For Potential Adopters…It’s Positive!
If I was visiting this website as a potential adopter, I might start to feel a bit apprehensive, perhaps even reconsider my options. After all, here is this blogger whose kids both came from as good a start as was seemingly possible and three years on she is posting about stress, depression, emotionally disturbed children and aggressive temper tantrums.
You know, sometimes it does feel pretty bad, as bad as it gets in fact but the good times, the little glimpses of love and shared moments make it all worthwhile and there are more of them than I probably describe.
Yes, I have suffered with depression most likely stemming from the adoptions, stress and difficult times but I think that is more to do with moments of pure self-doubt; wondering whether I am a good enough mummy for these children, beating myself up when I get it wrong and turning to comfort food when I feel low which actually makes me feel worse about myself.
That for me is the point I really want to get across more than anything, I love my kids with all my heart. If I went back with the knowledge of what was to come would I do it all again? Yes I would! This is not a negative adoption story by any means. With strength and determination we ride through the rough times, it’s bloody difficult sometimes and I literally feel like running like Forrest Gump, running, running, running but I stick it out. Do I sound cheesy enough yet?
I started the blog to show that you do have to have realistic expectations of adoption; it is never going to be an easy ride but if I was going to give any advice to potential adopters it would be this:
- Get your support network in place and don’t be surprised if in a few years your circle of supporters has changed beyond recognition!
- Be strong and show a united front with your partner. If there are any cracks in your marriage or partnership, believe me that child will find them and poke at them incessantly, recognise that playing one parent off against the other is a skill kids are good at! If your cracks are big ones, adoption may not be the best route, do not think that having a child will repair a marriage, far from it.
- Do not be scared to admit when things are difficult, contact your post adoption support, ask for help from friends and relatives, and talk to other adopters. Sometimes if you are feeling crappy somebody else has been there, read the book and got the t-shirt.
- Don’t expect people who haven’t adopted to understand what you are going through, I do mean that in the nicest possible way but our family-making experiences are very, very different and sometimes that can make you feel a bit of an outsider. In a standard mother and toddler group the mums will be laughing and joking (or moaning) about breast-feeding, labour-pains, morning sickness and strange cravings. That is not our experience and it’s hard to fit into a conversation when you have nothing to add and stating ‘I never had any cravings because my daughter is adopted’ can stop a conversation in its tracks and then following an uncomfortable silence somebody will inevitably say something like ‘oh I think you are wonderful for adopting a child, good on you, it’s such a marvellous thing to do…’. Humph. I don’t know why but that always makes me cringe and I know it’s always said with good intentions but it’s the line I dread the most and probably hear the most!
At an adopted mums toddler group you can laugh and joke (and moan) about panels, social workers, foster carers, strange behaviours, eating disorders, post-box, intros, home studies… Before you even go to an adopters group you know that you all have one thing in common and it is oh so much easier to start a conversation and form friendships when you have similar experiences.
So that’s it, my positive post. Don’t be put off by all the negative adoption stories and discussion board posts you read, generally people tend to post on forums when they need help, I do it myself but I do try within my circle of friends to celebrate the good times too and believe me there are plenty of those.
I hope other adopters will leave some comments of their positive experiences and advice too.
Am I a Neurotic Mummy?
I have a headache. Not a headache in the normal sense of the word but a headache from going round in circles thinking am I neurotic mummy? Am I one of those moms who constantly thinks that if their child isn’t perfect there must be something wrong with her? If I hadn’t been given so much information would I just think my daughter was a bit naughty and wilful? What would happen if I parented in a normal style, relaxed and stuck with it? Is my daughter’s behaviour worse than other children’s behaviour? How much of this behaviour is down to genetics?
Today the headache is worse than normal, I confided in a neighbour about our problems and she asked me if I was over-thinking things, that she had similar problems when her kids were younger and that she suffered Post-Natal Depression, it was like a body blow. I am confused and my brain is tired with self-doubt.
All I can think that makes me feel any easier about all these self-doubts is that there is a big difference between our children. My children have been through the most traumatic thing that could happen to any child, twice. The loss of a mother at birth followed by the loss of primary caregivers, not forgetting that girl was so developmentally delayed that they even considered Cerebral Palsy.
I know if I lost a close member of my family it would take me a long time to grieve, I would probably get mad or sad. How can I expect my children to just accept their losses without some ugly behaviours rearing their head?
