"You Are A Mean Old Mom" - An Opportunity To Practice Jesus' Love

       I need to learn coping skills as much as or more than, my children with trauma. The daily grind of deflecting trauma inspired words and actions wears on a body. On the bright side, having parented a child with RAD makes all our current difficulties pale, because nothing attachment related, can compare with RAD. However, in the constant push and pull in our relationships with Kiana and Joseph, it is easy to forget that this is easy in comparison.

   In the past 18 hours, those two have thrown enough accusations my way that I would be tempted to give up, if it wasn't for my knowledge of trauma and how it affects children, Dean patiently and firmly standing behind everything I say and the love and grace Jesus gives.

    "You should make everyone who is telling lies about me stay in the house, instead of making me stay with you!"

   "I don't want to live here any more, it is no fun. Everyone is mean to me!"

    "I am the only adopted girl in my class and it isn't fair!"

   "I don't want you for a mom".... the other child said, "I want you for a mom but I don't want Tristan for a brother."

   "I won't and you can't make me!!!"

   "I hate work, I hate being home and I wish I never had to live here!"

    "You are a big, mean, old mom!"

    "I am not talking about it!"

  "I am going to run away and live some where else, I don't want to be here with you!"

     "You don't care about anything that happens to me!"

    "You don't love me or you wouldn't make rules that I don't like!"

     "I am not doing my school work because it is too hard for me and you don't even care, you just want me to have a hard life!"

   "Why did you adopt me, I want to live with my birth mom, I would be much happier with her!"

   "You always believe the liars!"

   Huffing, sighing, kicking the chairs, sassing, jumping up and down, falling onto the floor and yelling..... is all par for the course.

   Some days I can brush it off, like water rolling off a ducks back but other days, days like today...... it is really hard not to give in and believe the words I hear. 

    I was mulling this over and this thought came to mind, "These situations can be blessings, they give you opportunity to practice the love of Jesus. View these words as blessings instead of trials."

  If you are having a tough day, try viewing the situation as an opportunity to show and share Jesus' love, your outlook on life just might change!

   

    

Bottle Feeding To Help You Bond With Your Adopted Child

I remember when I first heard about the bottle feeding/bonding concept for children who suffer from attachment issues. I was reading the book, Dandelion On My Pillow, Butcher Knife Beneath by Nancy Thomas and she highly encouraged rocking your child and giving them either sweets or a bottle. I will admit, I thought she was a bit out there on that idea and since I was still learning the ropes of Reactive Attachment Disorder, I filed the idea in the back of my mind and gave it no more thought.



    Fast forward and it is a Monday evening and sonny and I are attending his weekly therapy session. His therapist brought up the subject of bottle feeding, "B is obviously reacting to the time and care you give Lia (she was a baby at the time). Watching you feed her, reminds him of the lack of nurture he had at her age, I wonder if he wouldn't benefit from bottle feeding" That made a lot of sense, so on our way home from therapy, I stopped at a local store and bought a bottle. 

  One day later in the week after the other children were down for naps, I brought out the bottle, filled it with warm milk and added some chocolate powder. I wasn't sure how B would take the whole bottle feeding idea, so filling the bottle with chocolate milk was a sort of bribe. I needn't have worried though. After I explained what we were going to do, he cheerfully went along with it. However, the whole thing backfired because he used Bottle Time, as we called it, to manipulate and control. We used the bottle for several days, then on and off for a few weeks but discontinued it because it gave B another opportunity to control.

  Fast forward once more, and I am sitting at TAP speaking with Miss S, as I will call her, and the bottle feeding topic came up. Miss S hesitated a bit, then said she has an idea but it is totally up to me if I want to pursue it. She explained how bottle feeding an older child, can increase the bond between him and his adoptive mom, would I want to give it a try? I assured her I was familiar with the concept and was willing to try it, anything to help B and I bond. 

  This time B and I were in a much better place emotionally. B was beginning to bond and I was willing to do whatever it took to strengthen it. I warmed the milk and taking B on my lap, I fed him the bottle. At first it felt really awkward, but as the moments passed, something began stirring in my heart. Love for this hurting little boy began to take root. It wasn't all fun and games, we had our tough times but I came to realize I needed to provide nourishment for my son, just as much as he needed to receive it from me. Sadly our bond disintegrated because of B's great fear of getting close to someone. 


  And we fast forward once more and find ourselves in 2016 with attachment issues once more, albeit with another child. I am still trying to decide how to approach the idea of bottle time, but while I am thinking, I bought a bottle for little sister.

