My Teen Sabotages Everything I Do!

What do we do when our teen sabotages everything that we do? We are told that we need to spend "special time" with our child, preteen, or teenager, but our special time turns into a nasty argument and is anything BUT special. What do we do when they cross their arms, have their hoods over their heads, refuse to make eye contact, and everything out of their mouth is insulting? What do we do when our teen is not only confrontational, but physically aggressive and punches holes in walls when we ask them a simple question? What do we do when we reach out to our teen only to be rejected again and again? What do we do when we really don't want to subject ourselves to further abuse and begin to distance ourselves from our teen? What do we do when the only peace we have in the home is when our teen is away or isolating themselves in their rooms?

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 tosee 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.

Marking things down and spending individual time with EVERYBODY is also huge in addressing jealousy that may be seen in the home. I'm the first to admit to my kids that life isn't fair. BUT....this gives them one piece of fair in a very unfair and harsh world. Our kids have been hurt deeply over the years and they have become conditioned that life will let them down and people will let them down. There is no consistent future for them. Maybe tomorrow the police car will drive up and take them to a new home (in their mind). We have to find strategies that show our teen the consistency of next week and next month (even if they were adopted as a baby). I have even had adult kids say to me, "How come my name isn't on the calendar anymore?" They want to spend time together. They certainly did not originally or at seasons in their lives, but we've set a consistency that they not only begin to rely on, but begin to look forward to.




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.

Allow your teen to talk to you or be willing to sit in silence (not angry silence, but peaceful silence). Be kind, be polite, be responsive, but let them lead the conversation. Do not allow their mood to impact your mood. Generally after 2-4 times, teens will talk. I will often hear teens planning what they are going to say weeks in advance to their parents. They know they will have opportunity and they can formulate their thoughts in advance. These are the times when my teens have talked about their birth families, their heartbreaks, their internal struggles, and about all the pain they have been through.

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.

We likely have become a person that has lost the ability to find happiness in the simple day to day things. We are consumed by our teen and the negative attitude. We begin to expect the worst because we have been conditioned to respond that way. We begin to protect ourselves. If our teen continually lies to us, we begin to expect lies. If they continually steal, we begin to not trust them. In turn, we guard our heart and inadvertently label them as a liar and a thief. It's ok. It's normal. Of course we protect ourselves, but begin to turn around this thought process in that one hour each week.

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

Crazy Making Behaviors...

How many of us have kids that display some pretty crazy behaviors? I think we can all identify with Bill Cosby in his explanation of brain damage in children and what this phenomenon does to parents. We may feel like we were somewhat educated in the whole process of parenting and possibly educated in the details of adoption AND THEN our child comes home and that education doesn't quite play out the way we had expected.

Something is amiss with our kids and we may even feel like bashing our head against the wall in frustration! The brain damage begins to seep into our thought process and we begin to display crazy making behaviors ourselves. We once were relatively "normal" and now we have two heads that spin around in opposite directions. We no longer are quite sure which is left and which is right. Even up and down becomes confusing to us and we are simply trying to adapt to this new view of the world.

Being a parent is hard enough, but then we enter into the realm of parenting kids from "hard places" and whew......it's not for the faint of heart! We've landed on a different playing field altogether. Nothing is "normal" anymore. We may spend weeks, months, and even years trying to get back to normal. This is where much of the frustration comes from.  As an adoption & attachment specialist, I get asked this question all the time, "How long until our life will be back to normal?" Let me say something here, and I know it is not a popular statement: Your life will NEVER get back to normal. In fact, that normal probably only existed in our mind anyway.

BUT....we thought we had a relatively normal life and we gradually begin to develop a new normal for our life. We do this by embarking on the long process of grieving the "idea" of what we thought our life (and possibly our adoption) would look like. We hopefully learn to embrace the unique or "abnormal" aspects of our lives. Once we truly let go of the desire to go back, we are able to move forward and see the Lord's blessing throughout the process.

