These are just a few of the scenarios adoptive families often face on a daily basis. It is a hard road to be on day in and day out. I will be the first to admit that I am not the perfect parent. I have made many mistakes over the years. I've even had moments of telling my teen to simply take a hike. If you don't like it in our family, go ahead and go. See how that works out for you (that was once on a miserable camping trip) with our just turned 18 year old. I've had moments of confrontation that in hindsight, I never should have engaged in. I did not see the warning signs. The blowups seemed to come out of nowhere. On the surface, our teen or child could seem relatively compliant, but behind closed doors, they were a different person. I myself am somewhat of an assertive person (ok...that may be an understatement). I do not take well to being pushed around, so I had a difficult time "backing down" when I felt like I was being manipulated by an angry teenager.
The challenges that families face with adopted teens are complex. Families often seek help in a range of ways, but many of these attempts are unsuccessful. There are many reasons that the outcome is so poor. Partially, we may be seeking help from individuals that have very limited experience and training in adoption, attachment, and trauma. Another reason is simply that we're already on the slippery slide downward. Even if someone with training or experience reaches out to grab our hand, the current is too strong. They can't stop the spiral down. I've been on both sides of this. I've been on that downward spiral. I've also been on the counseling end where I have wished families had gotten help sooner.
I want to encourage families that there is hope! Things may not always or even often go in the direction we had hoped, but God is still in control even within chaos. I know that it can feel like we are in a bottomless pit and there's no way out. There may not be ONE way out of our situation, but there are many strategies that can help. We have adapted to "try" to prevent responding in crisis. We aren't always successful, but overall we do better each and every year. We've tried numerous strategies or interventions. Some have been good and some not so good.
If there is ONE strategy that I would place at the very top of the list, it would be to simply spend TIME with your teen, preteen, or child. I've recommended special time for many years now and some families have jumped on that idea, but made the process way too elaborate. They've taken their teen to the movies or paint balling or camping. Maybe they even had a good time, but nine times out of ten times, a few months go by and the family ceases to do these activities. They were a good idea at the time, but they were too difficult to sustain long term with a busy family. OR....it was a miserable experience and the family doesn't continue because their teen is hateful or argumentative, so the family didn't find "special time" all that special.
I'll admit there has been seasons where special time has not worked in our family. In fact, we're still finding our niche on the mission field and how to coordinate special time with the logistics of living in Haiti. It is so very important though to establish this in a family unit.
Special time or individual time has made such a big impact that I'm really not sure why I didn't incorporate it sooner. I believe we implemented it about 8-10 years ago and have tweaked it over the years. We have done four times a month instead of once a week. This way we have a little slush time. These are the times where our kids will talk to us about their adoption, talk about what's bugging them, complain about their life, share their feelings and frustrations, and just be there with us during some tough moments in their lives.
The way we do special time really makes or breaks this strategy. Here's a few things we've learned over the years.
I have a calendar and put their names on the bottom with four boxes after their names. I also put my name, my husband's name, and our names together for date night on the calendar. I want the kids to see that we are also important to ourselves and our time together is valued.
There are only three rules to Special Time that are key to success with this strategy:
1. Anywhere you want to go. This is really the main point with special time. We are placing the control back in the hands of our teen. They choose where you go and the parent is along for the ride. This is because so many clients would say to me that the parents "have to" spend time with them and don't really want to do what they want to do. I will say though that there is no "opt out" option in our family. If the teen is grumpy and doesn't care and doesn't want to go anywhere and flat out refuses to pick a place to go, they can then roam around in the grocery store with me for an hour. Usually they will pick something, but not always.
2. We're there and back within an hour (or 20 minutes for younger kids). This element limits the choices that the teen has. It has to take an hour or less. We did this for a few reasons. One is that we have 14 kids, but I think we probably only had 8 or so when we started this. Time though was a consideration when I set the guidelines for our special time. Another factor was to always end on a good note. Often parents stay too long at the party. The longer the outing, the more likely it is to begin to turn into a nightmare. We have also found that shorter time with more frequency and consistency is more effective. Our teens have to be able to count on special time. The longer it is, the less likely it is that we will be able to squeeze the time out of our day/week/or month for many seasons in our lives.
3. It doesn't cost any money. This is also very strategic. As soon as we place $$ on an outing, the special time becomes about the activity or event. So many teenage clients of mine would say that their parents just want to buy them stuff or will take them to the store to shop. The teen feels like they are being paid off to be compliant. The parent may just want to buy them some clothes and have a good time with them, but the teen rarely sees it that way. We want the focus to not be on the event or what we are doing or providing them with.
There are also some key Tips that come with Special Time:
Give them the Pen Have them mark down on the calendar themselves. This may seem inconsequential, but it is a key element. Have them literally mark it off on the calendar. This is the same concept as what we would do if we were memorizing something. We may write a spelling word over and over again in order to learn it. Writing it down can increase the ability of our brain to absorb the information. Many teens say to me that their parents NEVER spend any time with them, but the parents do in fact spend all kinds of time with them. They spend hours upon hours a week with their teen, but it's not designated as special time and it doesn't really sink in as time that they are "together" with the parent. This concept also shows our teen a past, a present, and a future. For kids from hard places, this generally lowers anxiety.
Place It in the Open Have our special time list out where everyone can see it. Hopefully place it where we walk by it numerous times every day. Again, this may seem obvious, but unless we are continually reminded, our good intentions may be pushed to the sidelines. Unless I see the calendar, mark off the times, and consciously calculate out when I will squeeze the time into the week, I will not do it. This means I have to put close to 20 hours a week aside for "special time". Some Saturdays I would simply take one person, then the next, then the next. The last week of every month is often busy because I'm "catching" up on special time. This is not always the case, but there is a commitment to follow through on what we have committed to.
