited us to go with her. They just started last week a 6 week "study" on freedom. Freedom from fear, from anger/anxiety, from guilt, from your past, and even from religion. Their is a study book even. But it speaks to me and I believe it speaks to Penelope too. We discuss the service to make sure she is getting the full message, because it is very philosophical and I think geared towards adults. I believe the kids go to a separate service but she is with me until I decide otherwise.
Another thing that has greatly helped Penelope feel better is the program she signed up for, Girls on the Run. Penelope is not an athletic kid by any means, and is overweight. I was concerned if she was really up for this challenged but she has proven that she certainly is. She loves it and is so full of pride and energy after a meeting, she glows. She gets lots of support and praise for her efforts in the program, and even last week she was voted by the high school volunteers the "Hardest Working" and they did some little dance/cheer for her as a congratulations. The program directors talk about how great she is and how committed and full of excitement and energy she is. She loves it. Sometimes too much, which is something she is working on as well. She gets so "high" that homework and chores are put off - "in a minute." So she had that lesson to learn as well. How to bring herself down off cloud 9 so her toes have traction and she can accomplish her responsibilities.
Now about the bullying, which continues, I think she is handling it better so I hope it ends soon. She was taking it so much to heart - it was just feeding off her self-esteem until it was practically nothing. Mrs. Brown, her teacher, has really been trying to help her at school with it. Penelope doesn't always go to her about it, which on one end I don't understand, but then on the other, I think she is realizing that she has to deal with it too to make it go away and can't go running to Mrs. Brown to solve her problems. Sometimes it backfires for her.
The girls mostly, and some boys, pick on her mostly about her weight and her overall appearance. She does carry herself in a more immature way but overall looks like every other kid there. Mrs. Brown had a long talk with her on Thursday of last week, as it seems it was a rough day for her, and talked about acting more her age to not draw negative attention to her, as well as possibly going on the South Beach Diet with her at lunch. Penelope spends her lunch and recess in Mrs. Brown's room instead of with the rest of the kids. My knee jerk reaction to that was that I had a problem with it, but I also have made the decision that Penelope is not at a place yet where she can successfully make and keep friends, so if this is safer for her, then let it be. She isn't the only kid. Some go there to read or work on homework or get help on stuff.
Anyway, Mrs. Brown had walked Penelope out of school to the car after this conversation and told me about it. I wasn't sure what to think at first when she was telling me but it had me do a lot of thinking (like I don't think enough). On one hand, I agree Penelope needs to take charge of her own issues, but then I don't want the message to be received that it's her fault she is being bullied. In a way it is, but she doesn't need to change for anyone but herself. We talked about it in therapy that afternoon and Penelope became somewhat defensive in that she exclaimed "But I like to eat! I really like food!" It was actually kind of funny how serious she was about her statement. My concern is what kind of message a formal diet regime would send to Penelope. She already cares way too much what other people think of her, making her breaking her self-image. She will never be perfect enough to a bully, so to me it's more about her self-esteem and body image. She wants to be thinner. That's fine, she has a few pounds she can lose. I definitely think she can eat healthier and I've been slowly but surely working on that with her. She has really started to grow and with her integrating some healthier eating habits, she is thinning out as she gets taller.
Anyway, Friday was a rough morning for me and I ended up giving her lunch money instead of packing her. That afternoon, she gave me back over half of it but acted like it was all of it. I think in her way she was tattling, or else she would have just kept the money. She really didn't want to do the diet but was trying to be accommodating to Mrs. Brown. I asked her if she had lunch. She said she did - cheddar popcorn and strawberry milk. I said "That's not lunch, that's a snack." She said, "Well, Mrs. Brown wants me to be on her diet." Based on what she said I assumed Mrs. Brown gave it to her. I said "I don't think that is on Mrs. Brown's diet. Why didn't you buy in the cafeteria?" She said "Oh..well.. I did actually." That's what I thought. I said "Why didn't you something more. I know they serve healthy food at the cafeteria." She said "I don't like salad or anything else they have." Got it.
So that weekend I did some research to 1) figure out what the appropriate weight range for a child for Penelope's age, gender and height. She is about 30 lbs over weight. But the more reading I did, it talked about kids and diets and growth, and kids shouldn't be on diets. Especially adult diets. So I plugged in age 13 yr 0 mo. and added 3 inches - because at the rate she is going she should be about 5' 4" by the time she hits 13. At her current weight, with the new numbers, she is only 15 lbs overweight. So, with her help, we talked about a goal of 1 lb a week until she is 13. She has more like 20 weeks before then but lets not put too much pressure on it. But I created a calorie diary that doesn't talk about losing weight but about health, self-esteem, body image, energy, lifestyle etc. I made it a math problem for her. Each day she counts her calories, and documents other nutritional facts about her food, and then she documents her activities and works off a reference list that I made showing how many calories burned doing those activities. Then at the end of the day she does the math. Calories consumed - calories burned = net calories. 3500 calories = 1 pound. I know it's more complicated than this but for her sake I think this is a great start. I also found a website mypyramid.gov and you can plug in your information and it creates a food pyramid customized to you and other printable tools. So I put that in her dairy. I told her that this week is a base week - not to change anything, unless she wants to, but just to guage how many calories she consumes and burns typically. Then we can go over it and make some substitutions or whatever to her food and/or change her amount of activity. It's up to her. She has already made a couple changes, but I think just having it in her mind is helping her make better choices. We will see. She is excited about it. I think the stuff she learns in Girls on the Run will also support it so it's not just coming from me. As I'm sure all moms, we need someone to establish our credibility because our word isn't always good enough. Doesn't matter what the credibility of the other person is, just as long as there is someone else. Ha.
But I think it's all helping her. Just yesterday she said, when I asked her if the kids were still picking on her, "Yeah but I make it bounce off me." I said, "What do you mean? What are you thinking when they do it?" She said "I think 'Bounce'" and motioned an object bouncing off her chest. She says she walks away then. She said sometimes she says "Bananas" or "Apples" which was something I forgot I had said a while ago about saying stuff that takes the kid off guard when your not in a situation where you can walk away. You leave them scratching there heads and not knowing what to say. She said it works. We talked about how a lot of times people don't say what they mean. Bullies really mean "I want you to hurt... so hurt!" which sounds stupid, so they find something about you to pick on so they can make you hurt. But that's not what they really mean. If they really meant that your clothes don't look good, wouldn't they say "Hey, um Penelope, I hate to have to tell you this, but those jeans just don't look right on you. Maybe if you wore a belt or something.. I don't know." That would make more sense. She said "That makes more sense. They do sound pretty stupid now that I think about it." Did I actually help? Maybe! :)