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We adopted a sibling group of 2 last August. Our daughter is 5 1/2 and our son 2 1/2. They are awesome but a handful. I just read a book the other day "adopting the hurting child" in the book it explained something that I wasn't aware of. My daughter was very loving and had a great personality but she would "out of no where" just start to cause as many problems as she possibly could. You'd ask her to look at you and she's look away. It was just crazy. On a bad day I would pick her up from preschool and you wouldn't believe the list of things she did. But in this book I learned that I was "setting her up to fail by uses 2 phrases that I guess are a big "no no". Because of their background you aren't to say to foster/adopted children "You did great these past 2 days" or any general praise. It will subconsciously make them nervous and they will "crash and burn". They compared it to learning to ride a bike. Dad's holding on and your doing great...he lets go and your still doing great. He yells "your doing it...you're really doing it all by yourself.... GREAT JOB" and then you suddenly fall down. You realize your doing it and it scares you...same with the kids. All praise has to be task specific. The other "trigger" for this unwanted behavior was saying, "If you act nicely today we can go _______ for a treat". This will also cause them to "spiral downward". They are afraid they won't live up to your exceptions and they would rather just do as much wrong behavior as they can rather then to try and risk not being able to do it and having you take something they REALLY WANT away from them. There is one more thing that I learned that helped me...that these children didn't get the cycle of "have a need...cry.... Need met" as a baby. Instead they learned how to provoke their parents/caregivers to make them angry. They knew they were going to get yelled at or hit so they learned how to provoke it at times to feel control. So these children will test you and push your buttons because that is the cycle they know. They want to make you mad, proving that they still need their old ways or "survival tools". Knowing this really helped me. I guess because I realized it wasn't personal. She wasn't doing anything to "me". I also realized that this isn't part of her personality. I'm trying let her see me mad at all costs. Taking the power away from her. As soon as I stopped using those 2 phrases and stopped letting her see me angry my life seems so lighter.Are there other phrases that people know of that will cause harm? Changing these few things has helped so much I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew about these and pick everyones brain to see if anyone knows of anything else that might be helpful. Thank-you for your time!
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I just read this week in Parenting magazine that maybe the "great jobs" shouldn't be used for any children. I thought I was being encouraging, but it gives me a lot more to think of.
Boy, BethanyB, you do know what works. :D
I was the School nurse in an elementary school and you would not believe how many times I would hear the teachers say," I like the way Susie is standing quietly in line." "I like the way Joey is waiting patiently for his turn on the computer." Kids generally love to please adults and they definitely like the concrete comments. What was too funny was how every kid in the class would try to copy Susie or Joey so the teacher would notice how well they too were doing the right thing or the behavior that made the teacher happy. :)
Yup Nursie! Those little comments work every time! :D
In first grade, you really don't need to raise your voice that much. Just say a kind statement to someone who is doing what you want and they usually all fall into line!
(Unless you have a really defiant child and that's a WHOLE other story!)
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great post...we also say what it is that they are doing good with very concrete things.
things we should never say to our hurt kids:
hmmmmmm there are so many of them":
how about :
"if you dont come right now, im leaving without you!"
they will believe you and the trust thing that you have been working on, goes right out the window...
never say "that was a BAD thingto do" our kids feel like they are BAD anyway, and that will only escalate their behaviors. the best thing to say is something like "you made the wrong choice"
heres some pointers on how to communicate with our kids too:
listen with full attention.
acknowledge their feelings.
help them label feelings
keep a positive attitude
its okay to remain silent and not fix everything
do validate the child's feelings.
here are some donts with 'hurt children'
dont give advice
dont blame
dont give solutions
dont ask why
dont ask them if they did that?...if you know they did it, dont set them up to lie..
hmmmm...
communication must be clear, direct and to the point but respectful, calm and lacking in any hostility. though this will not solve our childrens behavioral problems, it can help us create a calm home so the children can feel protected from stress and less likely to be in crisis mode.
for me, i think the biggest thing is to validate their feelings instead of making them feel 'better' by words...that is just an excuse for them to go off.
never say 'wow, you are so smart, i bet your the smartest in the class'..they already know they are not the smartest in the class, and they will view you as lying to them..something not to build trust on.