Granted, there are some adoption situations where the kids come into the home, adjust very well, and things seem to be fine. I have some thoughts on these cases, but I'll save that for another day. I will say though, it doesn't matter if we've adopted a child at one day old or 15 years old, our kids with a history of loss see the world through a different lens. Their life began with loss.

We must be aware of this loss even if our child appears to not be affected by this fact. Maybe they do not even remember their birth family, but that in itself is an additional loss that hurts the child deeply. Keep in mind that adoption is only formed through loss. Even though there are many blessings that come through this process, this early loss affects the way the child views the world. It also should frame the way we parent the child.

Then there are other things that effect the way our kids view the world~ even outside of loss through adoption. Maybe we gave birth to our child, but they have risk factors such as prenatal stressors (anxious pregnancy, prenatal exposure), early hospitalization (preemies, chronic ear infections, allergic reactions), or a traumatic birth that has shaped their brain development. They in turn have an altered sense of interaction with the world. This is why some parents will come to me about one of their children (that are adopted) and begin to see that their biological child has some of the same characteristics displaying in different ways.

So, we have an already stressful scenario (parenting children in general) and then we basically toss battery acid on that "normal" scenario and expect our child to play nice. In our mind, we're not really asking that much. We simply want the child to care about themselves and care about other people. Is that so much to ask? But instead, we may end up with a child that puts themselves first and will provide for themselves even to the detriment of other people. Basically, I want this toy NOW and I will step on or harm whoever I need to in the pursuit of reaching that goal. 

There may be many well meaning individuals that try to relate. They laughed at Bill Cosby's description of crazy making behaviors in children. They experienced frustrating things themselves with their own kids. The degree though of challenges is entirely different. Your child may throw a fit when they don't get what they want, but they may have a baseline of actually caring about people. Our kids from hard places, may not have that baseline at all. When we take a child that has never learned to give and receive affection, you basically end up with narcism and sociopathic behavior. This is different than a child that simply wants their way. Of course we become frustrated and struggle with responding to our children in appropriate ways.

The good thing is that people can change AND we can learn to respond to our children in healthy ways. It's not an easy journey. I have a TON of training in this field and I will say that nothing really prepares you for living this life. One of the toughest things to prepare parents for is how it will feel to parent a child that joins their family through adoption, a child with a traumatic past, or a child with a range of special needs. In some circumstances, parenting a child through adoption is very much like parenting a child on the autism spectrum or a child with various disabilities. The difference is that our mindset does not change as easily when the child is simply adopted. We do not look at the scenario as though there is a disability present. With a child diagnosed with a known disability, it is at least somewhat expected that the child will interact differently then their peers. They are not expected to be age appropriate socially like a child through adoption is expected. They are not expected necessarily to give and receive affection like we expect with a child through adoption. And they are not expected to be thankful like we often expect with children through adoption. Changing our mindset is essential in this process, but it is certainly not an easy thing to do.

I still find myself wanting to say to my child, "You're ten years old. What are you doing? Pleeeezee......act like a 10 year old, not a 3 year old. You're driving mommy crazy!" I KNOW better than this, but it still pops into my mind. I understand logically that our kids can display as very intelligent (and they are very intelligent), but their social and emotional maturity is often severely limited. My mind still wants their development to be at an age appropriate level. The child may have the street smarts of a 22 year old, the body of a 15 year old, the academics of a 7 year old, and the social skills of a 3-4 year old. They may chronologically be 10 years old (or possibly we do not even know how old they are). No wonder our child is so baffling to us and we are often at a loss in how to respond. 

There is hope though! We have to start by taking care of ourselves. As Christians, I think this can be especially challenging. We tend to give and give and then give some more. Although giving is a good thing, we need time to re-charge our batteries or we'll no longer be able to give anymore at all. We will begin to see things more clearly when we slow down and focus inward instead of outward.

When Danger Enters the Home

I think there are very few people that raise their hands and say, "I would like to adopt a child that brings danger into our home." Nonetheless, many of us parents end up in that exact scenario. It continues to baffle us how we ended up here and we may spend a significant amount of time wondering how in the world are we going to get out??

