But I have to wonder. As much as I 100% agree with the advocating for the children who need families (many of them are not true orphans, so I always hesitate to use that term. Many children who need homes are 'social orphans', meaning that they HAVE biological families...those families just can't or won't care for them.) anyway...as much as I agree with the advocating, I always wonder..."Who is educating the parents?" Who is equipping these prospective adoptive families with the information needed to parent the hurting child who will enter their home? Who is being honest about the hard and the ugly and the things that many adoptive families don't want to discuss?
All of us want to share the fun parts of our story. All of us want to show the 'before the family' and 'with a family' pictures. I could show many of those. Once empty eyes that are now filled with joy (most of the time). Bald spotted heads that now sport full heads of hair. Malnourished little pot belly tummies that are now healthy. Scab ridden arms from biting oneself that are now free and clear of even a scar. And all of that is amazing. It truly is.
But what about the time in between the 'then' and 'now'? How many of us want to peel back the layers of anger, the scabs of hurtful screamed words, the reality of the years of pain and heartache that made us able to even snap that 'now' picture.
Adoptive families, I urge you to read the book I dove into today if you never have. "Parenting the Hurt Child" by Gregory C. Keck, PHD and Regina M. Kupecky, LSW. It is an amazing resource written by folks who truly understand.
Families who may be considering the adoption route, who may be feeling God tugging them in that direction....I urge you to devour this book.
Families who would like to understand when your adoptive mama friend is unloading on you and you simply don't understand...I urge you to find a copy of this book.
Folks who think that all this adoption talk is just that...talk...I urge you to go check this out at your local library as soon as you can.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to be well armed with knowledge before bringing a hurt child into your home....and I cannot stress enough how important it is to reach out for help if you think something is 'off' with your hurt child.
Following are a couple paragraphs from the forward for this book, written by Foster W. Cline, MD, coauthor of 'Parenting with Love and Logic'...another excellent resource.
Every person who makes the choice to parent a hurt child has a dream. These dreams vary, but many include the anticipated fulfillment of helping someone else out of a tough situation, the feelings of satisfaction when a grateful child returns our love, the joy of seeing a person flower from a child into an adult who reaches his or her full potential. These are the things that all parents hope for, based on their own backgrounds and their own childhoods. And therein lies a problem, for most who choose to parent hurt children are functional people without early abuse and neglect of their own. They often have a record of success in parenting birth children. But the discipline they successfully used with prior birth children may not be effective with their hurt children. And tragedy can result.
Nothing, but nothing, can turn a normal household into a nonfunctional - even dangerous and threatening - environment as fast as bringing into the home a rebellious child who doesn't understand love. The child's attitude and behavior turns everything topsy-turvy. The other children often feel neglected, picked on, angry, or resentful. The children become inwardly sullen or outwardly rebellious or show an unhappy combination of the two. Loving couples who previously agreed on parenting approaches find themselves disagreeing and doubtful not only about the other's behavior but about the other's motive itself! Family, neighbors, and friends who considered a couple saintly for taking in the troubled children, upon seeing the children's continuing misbehavior, begin to question the couple's parenting competence and even their character. The best hope is KNOWLEDGE ON PARENTING THE HURT CHILD.
The world expects reciprocal responses. If one is nice to someone, one expects the other to be nice back. If one is mean, it is understandable that others are mean in return. If one smiles, he or she expects a smile in return. If one is giving, it is expected that others will probably be giving in return. All this makes perfect sense in our usual world. In the topsy-turvy world of hurt and disturbed children, all these normal responses may not occur; they have to be taught. Hurt children learned early in their lives that smiles are not to be trusted. They know that adult actions may end in pain. They are 'hard-wired' by early experiences to know that the only safety is in total and complete control of their emotional and physical environment. The chaotic past living inside their heads becomes the chaos they project onto others in their home.
Taken from pages 13-14.
The introduction of the book is heavy laden with awesome explaining tidbits as well....
Parenting a hurt child may not be the kind of parenthood that some people envisioned when they responded to an advertisement about adding to their family. But anyone who wishes to take on the responsibility of fostering or adopting a child who has had early trauma needs to understand precisely what is to be expected. Once the choice is made to proceed, parents must know what they can do to help their new child heal.
.....Many parents feel as if they are in combat, and most of them had no idea this is what the social worker meant when she said, "Jamie can be challenging and energetic".
