Looking for The Positives

When everything seems to blow up, sometimes the only way to keep your chin up is to look for the positives in a situation. Look for God's goodness in the middle of HARD STUFF.

Without giving too many details, I will let you know that my little Sunny suffers from a behavior disorder--the result of a very bad start to her life. Abuse, neglect, and exposure to certain substances do horrible damage to a little child. Every day is a struggle for her. Every good choice is a victory. Every inch of forward progress is celebrated. Sadly, we had a major setback this week.

The behavior disorder is considered to be decently managed if the behaviors are only at home.
It is considered not managed if the behaviors spill over to other environments, such as school.
It is considered in crisis if another child is directly affected by the behavior.

On Wednesday Sunny made a series of poor choices that resulted in physical harm to another child at school. This puts us in crisis mode. I had a conference with her teacher and our pediatrician. There are some grave concerns that we need to address, and it has become clear to everyone that we can no longer proceed without professional help. The doctor sent an emergency referral to a pediatric psychiatrist. We'll be having a mental health evaluation on our sweet girl as soon as the psychiatrist can fit her in. This is HARD, people.

Here's where I look for the positives, and thank God in the midst of hard stuff.

• Sunny's intent was not malicious.
• She didn't understand the magnitude of what she did.
• She did not respond in anger to the discipline.
• She has not repeated the behavior.
• The child she hurt was not seriously hurt.
• People are finally seeing what I deal with on a daily basis.
• People are finally believing me.
• We have an incredibly compassionate, proactive pediatrician.
• Sunny has an amazing teacher who is 100% on my team, communicates well with me, and sees past the behaviors to the heart of Sunny.
• Our insurance will cover 100% of Sunny's evaluation and treatment.
• I'll be getting the assistance of a qualified professional who can help us meet our girl's needs.
• The school is taking this seriously.
• I requested a behavior IEP for Sunny.
• It typically takes some weeks to pull together an IEP meeting. They got one scheduled for this Tuesday morning!
• Sunny is going to be safer, and her needs will be better met as a result of all this.

So many positives in the midst of a very bad situation. Keeping my eyes fixed in the right place.