Tag: Miller

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life

Child-Directed Interaction

There are two primary elements of Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). The  initial element is Child Directed Interaction (CDI). This interaction is intended to strengthen the fundamental relationship between parent and child. The parents have the opportunity to see their child in a situation where the child feels safe and in control where they can pay uninterrupted attention to their child and practice some skills of interaction that help the child to feel that they are valued and appreciated. This should set the stage for the second element called Parent Directed Interaction (PDI).

CDI is meant to be a fairly free time for the child to express themselves it is surprisingly structured. Our therapist has recommended that we get a box filled with toys and activities that can be used for this interaction time. The child is then allowed to choose which toy or activity during each session. Sessions are short enough that the child should only be playing with one type of toy or activity during a given session.

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Education life

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy

When all attempts at progress either backfire or have no discernible effect its time to seek further insight and experience. Such has been the case for us recently as we have found it impossible with only the expertise of ourselves and our families to address the unacceptable behaviors that have been grinding upon the life of one of our children and by extension adding tension and discomfort in the lives of everyone else in the family. Our first visit with the therapist introduced a very hopeful path for us called Parent-Child Interaction Therapy. After the visit I started doing some research to find out what else I could learn about this therapy. What I found was that virtually all the information available was directed at a clinical audience – in other words it was all textbooks for therapists and those studying to become therapists. Besides that, I also learned as I talked with our therapist at the next visit about what I had found, that much of the information that is available is either inaccurate or simply out of date. She said that it seems that those with experience with PCIT have little interest in making information available to a lay audience because the information is most valuable when professional coaching is being given to the parents as they implement the principles of PCIT. While I have no expectation that parents without the help of a trained therapist would be able to get the full benefits of PCIT, I also believe that parents who are hearing about this and wondering if it really is useful for their situation, or perhaps parents like us before we met with our therapist who recognize a problem like ours but have no idea what might finally give them the breakthrough they need, should have more information available that is geared towards them which would provide an overview of the therapy. Because of that I have determined to take notes of our journey through PCIT and write publicly about this little adventure.

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life pictures

Welcome Noah

After weeks of Laura feeling like she was ready to be done with this pregnancy (despite the fact that we hoped it would last a little longer to get a few more things done around the house) we got the news on Tuesday that the midwife was concerned that the baby was breech. She had Laura go to the hospital to have the baby turned on Wednesday and said that if the baby was breech again for the visit next week she would want us to turn the baby again and induce labor. We spent a couple of days expecting to enter next week with the prospect of inducing labor – someone had other ideas.

Laura was having contractions off and on for much of Friday. After a Thanksgiving dinner with my side of the family we came home and Laura had concluded that labor was imminent. She planned to go to bed when we got home (at 5:00 pm) so that she could be rested. She took a sleeping pill and laid down – not five minutes later her water broke.

The labor was exciting based on the fact that she had a sleeping pill encouraging her body to postpone labor counteracted by Pitocin in her IV. To make matters more fun, as we neared the crowning the midwife discovered that the baby was oriented oddly again – face first. At 9:11 a swollen and bruised face emerged – just as the midwife had forewarned us when she discovered the orientation – and as I looked to finally identify the gender we had not previously determined I told Laura that “we have a Noah.”

Up to that point we had decided that I would choose the middle name if we had a boy but I had not yet settled on one. I soon knew what name to use – Noah Thomas Miller.

At 6 lbs. 8oz. and 20″ long he’s a healthy and happy little man.

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life pictures

Revealing Personalities

It’s always interesting to me to see the little ways that the kids display their unique personalities. Recently I noticed them coming through on Tap Fish, a game I have on my iPod. The game is a virtual aquarium and I allowed each of the kids to have their own tank. Because I don’t allow them to play the game anytime they want, and because the fish in the tanks will dies if neglected for too long (two full days according to the documentation), I make a habit of going in every day to feed their fish, just in case they won’t get an opportunity soon. Other than my basic maintenance I don’t do anything with the kids’ tanks, they each have complete control of what they put in the tank in the way of fish and tank decorations.

At first I limited what they could buy so that no one child would use up all the virtual money at the expense of the others but once I built up a sizable reserve of coins I dropped that restriction and it has been interesting to see each tank take on it’s own character according to the person who owned it.

Please note that I would not presume to read much into looking at the tanks if I did not get to see the other aspects of each child’s life as well.