.....There are no strategies that will completely alleviate parental stress. Parenting a hurt child is a journey filled with surprise, pain, uncertainty, episodic joy, unparalleled excitement, and an ongoing sense of wonder - wondering what is just around the corner, wondering just how long the peace and love will last, wondering when the next crisis will hit.
Taken from pages 21, 22, 23.
And then there is a list of facts that you will need to understand as you begin to parent a hurt child. Facts that seem pretty obvious, but facts that are necessary. Facts that can, in fact, apply to ALL parents everywhere, whether parenting adopted or bio children. (But just as a side note to all non-adoptive families...if you want to never REALLY hear the facts, the easiest way to shut off an adoptive parent is by saying, "My children do that, too." If a family is struggling to hold it together, feeling their family ripped apart by the anger of a very hurting child, the last thing they will want is for you to compare your healthy bio children to their terribly hurting child/ren. We as humans find it so easy to compare our lives with someone else's, when in reality there may be NO comparison at all. I'm not saying that parenting bio children is easy. Not even close. I'm not saying that perhaps you don't have that strong willed child. I'm not saying that the anger and chaos emanating from your bio child isn't real. I'm simply saying...adopted children (all of them...though some don't internalize it and therefore will have none of the issues) have something that your bio children likely don't have. Every single adopted child has experienced a loss of some sort. They have 'lost' birth parents, foster homes, orphanage care givers, etc. And every single loss racks up another point in the 'trauma department'.
On to the list:
- Parenting hurt children requires loving patience and clear expectations for improvement.
- Parenting hurt children is frequently painful.
- Hurt children bring their pain into their new families and share it with much vigor and regularity.
- Parents who did not cause the child's trauma often suffer the consequences of it.
- Even though the child may seek to anger the parent, children will not be able to securely attach to an angry parent.
- Anger prevents healing.
- Nurturing will promote growth, development, and trust.
- Parents do not need to have a consequence for a child's every misdeed.
- Family fun should not be contingent upon the child's behavior.
- Parents should expect difficult times, as well as a reduction of them.
- Parents must spend time - lots of it - with their children.
- Parenting involves sacrifices.
- While parents must take care of themselves, that care cannot be at the child's expense.
- Parents and children pay a price when parental shortcuts are taken.
- Expectations are more effective and powerful than dozens of rules.
- A child's history isn't only in the past. It affects the present and the future.
- Parents must determine what information is private and what can or should be shared with people outside the family.
- Strong parenting does not need to be mean-spirited parenting.
- Angry parenting will help keep the mean child mean, the wild child wild, the scared child scared, and the hurt child hurt.
- If your child is from another country, his hurts and losses are the same as those of a child from the United States.
- Hurt children get better when their pain is soothed, their anger reduced, their fears quelled, and their environment contained.
- Re-parenting is what hurt children need, regardless of their chronological age. Going back to pick up some pieces will be necessary before moving forward.
In conclusion, I strongly encourage foster care and adoption. Strongly encourage it. BUT ONLY if you are well educated. ONLY if you are willing to do the hard. ONLY if you are willing to appear strange. ONLY if you are willing to not take every comment personal. ONLY if you are willing to let well-meaning advice roll off your back. YOU are the one who will be living with the hurting child. YOU are the one who will be providing the nurturing, non-angry home environment. YOU are the one who will be loving on that child through the kicking, the spitting, the biting, the holes kicked in the walls, the broken windows, the threats to other children (certainly doesn't happen in all adoptive homes...but it did here...and we were NOT prepared.) YOU are the one who will be refined by God in areas that you weren't aware needed to be refined.
YOU are the one who will be the mom or the dad and will possibly need to make some really tough decisions.
You may lose friends because you aren't at every social event, you may be on the receiving end of some very hurtful comments and judgments, you may lose friends due to your 'strange' parenting style or your seemingly 'over-protectiveness'...but I can tell you IT IS WORTH IT.
All the hard. All the pain. All the tears. All the research. All the therapy. All the expense after the adoption is complete. All the everything.
It is worth it.
When that hurt child looks at you and says "I love you and I'm so glad God made you my mom" (AND means it!!), the pain melts away and you're left awestruck.
Even when the very next day they are back to the anger....that one moment makes it worth it.
Because in that moment, you realize that even though you feel you are drowning, God is right there holding you up. And He isn't going to let go...not of you...and not of your hurting child.
Go. Take a giant leap of faith if that is what God is asking you to do. Be informed. And make a difference in one child's life....but more so in your own life. I can promise you will never be the same again.
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