Peaceful Parenting Part II: The Teenager...dum dum dummmmmmm

Ah, the elusive teenager. How does Peaceful and Attachment Parenting work with those strange creatures of the night?

Pretty well, actually.  Thanks for asking.

Let me back up a bit. First of all Honey Bunny was not always parented in a peaceful manner. She has early childhood trauma, not caused by me, but caused nonetheless.  It effects her to this day.  She was removed from the situation 14 years ago, but the effects of PTSD still reside in her.

Fourteen years ago, I was an abused wife and mother. I fled a relationship with a man who hit BINGO! with abuse: physical, verbal, sexual, economic, mental, and emotional abuse.  I was a mess. I could not be a peaceful parent because I wasn't living a peaceful life. I practiced attachment parenting, and that is what saved her life, but it wasn't stemming from a healthy foundation.  

We co-slept until she was 8 and I became pregnant with Boo Bear and remarried. Honey Bunny and I had our fights. She was a tough kid to parent. Sometimes, still is. She is one of those that if you put down a boundary, she will walk right up to it, say "F You" and push right through it. When I was recovering from abuse, that would set me off. That poor kid got sent to her room more than I can even count because I was afraid I would lose it on her. I had to recover myself before I could be a peaceful parent.

Many years of therapy for us both later, here we were. Peaceful and attached. It is beautiful.

Honey Bunny still sees someone to work on her PTSD. I'm doing pretty good. Puberty has set her stuff back in motion, as I was warned it would. Crap in our lives doesn't actually leave our lives until we decide to shuck out our own stall full of shit and walk away from it.  No one has a peaceful life when they are wading through the smelly crap over and over.  She has finally decided she doesn't want a shitty life and is beginning the journey of shucking her own personal stall of shit. :)

But, that brings me back to peaceful and attachment parenting of a teen. First, you have to trust them and they have to trust you. Whoa! Trust a teen?! Are you crazy? Maybe. But I DO trust Honey Bunny. She has proven to me that I can trust her. Sometimes, it is hard. Not that she's going to sneak out at night to go to a party. She has broken my trust a few times. She's misused the internet and gotten her phone taken away (she was arranging for a potentially dangerous situation to occur with a stranger) and she is a cutter. Yes, you read that right - my unschooled, peaceful and attachment led child is a cutter.

She is 13.3 weeks clean today!

Peaceful and attachment parenting are how I know she's a cutter. You see, she hid it from me. She hid 200 cuts from me last summer! On her arms! I felt like such a failure. How could I not notice my teen was wearing long sleeves in August? It was 90 degrees out. Oh yeah, she stayed in her room in the air conditioning. How could I not know she was upset? I did know. How could I not know she was depressed. I did know. How could I not stop the decent? Because I couldn't.

The hardest part of being a peaceful and attached parent is waiting for them to acknowledge they need help when you can so plainly see it. I had to wait for her to hit bottom before I could help her back up again. I knew something was wrong but I didn't know exactly what was going on. I knew she was on a downward spiral. I felt so hopeless. I lay in bed, night after night, praying she'd be alright.

Don't get me wrong, peaceful and attachment parenting isn't hands off. But when you are dealing with an addiction (and cutting is an addiction), you have to wait until the person is ready to receive help. What you can do is make sure you make the environment and your relationship is one where they know they can come to you when they are ready to accept that intervention and know it will be acted upon in a gentle manner.  It was one of the toughest moments of my life: waiting & watching her spiral out of control.

One night, at 11 pm, she came into my room.  Hubby was out of town, 4 hours away, and she told me she needed to tell me something.

Listen carefully, Reader, because THIS is where peaceful and attachment parenting goes into effect 100%.

A 15 year old girl came to her mother at 11 o'clock at night and KNEW she would be accepted, not judged but helped, and loved unconditionally.

She trusted me.

Honey Bunny lifted up the arms of her shirt and there they were. Over 200 cuts on both her forearms. I sat there stunned. They were horizontal, not vertical. That was a good sign. I checked that off quickly in my mind. I hugged her and thanked her for trusting me and coming to me. We went out to the couch and I made a cup of coffee.  I sat down and she curled up next to me, her head on my lap. She cried. I listened. She spoke. I listened. She held my hand. I held her's. She fell asleep with her head in my lap. I stroked her hair and forehead and stayed awake all night long. I was on alert and vigil. It was up to me to save her life. I wasn't going to let her down.

That was August of 2013. She was checked into a psychiatric hospital the next day. That was a horrible experience as it was state funded, not private. Hubby had been unemployed for over a year at that point and we were on state insurance. They kept her for 10 days, rather than 3. They were the hardest days of my life. They effected Boo Bear. They effected Hubby. They effected Honey Bunny. It's an experience I do not want to repeat ever again.

I share this experience with you because I want you to see that even if you unschool and allow them to follow their passion, even if you parent peacefully and attachment parent - you may fail - and it will have nothing to do with you.

You see, peaceful and attachment parenting isn't a foolproof way to avoid difficulty. It isn't a magic parenting technique that makes life full of rainbows and butterflies. It is a way of communication. A way of trust. It is a way which ensures your teen will come to you when they need you and they trust you will be there for them.

Just as you cannot stop a baby from falling down when it is learning to walk can we stop our teens from falling down while they are learning to grow up. Their world is different than ours. It is exposed to so much more with avid internet usage. We have to learn to navigate in their world, not the other way around.

Honey Bunny and I have a special relationship. One I truly cherish. I ENJOY my teen. I WANT to be with my teen. I am sad she spends so much time listening to music and watching movies in her room, but I know she needs that as part of her development. I miss her. I love waking her up each morning and we spend a few minutes talking. She spontaneously hugs me throughout the day
. She says she loves me. We  Snapchat each other silly pictures of ourselves during the day. Our relationship isn't perfect, but it is pretty damn good.

She still asks me to cuddle with her or comes to cuddle with me and Boo Bear when she is struggling or needs to be held. She still comes to me when she needs advice. She still asks for my company, one on one, at least once a week. She still participates in our lives because she knows she will be respected and loved unconditionally.

To me, that is the beauty of peaceful and attachment parenting.  It's a never ending road of love and respect. Neither of those should stop at age 5 or 6. They should continue throughout our lifetime.



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