The most dramatic example is his deliberate failures in school, multiple times a year since sixth grade. We work together like the dickens to help him learn, complete his homework and pass his classes. Without fail, every end of term when he is doing well, he lies, “loses” work and simply does nothing so that his grades drop, usually to F’s like last week. He was afraid he would “mess up”, he said, so he made it happen on his own terms. Again.

The kicker is that no matter how much he matures, no matter how well he does for how long, he consistently drops back down to the bottom. It’s like that’s his comfort zone. He’s almost happier when he has messed up than when he’s doing well. I’ve been so focused on helping him get that high school diploma, but I realized last week that no matter what I do, he can prevent himself from getting it. It is anguishing to watch him deliberately fail when success is so within his grasp. But success is not his story, at least not now.

Despite years of safety, security, loving parents, counseling, the gospel, a stay-at-home mom, and placement with his siblings, he tells himself that it was his fault his birth parents neglected him and that he’s unlovable. It’s impossible not to become very discouraged when we realize that nothing we’ve done or given him has touched that core belief. Not being in his shoes, I don’t know if he’s even capable of thinking differently about himself. Maybe this is the best he can do. We never give up, and we made an appointment today for him to try some new therapeutic techniques (equine therapy and EMDR). Maybe those will give him some relief, maybe they won’t.

Meanwhile, we as his parents are called on to continue pouring everything we have into him, knowing that he isn’t receiving it and may never receive it. I jokingly told his counselor the other day that the County forgot to check my “Saint” card before they gave him to me, and I’m not a saint. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done to keep giving to someone who can’t give back because he can’t risk getting close to anyone again, who can’t love back because he can’t love himself, and whose basic behaviors are (unconsciously) designed to push me away and to continuously shift the bulls-eye just out of my reach.

I’m still in the process of coming to grips with his latest sabotage and what it indicates about him, about us. I guess I had been lulled into thinking things were going better and would keep going better so it hit me particularly hard when I found us back in the very same spot we’ve been in all along. And the blow of it made me see for the first time that I can’t help him if he won’t let me. In fact, he can very powerfully sabotage himself no matter how hard I work at facilitating his success. It’s a stark reality that reflexively pushes both of us away from each other. On some level, it’s what he wants so that his fears of closeness are calmed. I have to reach out and love him anyway, show him that no matter what he does, I’m still there, I’m his forever mom. I may not be part of his story, but I can let my story be loving him unconditionally, no matter what the result.

Photo credit: equine-therapy-programs.com

It’s helpful to distill them down to their very essence, because once we recognize it, we can use it as a filter for assessing their behavior and reactions. Deciding that my youngest son is “effervescent” has had the biggest impact. We have been so frustrated lately that he has no “off” switch and is always either moving or talking, usually annoying the heck out of his siblings and driving us to the brink of insanity. But now we see him as “bubbles”, which of course have no off switch, nor would we expect them to. Now instead of being frustrated that he doesn’t shut off, I see him as a glass of soda I’ve just poured that wants to spill over. I just need to contain the soda so it stays in the glass. There’s nothing I can do to make it stop fizzing or bubbling so I don’t even try. The frustration has disappeared (not that I’m not still annoyed sometimes) but I understand him so much better that it makes it easier to accept him for who he is and to enjoy him. After all, bubbles are celebratory and he’s a lot of fun to be around.

Seeing my oldest son as “gentle” helps me to be realize that a little goes a long way with him and that I don’t need to be so intense to get my point across. Like a shy deer, he responds better to coaxing than chasing. I always knew my daughter was “sweet” but realizing that it’s what she’s made of, that it flows in her veins no matter what, has made me honor it more somehow. She can still be a thirteen-year-old girl with no sweetness in the moment whatsoever, but fundamentally, I’ve recognized that’s what she is and what she always goes back to.

It seems so obvious now that we’ve identified each child’s quality. Recognizing their essence seems to be a spiritual thing, where we acknowledge and honor the spirits that inhabit their bodies. It takes the temporal day-to-day dynamic of parents raising children and elevates it to a plane where we the parents and they the children are spiritual equals, and we parents are merely stewarding them for Heavenly Father. It’s a pretty neat thing to feel.

Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1383054

My daughter and I have done fun things together once in a while, but it has never been a regular event.  Last Thursday we inaugurated our date night at the local yogurt shop. It was so enjoyable! I didn’t go there with any intention other than spending one-on-one time with Kaylyn. I like her best when it’s just the two of us. Somehow she lets down a little more then, isn’t affected by the sibling dynamic, and she seems more present. I feel like I’m seeing the real her, and I like the real her. Not so crazy about the girl that looks just like her who shows up at my breakfast table some days.

