There is a new Mama in town

Parenting children with trauma is tough.  Parenting children with trauma with traditional parenting methods is impossible. Want to know how I know?  Because I have been trying it for 2 years and it was NOT WORKING AT ALL.

I was raised like most people that your parent’s word is law and you listen and obey, enough said.  You definitely don’t talk back and if you did you would be punished. You certainly wouldn’t even consider kicking or hitting them.  But we were raised in stable homes and given what we needed.   Children with traumatic pasts did not have that same stability.  They didn’t have examples of healthy adults to trust.  They don’t know what a safe relationship with an adult looks like.  They deal with big pain every day and really big shame.  Their misbehavior most of the time is not pre-thought and malicious it comes from deep within them a place of fear and shame.

So, if I am not going to parent her with traditional methods of parenting then how do you parent a child with trauma to help them feel safe, loved and learn rules and boundries?  Well in some ways I am still figuring that out.  I thought if I didn’t parent the way I had learned she would never behave or learn or be respectful.  I am finding that my method is not working and I am not meeting her where she needs me most.   So, I sought out the help of an amazing parenting coach Christine Moers who gave me some fabulous encouragement and tips on parenting children with trauma I love her  youtube posts and her blog posts about parenting.

I began to implement them into my home and what an amazing transformation I have seen.  No, the tantrums have not stopped and the screaming is still ear piercing at times but I feel so much calmer and in control and the funny part about it is that it is going against everything I have ever learned.  She hasn’t changed but I HAVE. I needed to look outside the box and see that there are other ways to do things.

So what is so different?  First I am not reacting to her behavior like I used to.  The calmer and quieter I am the shorter the tantrums are. I am not taking her tantrums as a personal attach on me but as a cry for help from her.    When I don’t react to her behaviors that are negative she seems to “pull out” of them faster.   I am learning to empathize with her and feel her frustration and anxiety to help her calm down faster.   I am not giving her consequences for behaviors I don’t believe are within her control at the time but are in the grasp of her PTSD or anxiety and fears.   I am learning to give myself room for silliness in the midst of some of these tantrums I can find the silly and help her break the negative cycle she is in.

This is just the beginning but for the first time in months I feel such a weight lifted off of me.  There is hope.  As I take each day and add more skills in I see change.  It isn’t easy. I have to go against all my preconceived notions of parenting to make this work but it is working!!

Beautiful To Me

Music moves me. Music is how I relax, and it is often how God speaks to me. I have been so busy lately that I haven’t taken the time to slow down and listen. I decided it was time and I loaded a bunch of music onto my ipod.  I found this song below and it made me start to think about my Little R. I look at her and see a little girl that has so much to offer the world and I see the potential in her, but she often doesn’t see that in herself.



Her spirit has been so beat down over the years by people telling her she can’t do and can’t be and isn’t beautiful. She has come to learn to tell herself she isn’t worth it and isn’t beautiful both on the inside and out. I heard this song and it has spoke to my heart and I want so badly for my Little R to see yourself as beautiful.

Nichole Nordeman   Beautiful for Me

Every girl young and old has to face her own reflection

Twirl around, stare it down

What’s the mirror gonna say

With some luck, you’ll measure up

But you might not hold a candle to the rest

“Is that your best?” says the mirror to the mess

But there’s a whisper in the noise

Can you hear a little voice

and he says

 

Has anybody told you you’re beautiful?

You might agree if you could see what I see

Oh

‘Cuz everything about you is incredible

You should have seen me smile the day that I made you beautiful for me

 

If it’s true beauty lies in the eye of the beholder

What my life and what’s inside to give him something to behold

I want a heart that’s captivating

I wanna hear my Father say

 

Has anybody told you you’re beautiful?

You might agree if you could see what I see

Oh

‘Cuz everything about you is incredible

You should have seen me smile the day that I made you beautiful for me

Close your eyes

Look inside

Let me see the you that you’ve been trying to hide

Long ago, I made you so very beautiful

So I ought to know you’re beautiful

 

Has anybody told you you’re beautiful?

You might agree if you could see what I see

Yeah

‘Cuz everything about you is incredible

You should have seen me smile the day that I made you beautiful

You’re so beautiful

Beautiful for me

So beautiful for me

Has anybody told you?

