Better Than a Hallelujah Sometimes

This one is for those struggling . . .

Amy Grant sings a song about dealing with pain, and how the honesty of crying out in pain or failure to God is “better than a hallelujah, sometimes.”  (Click on “song” if you want to hear it.)  As a parent raising hurt kids, there are many times I’ve cried out in fear or in failure.  There are times when God felt far away, and my prayers were hitting the ceiling.  There have even been times, even recent times, where I’ve wondered what good my faith does in raising children whose behaviors have truly caused me to question everything I thought I was, including "good mother."  What could I have been thinking to adopt two much older kids from such a horrific background?  (This is where you hear the record scratching as the needle is pulled and the turn table comes to an abrupt halt.) 

Wait a minute, Mama T!  You said, not two posts ago, that your faith is important to you.  You said you love your kids.  We thought you loved your kids!  You said the things you write here about therapeutic parenting will show that faith to be evident, and now you’re telling us that you’ve doubted your faith as you are in the midst of raising your kids?

Yes.  Yes to all of that.  I love my kids.  I wanted my kids.  I want my kids.  I want my kids to go away sometimes.

I want you to know that I’ve doubted my faith and I’ve felt God was far away even as I passed through the hardest of the hard, because I also want to tell you I believe He was there through all my doubt!  He didn’t want my false, heartless praise or hallelujah songs at that point.  He wanted the relationship of trust proven by my honest cries to His Spirit – he wanted ME to be honest with ME, and get to the point where I could say to myself, “This is damned hard!”  (Yes, God allows me to say that to myself and to tell you about it.)  He allowed me to walk through that valley of the shadow of death (and really it was – and still is some days) because it got me to the point where I allowed myself to believe some important truths.  No matter how much therapeutic parenting I do with my kids, no matter how much I love them, no matter how hard we all work, there are just some things I cannot control.  There are just some decisions they will make and some things they do – often in the heat of whatever moment they’ve been triggered – that I will not be able to fix for them.  There are indeed some things I need to let go and let God.  And that – THAT – is okay!”

I think if you’re a struggling parent going through some of the hard stuff with a child that’s been abused, neglected, and traumatized it’s essential – it’s even sanity and life-saving – to get to that point.  It is important for you to know this – listen – while yes, it is a blessing and blah, blah, blah, parenting hurt kids is HARD – really hard!  There are some things you just may need to let go and let God – and that – THAT, my friends, is okay.  YOU are okay – even wise -- in doing so.  It doesn’t mean you’ve given up.  It means, you’re facing some real, hard life.  It means that it is true there are some things we parents cannot control and there are some things we parents cannot fix.  That’s okay.  The good news is there is a peace that passes all understanding when you finally come to this point.

God loves a lullaby

In a mother’s tears

In the dead of night

Better than a hallelujah sometimes . . .

Give yourself permission to cry out, to let go and let God.  You’re not giving up.  You’re getting up.  Stick around.  We’ll get back to therapeutic parenting techniques and ideas soon.   I want to share some more about who we are.

Sandspiel (Sand Tray Play Therapy)

Most therapeutic parents I know are not psycho-therapists, nor registered play therapists, nor even social workers.  We’re just moms and dads raising hurt kids with traumatic pasts we will never fully know nor understand.  We’re just people trying to help our children live their best possible lives.  So when I write about sand tray therapy, please remember I’m presenting my experience and whatever knowledge I have as a layman – as “just” a mom.  There are plenty of places on the internet where you can find more scholarly articles and research-based information.  One place you might start to look for that information is sandplay.org.  The purpose of this blog is for sharing parent-to-parent, not to serve as therapist.  So, that’s my not-very-legal-sounding disclaimer before I begin.

Sandspiel (or sand play) therapy was developed by a Swiss therapist named Dora Kalff (1904-1990).  There is some argument about whether or not she is the originator of sand play (or sand tray) therapy.  Some people say H.G. Wells was the inspiration for it because he wrote about his two young sons using miniature toy figures to work out problems with each other and with other family members.  Frankly, I don’t care who originated it.  I know Kalff wrote about it first and then other therapists expanded upon it.  It boils down to using a tray, filled with sand and usually, a bunch of different kinds of small toy figures to make pictures in that sand.  (Sometimes, it’s just drawing in the sand.)

