Adoptive Mummy

The Hubster was telling me about a chat he had with a mum at the school who’s daughter was displaying the same sort of behaviours as Girl, tantrums, arguing, hitting, biting and kicking. This is a little girl who has had no issues in her life, appears as my girl does most of the time as quite a pleasant, amenable child and hearing that just makes me question everything I have learned.

Following on from that, a mum of a friend was asking how things are at the moment, the last time I saw her we were in one of our turbulent times and I had a few tears. I was chatting about what was happening now, the books I had read and methods I was using but then she asked if I thought I read too much and followed on by trying to give me lots of advice about how to deal with kids. I had to sit patiently (gritted teeth) and let her lecture me on how to be a better mum and that I need to relax, all kids are gits (she actually used a much stronger word here) and that in her day things like Attachment Disorder or ADHD or Autism did not exist, you just had to get on with it, people didn’t read books about parenting. Maybe she did not mean it to be quite so patronising but I went home feeling pretty rubbish.

Honestly, I have asked myself the same thing about reading books. I would much rather be reading a light-hearted chick-lit than books about adoption trauma and attachment disorder but at the same time I have learned some really useful stuff from reading, some things have clicked into place and life generally is more peaceful because I am armed with knowledge. What I still have to learn to do is not read every little behaviour as a potential minefield because yes all kids can be little gits sometimes!