    Little sister has a hang up with bottle's, she loves them. She was placed with us when she was only a few months old, so she had plenty of bottle feeding time with me. I used to discourage her love for bottles but one day I thought, "Lia has a strong bond with us but she needs nurturing as much as her siblings, so why not bottle feed her?"

   I was amazed at the change I saw in Lia, she is more secure, and throws less tantrums. It was a good reminder for me to continue nurturing and what some would call "babying" the children. When a child comes into your home via foster care or adoption, they have a huge deficit in the love and nurture department. It will take years of intense effort to fill their love tanks. A therapist told me that these children are like buckets full of holes, you fill the with love and it promptly drains away. You have to saturate them in love for a long time before those holes will begin to close, allowing their love tanks to fill. It is only after a child's love tank is able to hold water, that they will be able to pour a little love/water into your tank, until then you will need to fill your love tank elsewhere. Loving and nurturing a traumatized child is draining and many are the parents (myself included) who find their own love tanks drained and are unable to meet their child's needs. 

Increasing Nurture & Structure

     Daddy has a meeting to attend tonight and the house is in an uproar. As he was preparing to leave, Dean turned to me and said, "Do you think you will be okay?" I assured him we would be just fine. He hasn't been out the door half an hour yet and I have already settled numerous squabbles. Thankfully Joseph was in bed before Dean got ready to go so he has no idea Daddy isn't home. The girls are taking some quality, "time apart," while they work on their attitude's and big feelings.

   Sometimes I long for the day when something as simple as an evening meeting won't call for such extreme reactions, but I remind myself how quickly time passes. Now is the time to nurture, love and instruct my children. As Lia sat beside me working through her big feelings, she wasn't in the mood to be held, I was reminded of something we were told at an Empowered To Connect Seminar, "When you increase the structure, you must increase the nurture."   

   Dean and I are pretty good at providing the nurture and structure our children need, but for some reason we struggle to provide both at the same time. Maybe it is because doing both at once requires so much more self discipline in our own lives. When I focus on nurturing my children I hate to enforce those necessary boundaries and when I make sure the boundaries are well marked, I find it harder to pour on the nurture. So often we find ourselves in the ditch on one side other the other, walking the middle road just seems hard to do.

  


Nurturing your child may look something like this:
-rocking the child who scarcely fits on your lap
-patting his back until he falls asleep
-spooning food into his mouth, even though he is perfectly able to eat himself
-putting band aid's on almost invisible scrapes
-rubbing his arm during a church service
-packing a snack when you go away to assure your child that there will be enough food for him

Structure:
-making sure he gets 12 hours (or as much as he needs) of sleep every night even if it means sacrificing
-always having your child in line of vision
-answering prompts with, "Yes mom and yes dad."
-limiting play to a certain portion of the room

There are many more ways to nurture your child and many different ways of providing the necessary structure, but these are a few of the things we implement. The degree to which these things are  used vary from child to child, they also increase and decrease as they are needed.

  A child has to feel safe and secure before he will begin to heal from his trauma. For our children, having daddy gone triggers their fear of abandonment... and now that my little people are calmed down enough to accept some nurturing, I better hop to it!
   

When God Calls You To Adopt And You Fear The Unknown

   Sometimes I fear people look at our adoption journey and decide not to follow through with it because they worry their story will look like ours. There are a lot of scary stories out there and I know I write about some of the tougher things you may face if you do decide to foster and/or adopt don't let that stop you. Go into it with an open mind and a willing heart and God will bless you despite the tough times.

   Like most people we got into foster care for two reason's; our house felt empty with only one child and we felt God calling us to it. 

  We naively thought taking in younger children would mean "less problems." I feel ashamed when I think about it now, but at the time that is how we felt, beside's we knew nothing about parenting an older child, as Tristan had just turned 4. We were advised not to mess up the birth order which made sense, and still does. But that leaves me wondering who will care for the older children if everyone thinks like we did. 

  Kiana came to us and a few short months later, Joseph and B came. We were busy, but happy. 3 babies made me forget the months of empty arms and Tristan loved having children to play with.

    B was different from the moment he was placed with us, but we thought he simply needed time to adjust. As the months passed and then a year came and went, we grew suspicious that there was more going on than we realized. By then the boys case was moving toward adoption and we hoped adoption would help him feel more secure. It didn't.

   We gradually came to realize that B's struggle's would not be overcome in a few months of therapy. Kiana and Joseph were struggling as well, but we didn't realize the magnitude of what we were facing.

    God graciously led us small step by small step, until one day I realized that caring for my children was going to mean much more than typical child rearing. I remember thinking, "I can't do this!"