So we sat there eating our yogurt and people-watching, and I just started asking her questions about her friends, school, etc. I asked her if she liked any boys, and she told me there’s one in her classes at school that she likes. I asked her if he was short or tall, blond or brunette, and how he dressed so I could picture him. Then I asked her, “How are his teeth?” She thought that was so funny. I was still trying to picture him, but she thought I was grading him, like you would check a horse’s teeth. That has become our inside joke. When her little brother asked what we did on our date, she told him we got a yogurt and talked. I said, “about teeth”, and we both laughed.

I’m looking forward to next Thursday’s date.

Photo credit: Donna V.

People without kids are horrified (okay, maybe that’s a little strong) that I would be unkind to my children. People who have their own kids are so much more compassionate about my weaknesses as a parent. If you’ve done the job, you know it pushes you to your absolute limit. Until I had kids, I had all kinds of opinions about parenting, and I was so sure I would do such-and-such or I would never do such-and-such. Then when I got my kids, I was horrified (really, not too strong) that I lost my temper, was impatient, or acted unkindly at times. I remember thinking after the first six months, “Okay, now that the first six months are over, I won’t be impatient, short-tempered or unkind.”  Then after the first year, I thought, “Okay, now that the first year is over, I won’t be impatient, short-tempered or unkind. ” And it went on like this for a couple of years until I realized that even though I was trying my hardest, I was still impatient, short-tempered and unkind at times.

Now maybe there are actually parents out there who never lose their tempers or patience, or act unkindly toward their children. I’ve never met any, but I allow the possibility. Even my dad, who may have been the kindest, gentlest soul that ever walked the earth, had had enough of my sister one day when she kept pestering him about when he would be finished with whatever he was doing so he could play with her. “Three hours,” he finally snapped at her the last time she whined. Not exactly cause for Child Protective Services involvement, but coming from my dad, that was harsh.

Dr. Stephen Marmer, a psychiatrist and professor at UCLA, says we all get through childhood with “glitches.” He says parenting is the impossible job, and no one can do it perfectly. I finally had to admit that my children bring out all of my weaknesses, shine a big spotlight on them actually.
But for the job of mother, I could have gone on unperturbed in life, being the good person I am. Now thanks to my kids and the light they shine on my weaknesses–without even trying, the little darlings–I have the chance to dig deeper, to root out those undesirable impulses and behaviors in myself. It has been eight years now, and I’ve quit expecting myself to eliminate impatience, irritability or unkindness completely. Instead, I give myself credit for how much less frequent they are, and how much softer when they occur. Now I make it a game: Can I go a whole day without getting impatient, for example, no matter what? I actually made it yesterday and so far so good today.

When I mess up, I apologize sincerely and ask for my kids’ forgiveness. One of the beautiful things about kids is that they are so forgiving. Sometimes I think about my kids all grown up and parenting their own kids. If the day comes that they mess up and act unkindly toward their own kids, I hope they’ll remember that sometimes that happens in families, and it doesn’t mean the end of the world. I hope they’ll sincerely apologize to their kids and do their best not to let it happen again but accept that it might. I hope they’ll recognize that how they repair that damage can be powerful in bonding with their kids. I hope they’ll have compassion for themselves in doing the impossible job.

Photo credit: iStock_000018547652

What really broke my heart is to hear her say she doesn’t think I like her or love her, and she thinks she’s a bad kid. She says she acts out because she already thinks she’s bad. And I can’t blame her for that either, not completely. In my weakness as a mother, and my frailty as a human being, and under the unbelievable chronic stress of three Reactive Attachment disordered kids, I don’t like her all the time. I can say I love her all the time, if I use M. Scott Peck’s definition that love is the willingness to extend oneself for another person’s well-being. But I don’t act lovingly toward her all the time. In fact, I can be downright short, impatient and harsh. My mom used to tell me that I was Captain von Trapp without the whistle.

The funny thing is, I’m just as scared of her doing something “bad” to me, like going back to her birth mom. I’m afraid she doesn’t like me or love me. I think I’m a bad mom, and I act out with her in unkindness because I feel like I’ve already lost so why try? I don’t want to get close to her because I’m afraid she’ll hurt me.

So here we are, my daughter and I, each bringing out the worst in each other, each scared of getting hurt and taking it out on each other. The good thing is that we can talk about it. We just had our first “heart-chat” where we talked about all of this. We decided to have a couple of heart-chats a week, where we go somewhere quiet and just talk about how we’re feeling. I’ve always liked her best when we talk one-on-one about real things. It’s the only time I find her to be real, and she is at her best when we talk like this. I’m probably at my best.

I told her I always go back to faith in Heavenly Father, that he put us together for a reason. It’s easy to pick friends you like that are like you. We agreed that she’s a butterfly and I’m a tiger. We wouldn’t be friends if we knew each other at school, but here we are in the same family. So we make each other uncomfortable, but that’s probably on purpose to help us grow. There’s something to be said for being equally yoked in being our worst together, but still being there with each other, still hoping for better and willing to put in the work to get there.

