My tantra teacher used to remark during her conversations that the universe will give you what you need.  It will never give you more than you can deal with, and it may dole out the lessons you need too.  But sometimes what feels like a setback is actually the universe teeing something up for you.

During dinner last night, our usual date night that turned more into a debrief session, G and I spent it processing this week.  Wednesday night and Thursday were rough days, as I mentioned in my blog post Thursday.  And Friday, we spent almost 40 minutes on a conference call with the kid’s therapist and social worker discussing what actions we should take.  So dinner was discussing that 1×1. 

I will likely write more about this later as I learn more, but we were specifically talking about the phrase “therapeutic parenting” which we were introduced to by his therapist.  Therapeutic parenting is a bit different than regular parenting because, in short, it is how you need to parent a kid who has attachment issues and early-in-life traumas.  In short, for our situation, it is constant positive reinforcement as well as avoiding anything that sends him away or isolates him because, well, that’s part of his trauma too.  

For us, it is counterintuitive in some ways.  At-home-consequences for things at school, for example, have to be carefully considered – and, in this recent case, have to be waived in order for him to know this space is safe for him.  To have a kid get into trouble and not punish is a bit weird, but necessary for him.

As we were talking about things we were learning about and reading about, it hit me like a ton of bricks:

I’m glad I did not get the CIO job.  I need to be doing this right now.

While it has been easy for me to be angry about everything – to not be happy with the process for hiring that position, I am realizing that it was for my own good that I did not get it.  I need to be focused on doing what I need to do to be a good parent to this kid.  I knew that wasn’t going to be easy – but to learn a whole new parenting style is going to be more necessary than learning a new job.

Yes, Universe, I hear you – I get it.   I am where I need to be.