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My husband and I are adopting 2 older children, now 8 and 7 and they are joining our 14 and 11 yr old girls, raised since birth. The 8 year old girl has had behavior issues but we've seen improvement.
Lately, she has been disobedient - and my husband believes the situations are slightly different, but she is basically doing what *she* wants to do rather than what we tell her to do. Example: 1) told to carry her clothes upstairs. Later we discover she hasn't done it, though she spent some time in the basement doing something else (probably playing); 2) told to put something away. Found in bedroom playing with something else 3) doing the potty dance - reminded to go to the bathroom. Apparently delayed and was found hiding wet underwear in her drawer to escape punishment (ignoring her body's urge to go has been a continual problem - she is busy and doesn't want to stop doing what she's doing) 4) this one happened last night; told to go to bed (consistent bedtimes, regular nighttime rituals etc...) and kept getting up to ask us something. We reassured her, reminded her it was bedtime and sent her back. It should be pointed out that she shares a bedroom with our 11-year old and their bedtimes differ by 30 minutes due to age. She and the 7 year old have the same bedtime, but he falls asleep immediately and she doesn't. With all the issues we've had with them, we feel it is better to have the same bedtime, even though they are 1 year apart in age.
So after 20 minutes or so, we go upstairs and she is sitting in her bed, lights on and playing. My husband was very upset with her and told her that once again she was ignoring what she'd been told to do and doing what she wanted. No punishment given - it was 9:30 p.m. (There were a few other episodes like this today...)
We are trying to understand - we know there are issues of abandonment and neglect, plus some abuse that occurred in foster care. She seems to be very self-focused and even though we're trying to teach her to think of others and to remind her that we are taking care of her and make "rules" for her own good, she continues to do these kinds of things.
My question is - what is a logical consequence for this? Should we just continue to enforce the bedtime and ignore this occurence? I don't want to give negative attention. Also, I hate to generalize - but she does seem to be constantly doing what she wants rather than following directions or thinking of others.
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I agree with Peggy about the bedtime. My 6 yr old and 9 yr old boys share a room and the 6 yr old is FAE. He often has a hard time falling asleep so we bought a Leap Pad with a small light on it and we allow him to play with that or with a few Matchbox cars quietly until he is able to sleep. Most of the time the 9 yr old isn't disturbed by the 6 yr old's activity. His inability to sleep isn't willful misbehavior and he is just as frustrated (if not more frustrated) as we are. Have you ever laid in bed at night trying to make yourself sleep when you just can't turn off your brain and relax? I hate that!
Considering the fact that this girl's whole life changed when she moved in with you, the behaviors that you are seeing, as frustrating as they might be, aren't nearly as bad as they could be (and actually they might get worse before they get better!) Does this child have a diagnosis or receive therapy or other support services? Do you have an adoption support group in your area so that your needs are being met? Often times we forget that the best way to take care of our kids is to take care of ourselves. I would also suggest reading "Parenting The Hurt Child" by Gregory Keck and Regina Kupecky...it's a great resource for families like ours!
One last thing...when my oldest birth daughter was in 3rd grade it was an awful year for me as a mom. I expected her to still be my wonderful little obedient girl and she started to get ideas of her own about who she wanted to be and how she wanted to act. I was so frustrated with her until a friend of mine shared those same feelings with me about her oldest daughter. She told me to write down at least one thing each day that I liked about my daughter but not to share it with anyone. I followed that advice and it helped me more than I can say. Blessings to you!
I expected her to still be my wonderful little obedient girl and she started to get ideas of her own about who she wanted to be and how she wanted to act.
That sounds so much like my daughter. She is in 5th, not 3rd. But it is interesting that she developed to the point where she has gotten ideas and plans of her own. It is frustrating when she ignores what I say though. In one sense it is positive that she is thinking about what to do. My tact is that she can have her own ideas and opinions, but she needs to respoond properly first, before deciding on her own course of action.:rolleyes:
These posts are helpful. I think sometimes we are expecting too much and even though we have 2 children, we forget what an 8 year old is like - and you're right - this episode isn't that bad. I think it's one of those times when we've both lumped some of her behaviors into the category of "Me, Me, Me" and are possibly jumping to conclusions about her personality.
She is very engaging and cute. She is bright, too. I like the idea of focusing on her positive traits and not dwelling so much on the negative things. Both of the young ones are in weekly therapy. I don't think my husband and I have much support - there are very few people who have adopted older children. Basically I rely on books, magazine articles and the internet for support. My husband relies upon me. (ha-ha)
Why does it seem so different to parent a child who is all these wonderful things and a few not-so-great things when our own "raised since birth" kids aren't perfect???
I've read the Gregory Keck book and frankly, it scared me to death to think of how severe attachment issues can be. Gotta do better to put this in perspective, I guess.
Thanks again!
Hi scrapbookgirl33,
We have an 8 year old daughter(been with us over a year) and older bchildren.Our daughter sounds very similar to yours-not dreadful behaviour, but not quite doing as she is told.