When we first thought of adopting, we may have even listed on the forms that there were certain scenarios or characteristics that we didn't feel qualified to tackle. BUT....we still end up in the "hazardous area zone" where only authorized personnel are supposed to go. We are not authorized personnel. We do not have the training for these tough kids and we end up in survival mode simply trying to keep everyone safe in the home. The problem is, our survival kit isn't quite cutting it. It's missing key ingredients to help us not only survive, but thrive.


One of the problems is that for many of our kids, there are significant gaps in what we know about their history. It may not have been disclosed that our child was sexually abused, physically abused, neglected, or that the parent took drugs during the pregnancy. Possibly the information says that none of these things happened to the child. Those involved in the process may simply not have the details in order to better prepare us.

When we consider or even entertain the idea of an "ideal" adoption scenario, we may hold onto the hope that our child will do exceedingly well. After all, they are one of the lucky ones. Possibly we need to open our eyes a little wider and see beyond the surface. There could be elements that we are not seeing that may explode at a later date. I want to say something about this thought process and make the bold statement that there is no such thing as an "ideal" or fortunate adoption situation. ALL adoption placements are formed through loss and more likely then not, your child also suffered from a range of circumstances that contribute to difficulty regulating emotions.


Over the years, we have gone through a range of challenges. Originally, I was very hesitant to share some of these trials and struggles. We did not always have the support from friends and family in the first place. Many people had warned us about adopting so many children and we were certainly warned about venturing into the world of older child adoption. I will say though that some of our children that have done very well were adopted at an older age and some that struggled more were adopted as babies. Many risk factors happen before the child is even born. BUT....I will agree that it is more likely that your child will also come with significant baggage when they join the family at an older age.

As we have moved along in the process of growing our family through adoption, the Lord has gradually opened my eyes to the "why" of some of the struggles we have gone through. Some of those struggles have been heart wrenching and almost destroyed our family. I'm beginning to see the importance in sharing some of these details in order to help others that are in the trenches of this difficult journey.

Here's a link to a couple audio clips from a conference I was at. They share one particular difficult adoption in our family. Please listen with an open heart if you have the time. It's not necessarily for the faint of heart! They are divided into two 20 minute clips. For those that do not have time to listen (which is completely understandable), please share with others that may have brought in some dangerous situations into their homes and could be on the verge of dissolving their adoption. Maybe it will give hope to some that are struggling!

https://soundcloud.com/linda-sheppard-3/disruptiondiscussion

https://soundcloud.com/linda-sheppard-3/disruptions2

When Peace Doesn't Come

I feel compelled to touch on some of the tough things in parenting or maybe more specifically the difficult struggles in adoption. Maybe more aptly, this post should be labeled "The Ugly Side of Adoption". I know it is not warm and fluffy, but I think there is a time and a place to address the "reality" of adoption and not just what may be portrayed in amazing pictures of "forever families" on Facebook. 

The Ideal Family Home

Our Crumbling Family Home.....

Even our family, on the surface, looks pretty good. But I will tell you that it's not all (or even mostly) fun and wonderful. We certainly have had some significant challenges in our life that we do not necessarily broadcast for the world to see. Knowing the challenges that we face as well as the struggles that so many families experience, it brings forward the question: What happens when peace doesn't come? I understand that we can have internal peace even when there is external conflict, but what do we do when that external chaos continues day in and day out until families are on the brink of despair? How is it that we develop that internal peace when our world falls apart around us?

The easy answer as a Christian may be to simply pray and believe with confidence that God answers prayers. Hmm...I do believe that. I really do. The problem is, God answers in "His" timing and nine times out of ten, God's timing has been drastically different then my own. And...there is certainly no guarantee that God will answer in the way that we "think" he should answer. In fact, God may even answer in the complete opposite way then what we "expect".