After I heard this song I stood my little R in front of her mirror and we talked about what she saw.  I reminded her that God made her perfect, just the way he intended.  Nothing about her is a mistake.  We talked as we stood in the mirror and I pointed out all the beauty about her on the out and especially on the inside.  I reminded her that as the inside becomes more and more beautiful  the outside will reflect that beauty.

How important it is for us to grow spiritually beautiful children.  How important is it for us to teach our girls that there inward beauty is the most important and then that will be what shines through. I had forgotten that not only do I need to nurture my girl with all the things she needs, I need to remind her of her beauty and remind her that God made her and she is beautiful in his eyes and that is what matters.

Have you told your girls lately that they are beautiful?

Anniversary

One year ago in the middle of a blizzard we adopted our girl. I remember when we were in front of the judge she asked us if we understood the complexity of what we were about to do and if we understood that this was a permanent never to reverse commitment. She knew our Little R’s history and understood at great length the challenges that we had already endured and what we were up against with little R.   I remember looking down at the document as I signed thinking “here we go, bring it on”.  

  I don’t think I really knew what I was getting into when I said that, but here we are in this life that some days I pray we will just make it hour by hour.  Life has not  been easy during this past year, and at times I feel like I am pulling out my hair and losing my mind all at the same time.  Struggles with attachment, trust and control are just a few of the things I attend to each day.  We take 10 steps forward and 12 steps back sometimes daily.

Despite all of that I would not change that day in the court room a year ago and I would sign that document again even knowing what I know now.  This little girl needed a family.  Despite what we deal with on a daily basis she needs a family just like anyone else.  I believe with all my heart she needs us and we have a responsibility to help her to heal, and grow into a beautiful young lady. 

If I can teach her just a few things as her mom it will be to respect herself, respect others, do her best, and most of all honor God with all her heart.    I hope that I can instill those things in her as we go through the years.

As adoptive parents we have extra responsibilities to our children.  To be open and good listeners.  Willing to accept them and their past.  Allow there past relationships to exist within your family.  Willing to be vulnerable and take on our child’s pain and have patience to allow the process to work and prepare that the healing is very slow.   If you have the expectation that it is going to be a quick process then you will be disappointed and not helpful in their healing process.  Give yourself credit that you are doing your best.  Take time for yourself and allow yourself the time you need to rest so you can be 100% present for your child. They need you desperately to be present for them.

So here we are 1 year later and I look forward to seeing where we are a year from now and hopefully heading back into the courthouse again in the next year to two.

Goodbye 2011.....

I am sitting here looking back over this year, where we were and where we are today.  It has been a long year with a lot of ups and downs.  Some of which have forever changed me as a person.

January was my first forever change as I committed to be the mom of a 9.5 year old little girl with a boat load of issues through adoption.  Little R has worked so hard this year on her healing.  She has grown stronger both physically and emotionally.  A year ago she was fearful of everything even going to take a shower or go into her bedroom if the light was off.  She would lash out in violence if something didn’t go her way or she would rage for hours if her PTSD set in.   Now I sit here writing this with her showering on her own in the other room and no fear of a dark bedroom.  She has shown me so much about resilience and taught me so much about the power of trust.  I have had to earn her trust and it has been a long road and will continue to be so.

Little R is still “little” and will require consistent 1 on 1 from us for many years to come. This has been very unexpected and taxing on me.   We are hopeful that her healing will continue and she will become more independent as time goes on.   I struggle at times with having a 10.5 year old who is still requiring toddler supervision but who is growing on the outside.  I find myself as mom, psychiatrist, and listener most days as Little R works through and grieves her past and tries to process the present and future.  I realize that it is all a process and she is making great strides and growth.

For me personally this has been a tough year.  I have struggled continually with my connection to Little R in trying to find that feeling that she is mine forever.  I love her very much but she pushes me away so often and doesn’t let me be her mom that I feel rejected and don’t feel like a mom but a babysitter to her.  I lost my job in April and really have had a hard time recovering from that.  I loved my job and had envisioned staying there forever.  I was thrust out when the company went under in such a quick fashion I never had a chance to process.  I did find another job and am so blessed by that, but it is so different from my previous job I am struggling to adjust. Then there was my miscarriage.   I never had a chance to truly grieve the loss of my baby last December because Little R was here for her first Christmas and the adoption was right around the corner.  I brushed it under the rug.  Not a good idea.  It has finally surfaced and I am struggling with the loss of something I never even had.  Something I have always wanted and something I may never have again.   So this New Year’s Eve I am working through a lot of junk.