So if being a neurotic mum means that my kids are treated with, well…kid gloves, does it matter? Call me what you want, I’m just a mum who cares.
Learning To Play
I just had this realisation! Girl hates dolls with a passion but when she was in FC she always pushed a doll around in a little pushchair, I never really got why she wouldn’t play with them here and I did buy her new ones when she was really young but now I am thinking (and I could be totally wrong here) that they spark something in her subconscious mind. It has got to a point that recently she asked for all of the dolls to be removed from her room, she did not want to look at them.
I just had a think through what she bought back with her from her FC. Two dolls, a pushchair, a doll’s cot, a washing machine and cooker that belonged to the FC’s kids when they were little, a vacuum cleaner (beginning to sound like the FC’s life in miniature), 2 shape sorters, an alphabet bus and a wiggly ball thing. I don’t think they really had much more than that for her to play with. I do remember her playing with a tea set but she didn’t bring that. Interesting that most of the toys revolved around cleaning and childcare (FC was OCD herself).
In a way Girl has always struggled to play with toys, I guess probably from the lack of stimulation in those first couple of years and preferred to dress up and pretend to be somebody else but baby toys we bought her over the years are suddenly interesting and it doesn’t seem a competitive thing because she will watch Boy play and when he is finished she will pick up the toy and play with it herself for ages, sometimes coming back to it the next day. Of course I could be doing 2+2=5 and over-thinking it but I am glad at least that Boy seems to be teaching her to play.
Art As Therapy?
Having a painting session after school last night was a complete success and Girl went to bed a very happy but calm bunny.
When I picked her up from school I made the suggestion of painting or sticking and gluing – giving her two positive choices of how we could spend the evening.
After she made her choice we went via the town to pick up some new paintbrushes, paper and disposable tablecloths. Why am I telling you about the shopping? Well it was all part of the plan, to help prepare her mind for what would be happening and get her involved, sort of like it was an idea we came up with and prepared for together.
We spent over an hour-and-a-half painting together, the quality time and attention was just the thing to relax her mind after a difficult start to the day. So we are now twelve days without a meltdown, disaster averted.
The Low Rumblings of A Storm Approaching
Things are starting to deteriorate, the good behaviour is beginning to slide and I can hear the low rumblings of a storm approaching. The tics and stammering have returned, the argumentative behaviour, our personal space allowance is getting smaller (well you could say it’s actually non-existent right now), the whinging and whining, the reluctance to get dressed in the morning and I don’t think it’s any coincidence Girl has been back at school for a full week…
We have a fairly new and simple strategy in place for getting dressed for school. Girl has to get start getting dressed thirty minutes before everybody else then she can take as much time as she likes getting dressed and dealing with distractions, this gives her a clear hour to get dressed at her own pace and it is a stress free approach for all of us. She knows that the quicker she gets dressed the more TV she gets to watch (also part of the new strategy). So far this has been working pretty well and she has got dressed a lot quicker because she really loves TV but the length of time to get dressed despite the enticement is creeping up again. Is it time for a re-think already?
So what do we do about the demanding and argumentative behaviour? Well I have a plan for today at least. Dinner is cooking in the slow cooker so that means I have some extra time for activities, a walk always helps and maybe some scrapbooking or art.
I am anticipating that with some quality attention we could quite possibly get through another day without a storm and maybe I can even try and get to the bottom of what is bothering her. (I live in hope).
A Victory Dance
The good behaviour has continued this week with a couple of really stand-out brilliant moments, we have had no meltdowns for over a week which is remarkable in itself and makes me so proud of Girl for controlling her behaviour in situations that normally would cause anxiety, we have had a couple of near-misses with the glazed-over look we know so well but it’s like you can visibly see her deciding not to go any further. I’m not talking perfect behaviour here because that would probably worry me as much as the extreme behaviour, no kid’s perfect, I certainly wasn’t!
First brilliant moment was that at the weekend Girl was invited to a party. Parties, I have discovered from experience are Girl’s worst nightmare, she likes the thought of them but can really shy away from the actual reality of them and is reluctant to join in with the activities and I do know this is uncommon but it can have a massive knock-on effect at home later on. Well this weekend we arrived at the party and all the children, most of them class friends of Girl so not strangers, were told to go to the toilet before the treasure trail started, most kids went by themselves but Girl froze and gave me the rabbit in the headlights look until I offered to take her. She would not leave my side to talk to her friends but I have come to expect this so it’s not something I worry about.