I've certainly been there and prayed for healing when healing didn't come. Many Christians would inadvertently contribute to this underlying feeling of being a failure at praying as well. I went through Beth Moore's "Breaking Free".  It was a wonderful study, but I still was not instantly "healed" and my children as well were not instantly healed. I sincerely and truly turned these challenges over to the Lord, but the trauma kept coming back. I was even told by loving members of the family that if I "truly" turned this trauma over to the Lord, He would take it from me, and I would be healed.

This again though depends on our perspective of what "healing" is. We are not always physically healed. Sometimes we are. I believe that to be true. On the other hand, people do actually die and it is actually in God's plan for some of us to join Him in heaven sooner rather than later. It would also make sense that we are not always emotionally healed as well. True and complete healing will come when we are resting with the Lord. Until that time, we live in a fallen world with sin and consequences of that sin all around us. I believe God sometimes leaves us in a place of suffering. Job suffered for a very long time. God allowed Satan to test Job and in the end, Job's faith prevailed, and His love of the Lord remained strong. How do we grasp onto the Faith of Job? Does it just come to us naturally or is it something that we have to work at and pray for daily?

Years ago we lost our twins in Ethiopia. I don't believe it was due to a lack of prayer, lack of faith, and certainly not due to a lack of love. God simply decided to take them home instead of orchestrating their complete adoption into our family. We have other children where we've prayed for complete healing, but God brought our children through numerous interventions, surgeries, counseling, and even chemotherapy before the "healing" came. With some, we are still waiting on that "healing" to come.

What do we do in those moments (or maybe very long seasons in life) when we are waiting on the Lord as our life is crumbling all around us? How many of us Christian adoptive parents are in survival mode simply trying to do the best we can to protect everyone in the home? We have many friends going through trials and struggles that they never expected to face. We ourselves have had significant bumps (huge craters) on this journey into the realm of adoption. I receive multiple emails and phone calls each week from families falling apart, children/teens leaving home, treatment centers, law enforcement involvement, financial hardship, bankruptcy, divorce, buckets full of secondary trauma, and basically families desperate to find new or alternate placements for children who joined their family through the miracle of adoption.

How did we end up here? We felt a distinct call to help others. We felt called by the Lord to adopt. We believed that God called us to love a child (or two or three or 12) and we moved forward in faith. Maybe naively, we thought that loving them and teaching them about Jesus would be all the medicine that was needed, a perfect solution to this horrific situation: this dilemma we call the Orphan Crisis.

Ok...In the future, I want to write more about the Ugly Side of the Orphan Crisis, but for now, I think I'll stick to writing about what do we do after we bring our kids home (whether it's from the hospital as a newborn, a four year old from an Eastern European country, a ten year old from a Haitian orphanage, or a fifteen year old from the US foster care system). Surprisingly, you will find similarities in ALL of these placements. Many people are very unaware that Yes, a child adopted at birth, is still impacted by the Seven Core Issues in Adoption and more than likely does in fact have a trauma history. Who knew?

So, what do we do when we hit not only little speed bumps along the way, but we encounter the Grand Canyon and there is literally no way across this great divide without suffering serious injury? Do we close our eyes and jump with abandon? Do we try to catapult our way across? Do we do like Nik Wallenda and pray to Jesus as we walk on a tight rope across the great divide? If you haven't seen this guy, it is amazing to see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1lXWhiOPW0

The difference being, after the stunt guy gets to the other side of the canyon, he actually accomplishes the task and is then standing on solid ground once again. With us adoptive parents, we may not be back on solid ground for years, and years, and years, and years......


What do we do to sustain during these difficult times? And how do we find hope in the midst of the storm?  I'm going to try over the next few weeks to post (hopefully) some strategies that have been helpful in understanding the Seven Core Issues in Adoption and some of the ways we have at least attempted to obtain inner peace even when outer peace is still in process.......

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering  produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love  has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. ~ Romans 5:3-5 

Help! My Life is Out of Control!