For us it has not got better on it's own and we have been extremely consistent as to what we expect of her.A year on we are finding it very wearing.To us it feels as if she is trying to control, but because she goes just to the limit I end up feeling like an evil mother when really she is defying me in subtle ways.
The Dan Hughes book,"Building the bonds of Attachment" is brilliant.He talks about clear consequences but attaching empathy to the correction you bring when the child gets it wrong.It seems to make a huge difference in how our daughter accepts correction-she seems to be more able to see the consequences are a result of her behaviour,not simply because I am being mean. I also feel that I am beginning to connect with a "real" child. and voicing the empathy to her makes me feel less "evil" and more caring.
It is still hard work though and I'm going through a rough patch again.It is so different to parenting the bchildren and from time to time the stress feels too much.
Try and make sure you get a break once in a while, and keep firm and consistent- that seems to work for us.
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Most likely your children have attachment disorders and require attachment-facilitating parenting and attachment-based therapy. For parenting, I'd suggeest you read Building the Bonds of Attachment, as previiously suggested. For children that old you will probably find that attachment-facilitating parenting alone is not enough to address the underlying trauma; for that you need therapy provided by a licensed mental health provider who is appropriately trained and supervised in helping families with adopted and foster children with trauma-attachment disorders. Such a person should either be, or at least meet the criteria to be, a registered clinician with [URL=http://www.attach.org]The Association for the Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children[/URL] . The therapist should have at least 80 hours of specialized post-graduate training and at least 20 hours every two years of supervision or continuing education. I'd suggest that at least 40% of the person's practice be with adopted and foster children.
regards
I wondered if attachment was part of it but when I bring it up, I don't get the support or services I feel are needed. I asked for testing for this child and the case manager never filed the appropriate paperwork. (The adoption is not yet final...)
I will get the Hughes book mentioned in the last two posts and look into attachment-based therapy. The current therapist is a result of the uncovered abuse while these child were in their previous foster home.
Thanks again. It helps to have someone who's been there to listen. And though I try to get time to myself (or time with my husband), it's infrequent and sometimes I end up feeling even more frenzied with the things that don't get done while I'm gone. It is wearing to deal with these behaviors. There are times when we both want to just ignore it all, but we're trying to stay consistent.
Hi In Our state my friend who adopted a an older child. she had to fight for everything. it took months and months. and they never told her the extent of the childs behavior. and let me tell you it was something else . my advice is to keep fighting for what you need for your child.
PS I got your pm and sent you a pm back
Kim
I assume your preadoptive children have medicaid. If that is true, then you don't have to wait for the agency yoour working with to do testing, etc. You can set it up privately. If they are in therapy, ask for recommendations. If you dont' trust the therapist or if they don't know, call different folks, developmental pediatricians, etc. I have 3 kids and have never gotten an ounce of help from DHS. I have had to have psychiatric, psychological, educationl, occupational, physical therapy, neurologic, etc. evaluations all done and all set up on my own. I do have an advantage in that I live near DUKE univ. and UNC so we have a lot of specialists in the area. I got referalls from therapists, developmental pediatricians, and the primary care physcian. We have uncovered so many issues that social services never even began to know about in the kids and I don't think they even uderstand about everything that has been diagnosed.
What I have learned is just having service providers is not enough. If I share concerns with them, all of the sudden, I get a whole bunch of new information. It is like they don't think to tell me about it or they don't think about it until I bring up a concern. Then, once I do I get bombarded with additional concerns, evaluation recommendations and the like. Even after 18 months in occupational therapy, I talked to the therapist about a concern 2 weeks ago and now all of the sudden she is seeing it as a problem and doing things about it - but never until then. THen last week, I brought up another concern and lo and behold, she had the same concern for a long time but never shared it with me. She thinks that the 7 year old has had previous brain damage and needs a neurological evaluation. You would think that if she had these thoughts or concerns she would think to tell me but she didn't. My point is don't be shy about mentioning your concerns - and on an ongoing basis.
Also, about the wetting her pants. Make sure the therapist and pediatrician knows about that. it might not be a behavioral issue at all. it could be medical or psychological. my 7 year old has done that a couple of times and for her, it is totally psychological. there are times when she is so unaware of her body that by the time she realizes she has to go to the bathroom, it is way to late.
Good luck,
Tami
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Tami,
Thanks for your post on the behavioral challenges we were having with our now 8-yr old daughter. Adoption is now final! (yeah!) It's so enlightening to hear what you've experienced. I have had concerns that some therapists may not see things that I see or have the same perspective I do - it sometimes causes me to second-guess myself - but I'm the one living it 24/7 and I'm pretty attuned to everything.
We continue to have challenges, but things seem to be settling down a bit. I think it helps that I'm trying to look for positives in daily behavior and to pay attention to that - lessening the need to see negative behavior.
We did take our son to a specialist and he's being treated for encopresis, which we'd suspected for awhile. Aside from this, things have somewhat normalized.
Thanks again for your post. Very supportive and I appreciate it.