Crazy Making Behaviors....

How many of us have kids that display some pretty crazy behaviors? I think we can all identify with Bill Cosby in his explanation of brain damage in children and what this phenomenon does to parents. We may feel like we were somewhat educated in the whole process of parenting and possibly educated in the details of adoption AND THEN our child comes home and that education doesn't quite play out the way we had expected.

Something is amiss with our kids and we may even feel like bashing our head against the wall in frustration! The brain damage begins to seep into our thought process and we begin to display crazy making behaviors ourselves. We once were relatively "normal" and now we have two heads that spin around in opposite directions. We no longer are quite sure which is left and which is right. Even up and down becomes confusing to us and we are simply trying to adapt to this new view of the world.

Being a parent is hard enough, but then we enter into the realm of parenting kids from "hard places" and whew......it's not for the faint of heart! We've landed on a different playing field altogether. Nothing is "normal" anymore. We may spend weeks, months, and even years trying to get back to normal. This is where much of the frustration comes from.  As an adoption & attachment specialist, I get asked this question all the time, "How long until our life will be back to normal?" Let me say something here, and I know it is not a popular statement: Your life will NEVER get back to normal. In fact, that normal probably only existed in our mind anyway.

BUT....we thought we had a relatively normal life and we gradually begin to develop a new normal for our life. We do this by embarking on the long process of grieving the "idea" of what we thought our life (and possibly our adoption) would look like. We hopefully learn to embrace the unique or "abnormal" aspects of our lives. Once we truly let go of the desire to go back, we are able to move forward and see the Lord's blessing throughout the process.

Granted, there are some adoption situations where the kids come into the home, adjust very well, and things seem to be fine. I have some thoughts on these cases, but I'll save that for another day. I will say though, it doesn't matter if we've adopted a child at one day old or 15 years old, our kids with a history of loss see the world through a different lens. Their life began with loss.

We must be aware of this loss even if our child appears to not be affected by this fact. Maybe they do not even remember their birth family, but that in itself is an additional loss that hurts the child deeply. Keep in mind that adoption is only formed through loss. Even though there are many blessings that come through this process, this early loss affects the way the child views the world. It also should frame the way we parent the child.

Then there are other things that effect the way our kids view the world~ even outside of loss through adoption. Maybe we gave birth to our child, but they have risk factors such as prenatal stressors (anxious pregnancy, prenatal exposure), early hospitalization (preemies, chronic ear infections, allergic reactions), or a traumatic birth that has shaped their brain development. They in turn have an altered sense of interaction with the world. This is why some parents will come to me about one of their children (that are adopted) and begin to see that their biological child has some of the same characteristics displaying in different ways.

So, we have an already stressful scenario (parenting children in general) and then we basically toss battery acid on that "normal" scenario and expect our child to play nice. In our mind, we're not really asking that much. We simply want the child to care about themselves and care about other people. Is that so much to ask? But instead, we may end up with a child that puts themselves first and will provide for themselves even to the detriment of other people. Basically, I want this toy NOW and I will step on or harm whoever I need to in the pursuit of reaching that goal. 

There may be many well meaning individuals that try to relate. They laughed at Bill Cosby's description of crazy making behaviors in children. They experienced frustrating things themselves with their own kids. The degree though of challenges is entirely different. Your child may throw a fit when they don't get what they want, but they may have a baseline of actually caring about people. Our kids from hard places, may not have that baseline at all. When we take a child that has never learned to give and receive affection, you basically end up with narcism and sociopathic behavior. This is different than a child that simply wants their way. Of course we become frustrated and struggle with responding to our children in appropriate ways.

The good thing is that people can change AND we can learn to respond to our children in healthy ways. It's not an easy journey. I have a TON of training in this field and I will say that nothing really prepares you for living this life. One of the toughest things to prepare parents for is how it will feel to parent a child that joins their family through adoption, a child with a traumatic past, or a child with a range of special needs. In some circumstances, parenting a child through adoption is very much like parenting a child on the autism spectrum or a child with various disabilities. The difference is that our mindset does not change as easily when the child is simply adopted. We do not look at the scenario as though there is a disability present. With a child diagnosed with a known disability, it is at least somewhat expected that the child will interact differently then their peers. They are not expected to be age appropriate socially like a child through adoption is expected. They are not expected necessarily to give and receive affection like we expect with a child through adoption. And they are not expected to be thankful like we often expect with children through adoption. Changing our mindset is essential in this process, but it is certainly not an easy thing to do.

I still find myself wanting to say to my child, "You're ten years old. What are you doing? Pleeeezee......act like a 10 year old, not a 3 year old. You're driving mommy crazy!" I KNOW better than this, but it still pops into my mind. I understand logically that our kids can display as very intelligent (and they are very intelligent), but their social and emotional maturity is often severely limited. My mind still wants their development to be at an age appropriate level. The child may have the street smarts of a 22 year old, the body of a 15 year old, the academics of a 7 year old, and the social skills of a 3-4 year old. They may chronologically be 10 years old (or possibly we do not even know how old they are). No wonder our child is so baffling to us and we are often at a loss in how to respond. 

There is hope though! We have to start by taking care of ourselves. As Christians, I think this can be especially challenging. We tend to give and give and then give some more. Although giving is a good thing, we need time to re-charge our batteries or we'll no longer be able to give anymore at all. We will begin to see things more clearly when we slow down and focus inward instead of outward.