What do we do when our perfect little family turns upside down? We climb on this amazing roller coaster of adoption and it starts out as a grand adventure. The Lord calls us and we answer willingly. We think it has been a difficult journey as we fill out mountains of paperwork, pay thousand upon thousands of dollars, and wait anxiously for our child to come home. We think it will be rough the first year or so. We hope we are prepared. We have faith that everything will be ok, but this roller coaster begins to go faster and faster and it NEVER stops moving. We start to feel woozy, we begin to get sick of the ride, we may even try to hop off, only to suffer serious injury in the process. 

We now are broken and scarred from the whole gut wrenching experience. Our other kids that were once relatively unscathed are now severely traumatized by this "miracle" of adoption. Friends and family look at us and say how amazing it is that we've adopted. Strangers come up to us and express how excited they are because they just began the process of adoption. We smile and nod when we want to cry and say, "Don't do it! Run far away from that fantasy in your mind".  

Our family may look pretty good on the surface, but underneath the surface, there is often severe pain and suffering. Behind closed doors, many adoptive parents seriously don't know how much longer they can survive. This heart wrenching experience has broken our hearts and we're not sure that we can put the pieces back together again. I'm going to attempt to be real in this post and hope that I don't scare too many people off with some horrific details of the ugly side of adoption. I'll actually share some of the less horrific details but, for those that are not in the trenches of a tough adoption, they may seem like extreme behaviors. 

For starters, what do we do when our child hates us, but loves everyone else? What do we do when our child pees in our shoes and smears poop on the walls or worse yet, eats poop themselves? What do we do when we have a wonderful day with our teenager, but the next morning we go down to the freezer and there's poop on the floor and the ice cream is all gone? What do we do when we walk upstairs and the sweet teenager is organizing the cupboards as he smiles at us as though nothing had happened? What do we do when we've placed security cameras in our home because our child is not safe to self or others and as we watch our pre-teen, we see them looking straight into the camera as they pull our underwear out of the laundry or worse yet, we see them sneaking into a younger child's room at night? 

How do we explain to people at church that, no, our children cannot go to Sunday school or Youth Group or Awana club? Our children are sitting in the pew with us because our "sweet" child on the surface may seriously harm your child. How do we explain that, no, our child cannot come over to put up a tent in the backyard, or play hide and seek in the dark, or any other "normal" activity that may be fine for your child, but not for a child with a trauma history? What do we do when our child is cutting, suicidal, running away, lying about us to others, threatening siblings, assaulting adults, jumping out of moving vehicles, stabbing the dog, and basically wreaking havoc in the home every single day of our lives? 

I have said these things to you, 

that in me you may have peace. 

In the world you will have tribulation. 

But take heart; I have overcome the world. ~ John 16:33

How do we trudge along when we've landed in the pit of despair and our life is simply "out of control"? Yes, I realize that God tells us we will have trials and suffering. Life will not be easy, so I'm not sure why we are surprised. The problem is: knowing it will be hard and dealing with HARD 24/7 are two very different things.

These are just a "few" of the joyful moments we have experienced in the journey of adoption. I think I could write a 200 page book just on all the junk we've experienced, but I'm going to try to give some helpful ideas on how to persevere during times of trial and hopefully help our child heal. I certainly do not have all the answers. We've made a lot of mistakes, but we've hopefully learned a few things along the way. 

I've had many parents in my support groups say, "But I can't be like such and such a specialist" and my answer to that is, "You don't have to be like them. Just take some skills and an overall concept from them and adapt them to your personality and your circumstances". And also realize that it is entirely different to teach this stuff then to live this life. I can have kids in my office spit on me or try to hit me, but it really doesn't impact me in the same way. I have no problem maintaining regulation with someone else's child. With my own, that's a different story. This (I have been told) is the same with grandparents. Just because we have a grandchild that has these conditions, doesn't mean we have lived this day in and day out. Grandparents, generally speaking, have the luxury of stepping away. As a parent, that child is 100% our responsibility. This make a HUGE difference. But also remember, it is a process. Specialists did not become this way overnight and those that have been walking this road a long time also have not instantly become "experienced" in trauma parenting. We've developed skills over years and years and years and we are still learning.....