Make it Flexible Another reason I do not have certain days for "special time" has to do with a hectic schedule (which most of us have). If we plan every Monday, inevitable something conflicts on a Monday and their special time goes away. If it is flexible, we can simply say, "Hey, I have an hour. Who wants to go on special time?" I always hear "me, me me" but will then look at the calendar and say "someone who only has gone twice so far" or whatever the scenario is. This special time also incorporates everyone in the family. We are not singling out the troubled kids or the adopted kids because we are trying to "fix" them or bond with them. These are some of the thoughts that teens have expressed in my office. Their parents want to "fix" them and they are offended by that thought process. With this format, we are simply spending individual time with each person in the family. It gives everyone a format of individual time where they can choose to share their thoughts and/or feelings or simply just be with us without sharing anything at all.
SELF Talk Our temptation is to spit out a bunch of words to our teen. Maybe we want to try to draw them into a conversation or maybe we simply want to understand why they continue to do various things. We want to help them. We may think we have this prime opportunity to pick their brain or share our incredible wisdom. Don't do it! Keep telling yourself not to do it. Do more self talk internally than external talk that is not even being heard by your teen. If you have to spend the whole hour internally telling yourself (or trying to convince yourself) that you like your teen, that's ok. It is more important than the words they are not going to hear coming of your mouth anyway. Maybe you don't like anything about your teen and it takes everything in you to refrain from telling them how unhappy you are about their behavior or how you wish they would be invested in their wellbeing. If this is the case, spend the hour reframing your thought process. Only allow yourself to think positive things about your teen during that hour. Do not allow yourself to think positive things on what you hope they will do or how you pray for them to change. Focus on the now for that hour and find what is good about them even if nothing changes. You'll have plenty of time the rest of the day to think about all the things you wish were different in your lives.
There has been times when the only positive thing I could think of was hmm....I like that shirt they have on, but then my mind would drift to....and there's dirt all over it, and they have it on backwards, and didn't I tell them to put that shirt in the wash? I would really have to concentrate on not letting my mind go down a negative spiral. This may be hard for non-adoptive parents to understand. It is unfathomable that you can have nothing good to say or feel about your child or teen. They have not lived with your child or teen to understand how easy it is to get in a downward spiral. They are not staring at your child everyday and the look of hatred on their face. When you are battling against destruction every moment of every day, liking the teen is nearly impossible. This is HARD work! In fact, it is probably easier to think kind thoughts about an angry teen than to think good thoughts about an unresponsive teen that just sits with his hood up, arms crossed, uses one word answers, glares at you like they wish you were dead, etc. It is incredibly difficult to be around a grumpy person all the time.
Regulate Yourself Be happy and content with yourself during this time. Focus on your own breathing and your own attitude. Model appropriate behavior. Often we are inadvertently responding to our child's discontent or anger. We may not even realize the tension we are experiencing each moment of every day. Remember that whatever we are feeling, our teen is likely feeling times 100. If we are annoyed, multiple that and realize they are feeling that way. If we are sad or angry or scared, that is what they are feeling. Push those feelings aside for an hour one time a week. Focus on the tension in our shoulders, the expression on our face, the bite to our response. Consciously be HAPPY! Do not worry about solving the world's problems or your teens problems in that hour. Look around. See the sky. Watch the birds. Be happy in simply breathing in and out.
Special Time is a GIFT This is one thing that will NEVER be revoked or taken away. Spending time with your teen is never based on behavior. You can't earn more of it (at least not on the calendar in this format) and you can't sabotage your way out of it. In fact, I deliberately take my kids/teens on special time after they have done something I am unhappy about. There's a couple reasons that I do this. One is that it helps me to separate the actions from the person. Maybe I want to give the teen a piece of my mind about stealing or lying or whatever else they did. It helps me to practice putting the behavior aside and focusing on the person. The consequence for whatever it is they did will still stand, but it won't be discussed during special time. Because special time is already outlined, taking them is not a reward for their behavior either. Another reason that I try to take them soon after they've done something "bad" is because I don't want to reinforce the belief that they are inherently bad. Many teens that I work with believe that underneath, they were bad and therefore they were adopted. They may have even been adopted as an infant and still hold this belief. With special time, I am trying to reinforce that just because you may do bad things, does not mean you are a bad person.
Put Electronics Away Toss your phone and your teen's phone and/or iPod in the glove box. Leave them there for the entire hour. Even if they just sit there with their arms crossed, the hood over their head, and blankly staring out the window, it's ok. Don't try to force a conversation or compliance with them looking at you. Generally after a couple of times, the teen will loosen up and begin to engage in conversation. Think about Good Will Hunting. As a mental health professional, there are many aspects of that movie that are really inappropriate and it certainly does not present good mental health practice, but there is something to be said for how Robin Williams waited things out. He simply sat there for a couple sessions instead of trying to drag out superficial stuff from Matt Damon. He wanted the investment and for him to engage vs. the other way around. Remember control with our kids. If they feel like they are not in control, you have limited success. We need to be able to create environments where they feel in control. We need to create an atmosphere where they know we will not give up on or abandon them regardless of how much they try to push us away.
"What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep,
and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine
on the mountain and go in search of the one that went astray?
And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the
ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in
heaven that one of these little ones should perish" ~Matthew 18:12-14
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