Once all the kids were toileted they were instructed to follow the play-leaders and the parents were asked to stay behind for a moment. Girl looked utterly panicked but after a little reassurance that I would follow quickly (come hell or high-water I was thinking to myself) she joined her friends, constantly looking over at me for more reassurance.
We soon caught up with each other and Girl happily joined in all the activities once she could see that I was very close and I am very proud of her for that, previously she may have detached from the activities and clung to my hand. I did notice that although she was one of the few to be invited to the party from her class she did not seem particularly close to any of the other children and really sat on her own eating the party food. The other thing I did notice was that a couple of the other girls cried a few times and ran to their mummies for reassurance , not that I want to see kids crying but it sort of normalises some of Girl’s behaviours, provides a benchmark because working out what is normal and what is attachment related is a fuzzy line at best.
The second brilliant thing that happened was some defiance towards the Hubster but compliance towards me when requested to get ready for bed. The Hubster was given a downright refusal to his request and he asked me for back-up, something our PASW has asked him not do. I went to find out what was happening, asked the same thing of Girl and she responded straight away, ‘OK mommy’ and toddled off to get her pyjamas on. Now this is a big breakthrough for us, asking me to wade in normally causes more friction but I think we have come to some sort of understanding. Mommy is not a baddy.
Oh I Do Like To Be Besides the Seaside
Just before midday yesterday the hubster decided we were going to the seaside. We were already out anyway so could not prepare for such a trip as any sane person would, Boy had left his beloved Bunny at home, Girl had no coat, we had no towels, no food, no drinks, no bucket and spades, no spare clothes and all Girl wanted to do was look for creepy crawlies in the forest (which would have been a ten minute drive instead of a ninety-minute drive) and the weather was iffy at best. Everything indicated that this was a totally insane decision but off we went with a rumbling noise echoing round the car like a distant storm approaching (it was actually Girl moaning about not going to the forest).
Two hours later we arrived at our destination our heads spinning from the sound of Boy screaming his impatience for the last thirty minutes of the journey (please, please learn to use your words soon Boy), Girl’s insistence that she need a wee and that she hated long car journeys and wanted to go to the forest not the beach, the kids favourite songs on loop and me insisting on singing ‘Oh I Do Like to be Besides the Seaside!’ loudly and repeatedly for the end leg of the journey just to try and buoy up everybody’s flagging moods. Unfortunately I could only remember the first two lines of the song so there was a lot of pom-tiddly pom-pomming going on and not much else.
I can’t tell you how wrong I was about it being an insane idea; we had such a lovely day. The weather was good, the scenery just beautiful and revisiting a childhood haunt on a whim felt so indulgent it was the biggest treat ever. We ate fish and chips by our old caravan park, flew kites, paddled, the kids stripped down to their pants and nappies. We had not a care in the world and it was so joyful to be so carefree!
Now all I have to do is convince the hubster we need to buy a static caravan so we can do it more often!
Putting Life into Perspective
I happened to catch the last ten minutes of a programme by Louis Theroux on Autism on thursday night (who I love by the way) and thought to myself goodness that really puts my life into perspective. I made a mental note to myself to catch up with the programme on iPlayer and did so this morning. I still feel after watching it that in some ways our life although difficult and stressful at times is not even anywhere near as difficult as as the parents on the programme but in other ways attachment disorder can have some similar symptoms to autism and I felt a certain amount of empathy for the parents.
I think the greatest difference is with the two conditions is that with time and consistency Girl should have a good chance of learning to self-regulate and integrate into the ‘right’ social circles. When I say the right social circles I’m not talking about kids with Autism being the wrong social circle (just to make that clear). I am talking specifically about
Girl and her future.
I have read that adults with attachment disorder tend to socialise with people who may be considered social outcasts such as criminals, drug-users, alcoholics etc and shy away from the in-crowd because of their self-esteem and confidence issues. They feel that is the social circle where they belong and that does make sense to me so that is my biggest fear for Girl, that she will not learn to regulate herself and her emotions, that we
won’t be able to boost her confidence enough to think that yes she should be part of the ‘in-crowd’ or maybe even just the everyday normal crowd!
Girl currently has a lot of ‘best-friends’ because she wants to be liked by everybody, that’s sort of OK to me at this age and probably pretty normal, however I do feel I need to teach her that she needs to choose her best-friends carefully and not to try and please everybody because that could lead her into making bad choices just to please people she doesn’t need to please.
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