Our first seven children experienced different parents then what we are today. In fact, if our second seven ever complain that Mom or Dad are mean, any of the kids from the first seven will say, "Umm...you have no idea".  We were forced to completely transform our parenting. Our son was on the verge of disruption and our entire family unit was falling apart. I certainly was not nearly as regulated or in control of myself with the first seven. I would lose my mind on a regular basis. I would start out the day with a positive attitude, but soon enough I would yell and scream and try to get our kids to simply do what I asked. I would resort to punitive parenting strategies out of desperation (if you don't do this, you can't have that). Many of our children were intense (to say the least) and they only responded with intensity. The problem is, it still didn't correct the behavior. It just made us more and more discouraged.

With the first seven, we thought we could use traditional parenting strategies. We believed in love and logic parenting for example, but our kids didn't understand logic. My background did not understand or even agree with "negotiating" with a child. My father was ex special forces military. You did what he said. No questions asked. We did not even think about defying my dad. I wasn't raised in an abusive home. In fact, I can't even remember being spanked, but we did have respect and we simply did what we were told (for the most part). Gee... Imagine that! 

For our kids that joined our family through adoption, it didn't work that way. This was beyond Strong Willed Child behavior. I have that book. It was helpful with my strong willed biological child that didn't have a trauma history. It did not do too much for my kids with prenatal drug exposure, fetal alcohol, developmental delays, RAD, PTSD, ODD, OCD, autism, and on and on and on.  Cause/effect reasoning was simply not there for them, so naturally logical consequences made literally no impact on them. For our first seven kids, we were striving to gain control with traditional parenting models and were basically spinning our wheels. Our children appeared broken and we ourselves were broken. To the outside world though, they looked pretty good.



We were not prepared to handle the degree of trauma we brought into our home. We were not equipped to handle the effect of years of abuse and neglect our children had experienced. We were not educated in the long term effects of trauma that is seen even within infant adoption. We knew nothing of the Seven Core Issues in Adoption (Silverstein & Kaplan) and how these issues would impact not only our child, but our entire family unit.

Core Issue of Adoption: Control 

This is one issue that will bring parents to their knees. Think about how "out of control" you feel due to the behaviors of your child and multiply that by 100 and we may begin to understand how our child feels every second of every day. Our child was not in control of an integral part of their life. They had absolutely no control over the fact that they were adopted. They typically have tremendous fear associated with any kind of lack of control. We may simply say, "Ok...we have to go. Get your shoes on" and they  feel out of control, toss themselves on the ground, and scream for two or three hours. We think they are being defiant, difficult, or maybe spoiled rotten, but that is actually not the case. Moving is a BIG deal for them and I don't mean moving into a new home (although that is traumatic as well). I simply mean moving from Point A to Point B. Daily transitions are nearly impossible.

So, how do we help our child feel in control without losing parental authority in the home? How can parents and child be in control at the same time? I think I spent the first 10 years baffled by this concept. I did not understand that I was triggering a fear response in our children. I saw that we had mini control freaks floating around the home and it was frustrating as anything. I was focused more on maintaining control in the home or maybe in getting back the control I had lost in the whole process than on what was going on under the surface. I spent far too much time going head to head with the child and it was simply not working. 

Consciously or unconsciously other 

seemingly simple requests can feel controlling 

to children who are experiencing life 

as one in which they are powerless, helpless, and hopeless. 

We must begin to put our plans of what parenting looks like aside and focus on what is going on internally with our child. Remember, our children feel powerless, helpless, and hopeless. What are we doing to contribute to that feeling? We may not even realize that we planned to parent our child in a certain way, but believe me, we more than likely have strategies/tendencies ingrained in us that we need to re-evaluate. 