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life thoughts

Wayne and Etta Miller Family Reunion

Wayne and Etta, for those who don’t know, are my paternal grandparents. Both are deceased. After Etta’s death some of the cousins apparently thought that we should have a reunion so that we could get together. In the whole course of my life I can recall perhaps five brief interactions with any members of that extended family so I was reluctant to attend. Some might expect that reluctance to come from an expectation of animosity or dysfunction based on the fact that I have never succeeded in forming a functional relationship with my dad, and this is his family. Truthfully the reluctance was based on the complete lack of prior interaction and the expectation that we would feel like strangers among other people who had some level of common identity.

Over time my reluctance turned to ambivalence and shortly before the reunion I decided to go as a show of support for the one of my brothers who was planning to attend and who had put some work into pulling the reunion off – after all, the reunion was not 25 miles from my house.

I must say that when we went I was very pleasantly surprised to feel right at home talking with uncles, aunts, and cousins whom I have rarely seen and some of whom I had never met.

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life pictures

A Look at the Future

It’s always fun for me to write welcome posts when we are expecting a new arrival. We’ve done this enough times now that as we prepare for number six there would seem to be nothing new to say. That might explain why we have decided not to find out in advance whether this will be a boy or whether we have a girl coming our way.

When we went for the ultrasound the doctor captured a cool image of baby’s arms crossed in front of it’s face as if rubbing it’s eyes while waking up from a nap.

That last sentence should have been awkward enough to prove why almost everyone these days chooses to find out the gender of their coming baby in advance. I have suggested that we use male pronouns in odd months and female pronouns in even months when talking about baby but I don’t know if we’ll actually do that. The only thing we know for sure is that if this is a boy he will be named Noah and if this is a girl we have not yet settled on one name.

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life thoughts

Be Where You Ought To Be


photo credit: orkydorky

Last week we had a family reunion at Bear Lake. It was great for the kids to see their cousins and for everyone to have fun on the water and off. In planning for the trip the hardest thing was deciding whether we should come back Saturday night or whether we should stay over Sunday and come home Monday morning. For a variety of reasons we decided to come home Saturday.

We felt good about that decision but as if to confirm our choice, the discussion in Sunday School focused on the importance for each of us to be where we ought to be. Of course it included the declaration that “at this moment Sunday School is where you ought to be.”

As I listened to the lesson I thought about the fact that being where we ought to be, or as it was said of Gideon’s men, “{standing} every man in his place,”(Judges 7:21) is a prerequisite to obeying the counsel that President Uchtdorf gave in the October 2008 priesthood session of general conference that we should stand close together and lift where we stand.

I hope our family can always be found standing in our place and lifting where we stand.

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life

Nine Years and Counting

Nine years ago today I was privileged to make covenants with the greatest woman I have ever known. I spent a lot of time today thinking back to our wedding day (hint: that was back when Mother Nature still remembered that it’s not supposed to snow in May) and all that has happened in the years since then. We have been blessed with five kids and I get to contrast my nine years of marriage with the ten months and counting that a friend of ours is enduring of divorce proceedings. While we were at stake conference today being spiritually edified I saw the weight of care showing on this friend’s face and thought how blessed I was to have a wonderful wife to share the weight of raising children to the Lord so that they will be prepared for the challenges they will face when they go out into the world.

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life pictures Uncategorized

Best Calendar for 2010

On Christmas day there was one gift under the tree that neither Laura nor I knew about. Savannah had made a wonderful calendar for our family for 2010. I just had to share each of the months – it really warmed our hearts to see the work that she had put into this.

January

February

March

April
In case you can’t tell, that shell of the egg opens and closes to reveal the picture.

May

June

July

August

September

October

Things she is thankful for: Mom and Dad, Alyssa, Mariah, Isaac, and Bell (not sure of the reference there)
Things she is thankful for: Mom and Dad, Alyssa, Mariah, Isaac, and Bell (not sure of the reference there)

December

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life pictures

Family Pictures

When Enoch was born I promised to post a family picture. Things were busy enough that since we were not allowed to take the kids to visit in the hospital we never got around to taking a family picture until three weeks later when we had already scheduled family pictures of our extended family (David’s family) including individual sittings for each of the families in the group. Now it has taken another three and a half weeks to finally get the picture scanned in and posted here.

So without further ado, here is the whole family:

Seven of Us