Feelings of loss over my pregnancy, fear of the future with my job, and connection with Little R, and my idea of what parenting should be.  I do know though that my God who is more powerful than all of my fear and all of my loss and all of my grief and will be there to lean on. He knows all that I am going through and feeling and will hold me up when I am weak and can’t walk another step.  My emotions are raw these days and I struggle at times to know what the right thing to do or say is.

My prayer for this New Year is that I will have healing in my heart from my loss and fear and that I will have great connections and strides with my Little R.  One thing I do know is that no matter what this New Year brings my God will be walking each day right beside me.

Reflection.....

Today was the last Sunday before Christmas and our church held a baptism Sunday service. Typically this is done on Palm Sunday but there had been requests to do it again so they decided this would be the week.   Little R has seen two baptism Sunday’s before today, and she just wasn’t ready to be baptized.  When I had asked her about this baptism she said “I think I will wait until the spring” the topic was closed.

This morning we arrived at church like any other Sunday and my girl was dressed in a nice winter sweater dress. She loves to dress pretty.  As the baptisms began she leaned to me and said “I think I will be baptized in the spring”.  I said OK and then as the baptisms went on I noticed she was restless. She said to Mike " I think I want to be baptized" and then when I asked her why and if she understood that she would go home in her wet clothes she changed her mind.   I few minutes later the pastor gave an invitation for those who did not plan on being baptized that the water was there and what better time than now to do it and that it was OK to be wet and go home in your wet clothing. He explained about baptism and how it is an outward expression of an inward change.  Rebecca tugged Mike’s arm and said “I changed my mind I really want to be baptized now”.  I sat with her during the song and said “why” to which she replied “I want to show that I have changed and that I want to follow Jesus always”.  I said “you know you will be all wet” and she said “I need to do this, I don’t care” and she was out of the seat and heading toward the baptismal as quick as she could get there and never looked back.  My little girl was baptized this morning. I was a very proud mama. Later at home she told me it was like a miracle. When she came out of the water she felt new like a normal girl.  I broke down crying and hugging her.  It was a sweet moment for us.

I had spent some time over the past few weeks reflecting back on my daughters change in the past year and I am astounded at her growth.  Now, she has grown physically, in fact she has grown almost 7 inches and gained 20 pounds.  She came to us as a tiny scraggly little 8.5 year old and is now a beautiful growing girl.  Her physical changes are evident to all who see her but it is the changes on the inside that are the most reflective on my heart today.

A year ago I could not make it a day without some sort of tantrum some which turned into rages.  I was contacted almost daily by the school for behavior issues and she was not progressing in school at all.  She could not manage social situations and most Sunday’s we had a breakdown of some nature in the church about her behavior.  She refused to treat her dad with respect and often belittled him and found ways to say hurtful things that hit the core.  We were contemplating whether we could even adopt her because of the string of continued tantrums and abuse she was dishing out.  I spent two weeks nursing a black eye and massive bite mark to my arm at the hand of my little girl and numerous other bruises including many to my heart.

Like I said that was a year ago.  Here we are today my girl asked to be baptized and I was all too happy to agree that it was time.  I am sitting her tonight as she has offered to help clean up after dinner, and is doing her chores without complaint.   She is doing well in school and has not been in any trouble this school year.  The teachers say she is a delight to work with.  She has been able to transition from activity to activity and goes into large social situations without a meltdown afterwards.  She is learning boundaries and self-control and she is learning trust.  She is opening up and sharing some deep secrets with me.  My heart has been warmed most by the sweet relationship she has built with my husband.  She has actually  said just in recent days how much she misses him when he works late and often asks when he is coming home and if I say he is working late she says “oh bummer”.  What a change.  A year ago she told me she didn’t know how to be good because the devil was making her do the bad things in her head, and today she is talking about all the things she is learning in church and how much she wants to be closer to God and so much less about the devil being in control.  She is adopted and has permanency this year and a new name.