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, 

but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. ~Proverbs 19:21

So, now we've set our plans aside and are ready to begin anew with our child. We're ready to learn new concepts and help our child feel in control. How exactly do we do that? Hmm....through a lot of learning and a lot of work. It really takes us becoming mini detectives essentially. We begin to track and evaluate all that we do. We look at this information with a new lens and evaluate what core issue or issues are at play in each situation. We begin to prepare for, not only the response of the child, but our own response.

Will we allow ourselves to be pulled in by our child or will we maintain self-control? It's easy to say that we'll stay regulated. It's an entirely different thing to actually do it. Our children are amazing at pushing buttons. We need to figure out what these buttons are that they're pushing and why it impacts us so much. Our children likely see into us much more clearly then we see into ourselves. Why does it bother us so much that the child looks like pigpen? Why does it bother us so much what people think as we carry the child across the football field kicking at screaming? Why does it bother us so much that our child pees on the wall or the neighbor's tree or on us even? Why does it bother us so much that the child doesn't love us? Why does it bother us so much that the child appears to love other people? This list can go on and on and on....but unless we figure out why it is effecting us, it will continue to be a button that they will push over and over again. What is the fear inside of us? That we won't be loved? That people will think poorly of us? That our child will harm someone? That our child will harm themselves? 

For God gave us a spirit not of fear 

but of power and love and self-control. ~2 Timothy 1:7

Identifying the fear helps us to put things into perspective. So, now we've set our own plans aside, we've evaluated our fears, and we're ready to move forward. Then what? Where do we go from here? 

I'm going to address this in regard to teens because there's so little information out there on parenting through the teen years within adoption. How many of you have out of control teenagers?  When they were younger and they did not do what you asked, you were able to control the consequences at least to some degree. As the child gets older and older, the ability to control decreases and the consequences get more and more significant. The fear in us as parents begins to increase exponentially. It's one thing to have a 7 year old masturbating in public (ok...that's not so great, but our definition of "bad" has changed). It's an entirely different thing to have a 12 year old drilling holes in the walls to watch their siblings undress. 

Then, we move into the whole realm of pornography and what some would view as sexually deviant behavior and this is not just with boys. There are girls prostituting themselves out at school, sending pictures of themselves to others, and soliciting the school counselor for sex. Basically, the teen is doing everything they can to feel in control, but to us it looks like they are completely out of control.

You may not control all the events that happen to you, 

but you can decide not to be reduced by them. ~ Maya Angelou

What do we do in these circumstances? One thing is to look at the scenario and see what they are gaining from it. For a child that has been sexually abused for example, it is often baffling that the teenager may lean toward being promiscuous. The parents are upset by the behavior sometimes without understanding the reason behind it. If that element of their life was taken out of their control, they then may try to gain control of it in the only way they know how. For example, this happened to me, it's going to happen again, this time I will control it and benefit from it. 

Ok, so if we determine that they feel out of  control and they are trying to control those around them and then our response is, "Hey, you're grounded for two weeks for sneaking out"...how well do you think that will work for us? We've responded by controlling more when the teen already feels out of control. I've been there. I've done this. I've tightened the reins and I've seen it backfire. 

What is the answer then? We can't just let our teenagers roam the neighborhood because they struggle with control. We can't just give them unlimited freedom when they don't have a fully developed brain. One thing we can do is begin to figure out how we incorporate elements in their life where they feel in control. What kinds of things do they feel in control of? What kinds of things are they proud of? What responsibilities do they embrace? And how do we connect with our child during this process? 

We must begin to find unique ways to connect with our teen while empowering them during the process. We must remember that ultimately we are not in control of everything that our child does. Turn our fear over to the Lord, find unique ways to share control, develop a plan together with your teen, pick your battles, gather uplifting support around you, and pray without ceasing. You are not alone! 

Be confident that you can make a difference. 

Don't get overwhelmed....

Try to take each day and each task as they come, 

breaking them down into manageable pieces for action 

while struggling to see the whole. 

And don't think you have to "win" immediately- 

or even at all- to make a difference. 

                                                                                                                         ~ Marian Wright Edelman