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After a couple of months with us, it seemed the more we tried to get close to Mandy, the more she fought us. Well not us so much as ME. Mike was always greeted at the door with a very loving little girl. It seemed that all of Mandy's anger was directed towards our older girls and myself. She would kick the girls and throw things at them. It seemed that anything she could think of, that would get them upset at her she would do it. She would even just sit and stare at them with a real hateful look on her face. This would drive the girls nuts. I would have to be the go-between for them all the time. The bigger girls couldn't understand this other wise cute little girl would want to cause so much disturbance. Whenever Mandy would be punished by being sent to her room for what ever she had done, she would throw everything on the floor. All the toys and books, even her clothes. Then she would scream,” I hate you, you ass hole." I often thought, "LOVING CHILD WE HAVE HERE." I with all my calmness tried to just ignore the things she was saying. Until Dawn asked, "Why does she get to say those words? We can't." That's when I realized that this child had to stop with this language. It was time to give her the same punishment our own children would and had gotten for such words. I got a bar of soap and explained to her I would put soap in her mouth if she talked like that again. It only took three or four times then I heard "I.I.hate you. YOU." then she shut her mouth, and got real quiet. I thought wow we have found something that gets this Childs attention. I wasn't sure if this would be the proper thing to do as far as her being a foster child. All I knew was it worked with my own children, even though she had a different back ground she was still just a child.
We were starting to notice some good things Mandy was doing too. We were noticing some good things in Mandy too. She was becoming aware of the things around her, like one day we were coming back from church and we heard a screech come from the backseat. "Dad look at that piece of paper in the sky." She was amazed to learn that was a kite and someone had a string at the other end. We went out and bought a kite that day to show her how it worked. She also learned that you need socks and an undershirt when it's cold outside. If you chew your food real good you won't choke. When you make a bed there are two sheets you can put on a bed, we only gave her one because she got confused with what to cover with. Mandy had even started to smile; she started to cry when she would hurt herself. She had come to a point where she would tell Mark, "Go tell mama." She was becoming a little girl. We thought she was making big break through. We were still having visits with Dianna on the weekends. She was even starting to accept discipline. Then it seemed all hell broke, they started up visits with mom. She hadn't been in contact with the worker until then so there were any visits. When the visits started it was like seeing mom brought back all the old memories. All the things that had happened that she kept hidden away had come back to haunt her. Now she wasn't only pointing her anger at the girls and me. She was mad at Mark too. The whole world made her mad. She started waking at night; she would kick Marks bed until he woke up. She started hitting the girls whenever they would try and walk past her; she was even hitting on the dog. She just couldn't hurt enough people. The anger she was feeling was just overpowering her will to do well. Mike even got to see some of her anger now. Here was a little girl who was completely out of control. I called the worker to let her know what was going on, and let her know I needed help. I had no idea how to deal with such an angry child. She set up some counseling for Mandy. The behavior that Mandy was having, was rubbing off on Mark too.