Photo: Donna V.

We humans have the longest dependency period (at least twelve to thirteen years) of any animal, but in modern times, we’ve stretched it out to eighteen or nineteen. Maybe that’s an artifact of contemporary civilization that goes against Nature’s grain. Maybe sixteen-year-old boys aren’t meant to chafe under someone else’s authority with no clear sense of their own responsibility to the family. If physically and biochemically, sixteen-year-old boys are capable of much greater contributions to society than we currently allow, to prevent them from unleashing that drive can backfire.

It had to have worked better when young males were engaged in strenuous physical labor that absorbed some of their raging testosterone. Now what do we have? Physical education classes that aren’t even a daily occurrence and the exercise of holding video game remote controllers. That leaves a lot of energy with nowhere to go but into fighting against The Man (AKA mom and dad). In the case of biological sons raised in loving homes, it might be easier to navigate the later teen years. In the case of an adopted son who was adopted at, say, age eight, it can be a bleak wasteland of conflict and defiance. The bond that would induce him to maintain some degree of harmony with mom and dad just isn’t there. And that’s true on the part of mom and dad as well. The bond that would curb frustration or temper isn’t there for them either. It’s a little bit like a prison break where the inmate never leaves but the warden never regains control. No dominant authority, no submission to authority, no integration of forces. Just circling warily, lashing out, retreating.

I go back to my standard soapbox that I *hate* it when people say, “Oh, my son does that, too” or “Biological sons defy their parents, too.” It is not, not, not the same. No matter the quality of relationship between parents and their biological offspring, no one has anywhere else to go, either in reality or in their imagination. With adopted kids, however, there is always the specter of the “other” parents, the ones the kids look like (since they don’t look like you). The kids are busy (unconsciously) trying to push adoptive parents away so that no one can hurt them again like their birth parents did. And the adoptive parents hold back a little, knowing (fearing) that someday the kids will go back to the other parents and break the adoptive parents’ hearts.

I cling to the idea that if we get through these next few years, and I know that we will, it will make our bond stronger for having weathered these seas together. Life is rarely what we dream it will be. Every child wishes their birth parents could keep the family together so they didn’t have to be adopted. Every parent (if they tell the truth) wishes they could have the much simpler experience of biological children. But for many of us, those dreams don’t come true. We find ourselves adopted or adopting, and we have to make the best of it. What’s the alternative? That a child would never have a family to call his or her own? That a willing mom and dad would never have a child to love? I also hold to the hope that adoptive families, like mine, are divinely created and guided. That in our broken dreams, our deepest parts are exposed to one another, and if we can be gentle with each other (at least more gentle today than we were yesterday), we stand to grow the strongest bond of all.

Photo: http://www.inmagine.com/PTG01679377

My husband and I decided my 16-year-old was on too many meds (4) so we took him off one of his anti-depressants (Zoloft). The result has been a much more “live” as opposed to dead, deadpan, flat kid. But with that came attitude, unpleasantness, facial expressions that make me want to slap him (again, a joke) and tones of voice that drip snot. At first we thought maybe he couldn’t handle being off the med, but then it occurred to me, no, he’s just acting like a normal teenager.

I hate it when other parents say, “Oh my kid does that, too” as though we all have special needs, RAD kids, but in this case, I have to take it. How does anyone get through this? It’s not like my son was pleasant until he turned teenager, he’s just *more* unpleasant now, and getting more unpleasant by the day. There was a brief shining moment back when he was almost fifteen where he seemed to be turning into a nice young man. We cling to the hope now that the nice young man is still inside this kill-joy that comes down to breakfast every morning with a snarl. It’s kind of my version of, “I knew him when he was sweet and cuddly so I can tolerate his adolescence.” This one was never sweet and cuddly, at least not with me. I’ve been pushing this rock uphill (think Sisyphus) for eight straight years. (In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity.)

I have to figure out a way to live, day in and day out, for at least another two and a half years with this kid without being mad all the time. It doesn’t help that one of my hot-button issues is unpleasant interactions. I find them so unnecessary, and I hate unnecessary unpleasantness. Wait, oh my gosh, I just had an insight: this is for me! I’m supposed to use this to learn how to deal with unpleasant behavior without getting unpleasant myself. I hate when that happens! Everything my kids throw at me is a chance for me to grow. Gross. Well I guess I better get on it, sounds like a long-term project.

