Another Blow-Up

That is so hard and so sad. We have had similar problems among the siblings, and we are six years in. I have tremendous guilt about this aspect of our lives. The fact is, some of us as parents are forcing our biological children into fundamentally toxic relationships with their siblings who have been adopted. My worst fear is that dd2 will eventually accept this situation as normal and repeat it in her adult life. Obviously, we've worked hard to help dd3 heal and regain the ability to attach healthily and all that goes along with that--trust, trust in us as parents, in the family, in her relationships with the other children in the family, etc. And to help dd2 maintain and grow the attachment and trust she had before dd3 came along despite the challenges to it. One thing that helped a lot at one time was having them both in attachment therapy together with me, consistently, and with other family members as possible (older sibling and dh took some persuasion and weren't 100% on board, but did participate). Your 11-year-old may also well be grieving the family she lost when the 6-year-old arrived. She may resent--even unconsciously--the sacrifices she has no doubt had to make over the last 3 years. She needs to grieve and to vent safely and have her feelings affirmed. So in addition to participating in the younger child's attachment therapy, she needs time, space and your support to process her grief and loss. And to learn how to rise above it as much as possible to be the person she was born to be. When someone keeps fighting a futile fight, it is because they don't want to accept the situation. They are still trying to control it. I think and hope that the best we can do is to help them and ourselves learn and grow withing the boundaries of what we actually can control--ourselves--rather than the situation or other people. I have yet to do that completely successfully or even well, but every day gives me a new shot at it.

Thanks for you response, can you tell me how you discipline your dd when the fc clearly baits this situation mostly behind our backs to get this reaction? I know her response is wrong, but at the same time I have to often times myself bite my lip or send her FD to play in her room to get myself together!! So I clearly understand, but dd's behavior is unacceptable and she has not been raised to treat others in this way. Do you regret putting your child through this? Sometimes I wonder if this is good for either of them. I know that FD has made progress here and I was hoping that eventually they would actually love each other as real sisters....which I would expect fighting etc. but not exactly like this. It is such a hard place to be some days.

We don't "discipline" her per se. Back in the days when she would say something like she wished dd3 would go back where she came from, I would simply step in to stop it immediately and separate them. I would bring her with me, tell her she can tell me that, she can tell the therapist that, she can journal that, but she cannot say it out loud to her sister. That is just a line she cannot cross. I would stay with her until she calmed down, at which time she would usually feel badly for going beyond bounds for her part in whatever happened. I would also explain to dd3 that sometimes people say things in the heat of the moment that they wouldn't otherwise say and don't feel when they are calm. That it is their way of defending themselves against something or someone that is hurting them very badly. It was a little easier because they are closer in age. Still, at 6, a child can understand a lot. We've used a lot of metacognition with dd3 since she was about that age, and it helps a lot. That's just a fancy of saying getting her to think and talk about her behavior and why, in the context of her RAD/background, it is happening. This works, albeit slowly over long periods of time, with dd3 because (1) she is intelligent enough to get it, (2) she is motivated enough to be a succesful human being to listen and try, and (3) she has just enough conscience and empathy left in her to care (although it took a few years for that to really start to come out in a way that you could see). Still, she is often unable to control herself, which is baffling and frustrating for her. I won't even begin to pretend that it has all been a quiet, calm, patient and loving effort on our part. There has been a lot of different parenting--very different from how I parented our biological children from birth, which in itself is OK--but also some downright bad parenting and just plain badness. RAD children can make RAD parents, y'know? I think/hope that it is the constancy and reliability of our support and nurturing, built up over years, that is overcoming our faults and rebuilding her trust and her ability to attach. Yes, there are days that I have deep regrets. Days when I see the joy she brings to all of us and the renewal of her humanity and ability to contribute not just to our family but to the world are becoming more frequent, though, and I look to those.

Your situation reminds me of the relationship between my 2 oldest sons. My oldest son truly despised his brother for several years when DS2 was going thru some extreme issues with aggressive behavior. No matter how many times I enouraged DS1 to ignore the behaviors of DS2, he couldn't. It made things with DS2 even more difficult to deal with. My DS1 will be 21 soon and DS2 is 18. They have a much better relationship now as young men than they did as teenagers. My oldest came back from Army Basic Training and even gave DS2 a hug. It made me cry when he said to me, "MOM, I learned while I was away that there are way worse people in the world than DS2." Wow, I never thought I would hear him say that! It made all the difficult times worth it. Good luck with your DDs!