Another First

The child I was recently blogging about rapidly escalated yesterday and had to be hospitalized. Every time we turned around, she would work very hard to break a rule or get into something. Eventually, she began to run out the door and down the road. Her mother had to chase her down the road. It became a game very quickly. She managed to make it through the day and when we decided to sit down for a movie as a family, she was told to get ready for bed and go to her room. Amazingly, she was quiet.

At some point, a child saw her walk back in the front door. Her mother and I went to her room, thinking she had snuck out the front door and had just come back. Silly us. As we discussed how dangerous that was, we noticed the vacuum had a sheet tied around it. A closer look and we realized the window was unlocked. It still took a minute to sink in, considering she was sitting in front of us uninjured, we assumed she had only attempted to go out the 2nd story window. We were wrong. She had indeed gone out it and had fallen when she got right over the edge. She landed on her back and had laid out there crying for a few minutes. Even after she admitted it, it seemed impossible.

Once it became a reality, we began to worry about the rest of the night. It immediately became clear that she wasn't going to agree to stay put for the night. She insisted she would not stay in the house. She wanted to walk up and down the street. She was told by her mother that she wasn't going to be able to stay here if she refused to stay in the house at night. She called her bluff. It was a bluff, her mother never thought it would be necessary to hospitalize her 7 yr old daughter.

I knew right then there wasn't a choice. It took quite a bit of convincing to get her mother to agree it was the only answer. It is hard to accept your child is unsafe. No matter how educated you are on these issues, the first time feels like a failure. No one can change that or fix it for you. You are the mother and you should have been able to keep your child safe and fix all their problems. It is actually just getting help. Taking care of your child. Stepping up to the plate. Her mother needed more convincing that I could do so I was forced to call our therapist, she is fully aware of the situation and made it clear for her. Not taking her in made her liable for anything that happened to her after that. If she refused to take her, she could run away while we were asleep and DFCS would have a case against her and possibly remove her from our home. Once that sunk in, she took some deep breaths and we took her to the ER. Her mother did really well and even though she was overwhelmed she managed to get her daughter the help she desperately needs. To top it all off, our fantastic female therapist agreed to take her in house and be her therapist. She is the kind of therapist that will hold her accountable and won't fall for her innocent looks and manipulative ways. She has a talent for getting people to do things for her and think she is too sweet to have done all the things that seem to happen around her.