   But God was gracious, he continued to lead us along, revealing one diagnosis at a time. If we would have known RAD, FASD, 2.5 years of out of home treatment, years of therapy, a CYS investigation and an adoption disruption was ahead of us, I fear we wouldn't have pursued adoption. 

   Think of all the blessings we would have missed out on! All the friends we have made, the lessons we have learned and the people who have impacted our lives, none of it would have happened. Sometimes God takes us on a difficult journey to prepare us for greater blessings, other times it is to refine us, or you may be used as an instrument to bless others, come what may, he has a purpose and a plan. 



  So if you are thinking of opening your home to the some of the most vulnerable among us and feel God is calling you, don't let the "horror stories" stand in the way. God will make a way even when there doesn't seem to be a way and if He does call you to one of the situations you fear, He will give you the grace and courage to face it head on.


                      
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Things To Consider When A Child With RAD Makes False Allegations

   


  RAD, or Reactive Attachment Disorder, why is it so scary and isolating? Why are the parents and caregivers of those diagnosed with this terrifying mental condition, so odd? Why do they stick to their guns no matter what? They make rules and will not make any exceptions, not even for grandparents and close friends. Don't they realize their refusal to allow people to interact with their child, is causing a rift in their relationships? 

   I can answer those questions in a few short words, "It is because the parents realize what is at stake." Most people do not enforce rules that inconvenience themselves and drive wedges in their relationships because they enjoy doing so. If someone is doing some of the things I mentioned above, rather than think they are trying to hurt you or are being unreasonable, step back and think about why they might be putting up walls around their family. 

  What most people fail to realize is that children with RAD are willing and capable of doing whatever it takes to prevent relationships, especially with their parents, particularly mom or other primary care givers. You may think, isn't saying they will do anything a little extreme? 

  Let me explain it this way, if one of your children was in a burning house, wouldn't you do anything to rescue that child, even going so far as putting your life at risk? These children honestly believe their lives are at risk if they allow anyone to get close to them. They will do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.
  The next question that usually comes up is: "Then why was he so nice to me? I have a bond with him." 

    These children are super manipulators, they have to be, that is partly what kept them alive in their previous situation. So if the child can get you to believe he loves and trusts you, he succeeds in two things, conning you into thinking he is a sweet child and hurting mom. If he refuses to let mom read him a story but will cuddle up to you and allow you read him a story, mom will be hurt and that is what he wants. Mom hurting = one more wall between mom and I, which means I am in control of the relationship.

  Back to my original question, "Why do the parents of these children make such rules, even if the rules hurt relationships?" Because they have to. If your 8 year old niece came up to you and shared that a family member was hurting her, what would you do? Wouldn't you believe her? After all she was crying and begging for help. What you aren't aware of is that last night for the first time she allowed her daddy to kiss her good night. Last night she let down her guard, but today she is terrified, she needs to find a way to protect herself. If you believe the story and report it, CPS will take it seriously and the children may be removed from the home. A family is torn apart, because they tried to help a hurting child. Can you see why parents are very careful?

    "But how would a child know to make such accusations, especially if she/he never experienced this type of thing?" Think back to the scenario of your child in a fire, quite likely you would come up with some pretty drastic idea's to protect that child. I realize the fire story isn't a very good comparison, but I wanted to get you thinking. You also have to realize these children have been honing their self preservation skills for a long time, many of them for their whole life. They "go for the jugular," as some would say.

  Many of these children prey on those smaller than them, it is a power thing. It makes them feel strong, in control. They are very good at doing these things right under their parents noses, this is one reason why parents do not allow their child to play with his peers. They are protecting you and your child as much as their child.

   Parenting a child with RAD places parents in a very vulnerable position, their child is highly likely to make false allegations and who are people most likely to believe, the child or his parents? That is  one of  the biggest threats families face when trying to help these children. 

   The flip side is the child who truly is in a bad situation, and finally gains enough courage to ask for help. How can you know the difference? I don't think there is a cut and dried answer to that question. The first thing I would recommend doing is praying, God will not fail you in such a situation. Second, think of the child's history, is he known for lying? Has he made false accusations before? Does the child have RAD? If so, I would encourage you to speak confidentially to the parents and get their side of the story. Often times when a child who has RAD, does something like this it is because he feels threatened by a relationship. Quite likely, the parent will be able to go back and say, "Yes, _______ just happened and we had a break through with our child. He is terrified and this is his way of protecting himself.

  I encourage all parents to have a good attachment therapist on board, someone who documents all false allegations, as the parent you should as well. Include, dates, witnesses signatures and the exact situation, that way, when these situations come up you have a history. Of course, there is always a first time but typically, a child will not make the "worst allegation," the first time he accuses someone. 

