Please help, I'm out of ideas.

We are in the process to adopt a girl that is 11. She has been in over 10 homes since she was 3 and she transitioned with us from a different city for 2 months. She has lived in our home for for 2 months now, she is an only child for my wife and I. In the beginning she gave dirty looks and was disrespectful being very defiant but she was mostly good. The last four days were hell for us, she will scream, yell, stomp, and throw hour long tantrums off and on all day. On the 3rd day she woke up and something clicked and she was amazing until 6 pm then back to yelling and screaming at us. Over the 2 months i have tried grounding her, having her write a letter to us, having her do choirs, having LONG talks about her behavior. She doesn't respond to anything, yea when i take her radio away she gets upset but after a couple hours, its dead to her. We are at our wits end and unsure what to do. She says things like I hate you, I wanna leave. Then 10 seconds later i ask her about it and she says she doesn't want to leave. I'm not sure what i should do, I'm pretty sure she is testing us but wow its rough. That 3rd day really shows how she can be so awesome but when she turns back into the screaming self its starting to drive us nuts. Any ideas will be helpful. Thank you

Professionally and as a Mom , she sounds like she has ' Reactive Attachment Disorder '.Even ' Seasoned ' or ' Experienced ' Parents find this hard to deal with!!I would look into getting her treatment for this , or I would ask a General Family Counselor for what they would recommend.It may involve also saying. That you and your Wife and Family are unable to Parent her.Why do you think she is ' Testing ' you as well also??What signs of do you see from this??

That SOUNDS rough. I feel for you! However, I believe that this kind of behavior is normal for a child who has been transitioned from home to home to home as often as she has. She wants to see if you're really going to love her, no matter what. I would agree with Juli that she's probably got some attachment issues going on, rooted in her background. Parenting a child from trauma is a totally different ballgame from parenting a child who hasn't experienced abuse/neglect/upheaval. (Here's an article about how trauma affects brain development in children . . .). I would recommend looking into the work of Karyn Purvis (http://empoweredtoconnect.org/) and Heather Forbes (http://www.beyondconsequences.com/articles) for some research-based parenting approaches. Additionally, Elizabeth Curry is a mom and writer at Adoption.com who has written several good pieces about parenting children who have experienced trauma. You might want to read some of her work as well. What Are Attachment Disorders? - https://adoption.com/attachment-disorders-what-are... Dear Struggling Mother: - Part 1 https://adoption.com/dear-struggling-mother-part-1... Dear Struggling Mother: - Part 2 https://adoption.com/dear-struggling-mother-part-2... 4 Ways Adoptive Parenting Is Different From Traditional Parenting - https://adoption.com/4-ways-adoptive-parenting-is-... All the best to you!

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