My little R is a compassionate child and cares so much for those in need and those hurting.  I can’t wait to see what kind of adult she is going to be.  I now see beautiful promise for this child and am so proud to call her my daughter.

Little R has a lot of healing still to go and we have a lot of work still to do and I am sure we will have days that feel like we have taken 10 steps backwards but I will look back at our first year and remember how far we have come.

I have received a beautiful early Christmas present today watching my girl get baptized and the best present I have received this year is the changes I have seen in her and the love that I have for her.  I look forward to next Christmas and seeing the growth in my little girl.

FEAR

Fears, we all have them. 

How many of you have ever been afraid, I mean really afraid.  Did your breathing get fast and shallow, did you freeze so no one would hear you move, did you ever run?   How many of you have ever had someone jump out at you and you get startled then your reaction is to get mad and swing at them?  

My girl goes through a state of fear multiple times a day.  Sometimes it is flash backs, images of her past, and reminders daily that she is different.  Her stuff is big and it is painful to watch her endure.  She carries a lot of big stuff around and when it becomes too much she blows.

I recently realized that her defiance and anger has nothing to do with wanting to dis-respect me as her parent but has everything to do with her fear. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of trusting, and fear of memories.  It is her reaction to fear that I see each day.

Her anger is directed at me but it is not about me.  It is a front for all the fear she is feeling inside.  Once I was able to see her anger and tantrums as fear, I was able to see her in such a different light.  Fear consumes her.  Her past was so unpredictable and scary that it consumes the very person that she is.  Her reaction to the fear is the anger that I so often see.

So, how do I help her to take away this fear?  I just need to be there for her.  I need to open myself up to her pain and emotionally allow myself to see her fear where she is at.  Most of all during these times when it feels like I can’t love her, it is often when she needs me to love her the most.   I give her a hug and tell her everything is going to be ok.  Acknowledge her fear and help her express it in a different way.  Through her screaming I tell her I love her and I am here for her. When she is done verbally abusing me and leaving a tornado in her wake I wrap my arms around her and tell her she is a good girl and that I love her.  She needs my love; she needs to know that she is loved. She needs to know that despite the behavior I will always love her.

Can you imagine being in fear all the time because your life has been so unpredictable that you can’t trust anyone that is around you?  I can’t imagine life being like that.  Each day I look at her I begin to love her more.  She is strong, she is working so hard to overcome and if it takes the rest of my life I will continue to love her through her fear to help her heal.

 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.1 John 4:18a

Today I wonder???

“Raising a child with difficult behaviors can be more than exhausting...it can actually be painful. It can hurt just getting out of bed in the morning. The day in and day out of being with a child who rejects you, defies you and disrespects you can put you in a place of even questioning your decision to become a mother. This level of stress leaves you tired, angry, frustrated, physically sick, resentful, sad, tearful, and/or hopeless.”   Heather Forbes: Beyond Consequences Love and Logic.

The life of a mom who has a RAD child is extremely trying. The quote above says it all for me.   Lately I have been feeling so defeated as a parent and exhausted from the constant challenges and some days I feel like just staying in bed and pulling the covers over my head and not getting up.

Unless you have raised or are raising a RAD child you will not understand this feeling that overwhelms a mom.  The overwhelming feeling of being disrespected, yelled at, spit on, kicked,  and having someone roll their eyes and do the exact opposite of what you ask out of spite makes you cringe.  Without words being told that nothing you are doing is good enough. 

The most difficult part for me is that all of this is done in private behind the 4 walls of our home and no one else gets to see this side of our Little R.  So sharing and expecting anyone to understand where I am coming from is impossible.  I don’t want to shed my little girl in a bad light, but I as a mom need support to survive this life that I am dealing with.

I pray each day that God will give me the strength to put on a layer of armor so that her words and disrespect will not penetrate and hurt me, I know that I should not take her behavior personally she is a hurt little girl surviving the only way she knows how, but it does hurt. It hurts a lot. 

I have had a lot of rejection in my life, and have spent many years dealing with it and healing from it.  I thought that I had gotten past the losses in my life, but when my little girl, who we want to love so much and give the world puts up a wall up and rejects me, it wells up in me such sadness and painful memories. 

Today I feel like a failure at this parenting thing, today I wonder if we are the right family for this little girl or if a more trained family would have been a better choice….  Today I just wonder...