   RAD is such a sad, twisted illness, if I may call it that. The children turn on the very people who are trying to help them and they are so good at getting people to believe them that entire families are at risk. Their actions also make it difficult for children who are truly in danger to get help because, people hesitate to get involved. If faced with such a situation, proceed with prayer and caution.

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What Is It Like To Disrupt An Adoption?

   Disruption is almost a byword in adoption circles. In fact, as much as I read up on adoption and related topics, I wasn't even aware such a thing existed until a few years ago. Then I was of the persuasion that it was something illegal. The poor children were handed off to strangers and never heard from again, or something of that sort. Sadly, there are cases where it does happen, probably more than we are aware of but it isn't always like that. 

  People seldom outright ask what it is like to go through a disruption, but we do get asked some pretty pointed questions from time to time. Let me say right here that we don't mind these questions. I would much rather people ask, than assume.

  Enough of that, here are some of the things that I wish someone else would have shared, so we would have had an idea what to expect while going through the process of disruption. However, I do realize every situation is different and every parent will experience their own particular emotions and triggers.

    You will feel guilty, like a failure. I can't help but think, maybe we should have tried harder, or if we would have done xyz, things might have been different.

     I am tempted to feel like I failed the Christian adoption world. We, who are supposed to be the hands and feet of Christ, to love the unlovable, turn around and disrupt an adoption? What about the Bible verse, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me?" 

    Do you know how many people will have the same name as the child who's adoption you disrupted? Seriously, I think B's name must be the most popular name in town. I know it isn't and I only think I hear it so often because it always stirs up memories.

   You will hear a child scream and break out in a cold sweat, then an intense relief will wash over you, as you realize the child isn't your responsibility.

   You will need to talk about what happened, especially if you are like me, and process things best by talking through them time and again. 

  When you sign the papers to relinquish your parental rights, you will have emotions unlike anything you have experienced before. I remember feeling like a criminal.

  Odd things, like a shirt, hole in the wall or a notice with your child's name on it, will send you into spasms of tears, fear or both.

    You will let your breath out and be able to relax for the first time since you realized what you were up against. Looking back you will be amazed at the level of hyper vigilance you needed to maintain to keep everyone safe. You will wonder how you ever did it.

  You will feel a huge sense of loss, something you may not anticipate. I struggled with an inner pain I couldn't identify. Dean helped me realize I was grieving the loss of dreams, the loss of hope. Before the disruption, we always had hope that things would get better, now that hope is gone.

    Depending upon the situation, you will have PTSD. You will remember things that happened. Things you had forgotten because your brain was protecting you by allowing you to "forget" while to you were putting all your energy and mental power into making it through each day.

    You may feel cut adrift. I felt like I was laying down in surrender after giving everything I had to win a war. It felt wrong, like I was willingly giving in to the enemy.

  You will feel relief, then feel guilty for feeling relieved. 

  You will wonder who you are. For years I was a "RAD mom." I had a close bond with other women who were in the trenches as well, suddenly I was no longer one of them, but who was I? I still find myself wondering who I really am.

   You will be tired, oh so very tired. Even though B wasn't living at home prior to the disruption, the situation weighed heavily on our minds. If your child was at home prior to the disruption, the sudden lack of need for constant supervision, the need to out think and out smart the manipulative child, will leave you feeling exhausted.

  Panic will wash over you when you realize you don't know where your child is and what he is doing. Just that quickly you will remember, and the relief that washes over you will leave you feeling dizzy.

   

  

  

   

    

Lia's Doctor Appointment and A DIY Wreath

 Lia went to the doctor for her yearly physical last week. Lia loves all things "doctor." Her doctor kit is among her most prized possessions and she has her sights set on being a doctor someday.

                

 Lia wanted to take her doctor set along but I convinced her to take her Lea*p Pad instead. As we were driving home, Lia said, "Mom, they forgot to take my blood pressure!" My little girlie is in the 6th percentile for height and the 18th for weight. Last night Kiana said her teacher brought a scales to school as they were learning about weight. To her dismay, she is among the lightest in her class. "It takes so long to gain weight," she moaned. I can't say I agree with her. :)

This wreath is my latest project. My friend has one and I took a liking to it so I took notes on how it was assembled and made one for myself. My friends wreath used sheet music paper but I substituted pages from a devotional I no longer use. Take the top and bottom of the paper and bend them toward the center, then press firmly to form a crease. I used a wire floral wreath form and hot glued the papers around the inside wire. The edges of the paper were touching slightly, then I simply went around with another layer of papers placing one where the corners of the bottom papers met. Quick an simple.