Photo:http://www.sxc.hu/photo/491303

The straw that broke the camel’s back was my nine-year-old taking a bath before school when we were running late, and I told him he only had time for a quick shower. I was already upset with him about that, and when I turned my back, he dumped his smoothie down the sink. That packed-with-nutrition smoothie that is rather expensive to make and physically demanding getting that raw honey out of the jar, that I feel so good about giving my kids because I know it’s healthy. And the thing is, he didn’t really care that about getting in trouble. He cared that it was inconvenient, but not that he had done anything wrong. “No remorse,” was how his teacher described his behavior at school when he was taken to the principal’s office. Until later when he realized it was going to cost him recess. Then, remorse of a different color.

I went to parent-teacher conferences last week with my sophomore, and I heard one teacher tell the parent in front of me (about her daughter), “I wish I had thirty more just like her.” Instead, I hear, “He’s just not doing the work, when he turns it in, he hasn’t finished, he just sits there in class, he doesn’t seem to want to make much effort.” So together with Gavin and the teachers, we made a list of all the missing assignment he had to complete last weekend. My favorite part was when it was time for him to do his English paper, he said he didn’t know what to do, hadn’t been listening that day in class, didn’t have any friends in class he could call for info, so Sorry, Mom, just can’t do the assignment. Yesterday he took page two of his biology assignment and shredded it because he didn’t want to do it.

And just to round it all out, back to my nine-year-old, he’s telling me that he hears voices, has heard them all along, but didn’t want to worry me. He says that’s why he’s so loud all the time because he’s trying to drown the voices out. I don’t even know if it’s true and neither does the psychiatrist, who admits nevertheless that “it’s concerning.”

I’m actually jealous of people who have events they have to get over, like the loss of a loved one or a foreclosure. This never ends and there’s no end in sight, and somehow, the older the kids get, the harder it gets.

I accidentally found a solution for myself today when I was trying to help a friend. She asked me how I was doing (dangerous question) and I had a melt-down. She and another friend spent the next hour letting me cry it out and sharing some of their survival struggles with me so I would feel less alone.

Nothing has changed, but just getting it out to people who care seems to have lightened my load. Usually I keep that stuff in, feel like I should handle my problems myself, but today, I couldn’t and it turned out to be a good thing. When you’re in Survival Mode, sometimes not having the energy to put on a good front can be a blessing in disguise. Thanks to two good friends, I think I’ll survive another week at least.

Justin has explosive anger at home and at school, and then he vacillates between happy and scared the rest of the time. The psychiatrist says he can’t rule out Bi-polar because of Justin’s bad reaction to stimulant ADHD meds last summer. The treatment for Bi-polar would be anti-seizure or anti-psychotic meds. I really don’t want to get Justin started on those heavy-duty meds with their heavy-duty side-effects unless I have to.

The psychiatrist says don’t use ADHD supplements, use medication. The counselor says don’t use medication, use ADHD supplements. The primary physician says processed foods are notorious for ADHD and we should eliminate as many as possible, the psychiatrist says there’s no evidence of that. And I sit in the middle of this vortex of professionals, trying to filter everyone’s contradictory advice. My sister-in-law did give me a spot of hope when she reminded me that I have something that none of these professionals have: mother’s intuition.

My mother’s intuition tells me the overriding concern is Justin’s anxiety, and we need to address that before anything else. The psychiatrist agreed we could start him on a low dose of Buspar, says there’s solid evidence it helps with anxiety, good evidence it helps with ADHD and may help with explosive anger. And it has minimal side effects. But it takes two weeks to two months to be effective, and it might not even be the right pill after all this investment in time.

I hate being the one to make these decisions when none of the professionals around me agree. I’m counting on my mother’s intuition to lead me in the right direction. And hoping that I have the patience to endure.

But there are real differences showing up in their behavior and appearance. For example, yesterday when my daughter ran my good silver through the dishwasher and I told her to write 1000 times, “I wash silver by hand,” she did. Not without any crying, but definitely without the hysterics that writing sentences has brought on in the past. (In fact, we did away with writing sentences because she had such an extreme reaction to that consequence, but I was so mad about my silver yesterday and I couldn’t think of any other way for her to REMEMBER not to do it again.)

My 16-year-old son who has such bad acne that the doctor actually prescribes vaginal medication as a  topical (don’t ask but somehow it’s supposed to work on the breakouts) now has only a few eruptions. They are still dramatic, yes, but the underlying skin is calmer, smoother and clearer. Now when you look at him, you see how good-looking he is and not how bad his face looks.

Strangest of all, my husband and I actually like this food better. We had a dinner party Saturday night so we were “forced” to go back to the less healthy kind of eating for a couple of days (you know, leftovers, too), and we both commented last night that we wished we hadn’t, that we felt better when we were eating the yucky healthy food.

Now the only question is how far to take this–raw milk? No soy? The decisions seem endless. The only thing we know for sure is that we’re going to spend 90 days evaluating the results of our new and improved diet, then decide where to go from there. I find myself secretly hoping that we see enough results that we stay on this path for good. Who knew?

Photo Credit