My Gifted is my Gift!

Nikque is truly a natural born actor, so naturally, she can act like she loves Ursula, but she does not. Further, anyone who has seen the video tape from November last year can see that in fact her father DEMANDS that she love her. After years of that type of insistence and punishment for non-compliance, most children will eventually either comply or rebel and Nikque is definitely a pleaser, not a rebel. I have watched Nikque destroy her step-mother symbolically on three separate occasions in Dr. Calandra’s office, and I could only wonder if I had done anything to create this feeling in her. I finally realized I did not. It is plenty enough to have Rodney blaming me for everything that is wrong in his relationship with Nikque. Certainly Rodney and Ursula both were made fun of in my house from time to time, but only a fraction of the time that I made fun of myself and Nikque didn’t start to hate me. I come from a family now ADULTS who can all laugh at their self, either flaws or other’s perceptions whether or not they are in agreement and it was a good thing for Nikque because I wanted our perfectionists little girl to know it was okay to be imperfect. I also felt a growing need over the years to try anything I could to find something positive in the increasingly disturbing events being reported by Nikque at her dad’s house. The reality is that most of the negative comments Rodney accused me of saying about him or Ursula were either taken completely out of context or were comments that I would have expected to be laughed off by another adult. Instead, I found something different hostility, retaliation and frankly pure hatred. I was particularly unprepared for “their” complete inability to comprehend that it just might present some difficulty for a young child to adapt to what was going on “their” house. Namely, a person who was NOT Nikque mother, attempting to take on a bossy and domineering role that was very different from how I treated her and who repeatedly told her I was wrong. Little things like clipping her nails when I told her she could wear the long or like telling her that I should not straighten her hair, which was none of her business bothered Nikque. Nikque is not interested in wearing her hair nappy, but Ursula seemed insistent that if SHE thought is should be nappy, then it would be. I would like to be certain that she didn’t enjoy combing Nikque’ hair so hard that she had tears running down her face, but there is nothing I have heard that gives me that comfort.