Sand tray therapy is a specific kind of play therapy where the therapist (or therapeutic parent) sits close by and seemingly does nothing while the child uses sand to make a picture.  Sometimes, the person observing the play will give some open-ended direction such as, “Make a picture that shows how you’re feeling.”  Other times, the direction may be more pointed, but still rather open-ended.  For example, the first time our therapist pulled out her sand tray, she drew a line down the middle of it with her finger.  She directed my son (then 14) to “Make two pictures in the sand.  One of your life before your adoption, and one of your life with your family now.”  (Notice she left the part “before your adoption” open-ended.  She didn’t tell him to make a picture of his family before adoption, or of his orphanage life before adoption.  She left that up to him.)   Still, other times, there may be no more direction except to “Make a picture in the sand.”


People have been making pictures in the sand throughout history.  The Bible talks about Jesus “drawing (or writing) in the sand” when the Pharisees questioned him about a woman caught in adultery (John 8).  In Navaho Symbols of Healing, Donald Sander writes about sand painting ceremonies.  When the ceremony is over, the painting is wiped away.  Today, Zen Sand Gardens are popular gifts and people of all religions (or no religion) enjoy making designs in the sand as a relaxing “de-stressor.”  The thing that is common for all of these is the non-verbal imagery of the activity.  Jesus was silent as he drew in the sand.  The Navaho ceremony is conducted in silence.  People play in their desk-top sand gardens in quiet solitude.  Thoughts are processed in the silence while the sand provides a tactile experience or outlet for those thoughts.

As a parent, you can discern a lot about what’s going on with your child by watching him work through a sand tray picture.  Does the picture have people?  What about dinosaurs or other monsters?  What about super heroes?  Animals?  Fences?  Houses?  Is there violence in the picture?  (Crashed cars, fights, etc.)  Is there conflict of emotion?  (Domestic scene with mom walking away?)  Granted, as a parent, we might not be able to figure out everything exactly as our child is thinking it, but we can get a good idea.  When he’s done, asking an open-ended question such as, “Tell me about your picture,” will provide him an opportunity to make things more clear for your interpretation.  When he’s finished, if you’d like and if he’s receptive to it, you might add what you see.  For example, “Wow.  It looks to me like these guys are really upset with one another -- like maybe they want to kill each other.”  Or “This mom looks peaceful to me and her kids look like they are happy.”

For our family, the sand tray has provided an opportunity for me to redirect a child,  to stop the crazies so we can focus on something else, and to help my child get the big feelings stored in that center, emotional part of his brain where there are no words (the Amygdala) to the front part of his brain (the Neocortex) where he can process those feelings with words and rationalization.

Well, at least that’s the goal.  Granted, we don't always get to rationalization because hurt kids aren’t always able to process big feeling with words and rationalization.  Still, even when our kids can’t process those big feelings, the sand tray gives us an opportunity to verbalize what we see going on in their picture which is a snapshot of what is going on in their brain.

You might say something like, “This mom looks peaceful to me and her kids look like they're happy.  I know I want to be peaceful and I want my kids to be happy.”  Or, “They look like they want to kill each other.  That makes me wonder if they’re really angry about something that happened, or maybe if something bad already happened and they’re remembering how they were scared.”  When our kids CAN’T tell us about their sand picture, cues from a therapeutic parent can sometimes help them “get there.” Even if they end up saying, “NO!  That’s not what’s happening!,” we've still helped them begin to process.  In that case, we can say, “Oh, okay.  So, tell me what they’re really doing.”

While the child is involved in the work of making the picture, the parent does nothing but observe.  Answer any questions your child has with an open answer.  Ask, “What do you think?,” without giving your own opinion, as a way for your child to explore even more.  For our son, wanting to KNOW THE ANSWER was a big, stress-filled motivator for him.  Open-ended stuff like sand trays drove him batty at first because he needed to know the rules.  If there was any question, he didn’t want to appear as though he didn’t know the answer – the RIGHT answer.  It was freeing for him, though it was not without struggle, to get to a point where he realized that sometimes, there are no “right” answers.  Sometimes, things just “are.”  And sometimes, things can’t be fixed or righted.  However, we can process those things, move on, and try to learn some skills to help us navigate through life, maybe adapting those broken things so that they have a new purpose.

Holiday Homework

Halloween is over.  Yay!  Oh, how I’ve come to hate that holiday (more on that later).  It’s November 3^rd and the Christmas crazies have begun.  I’m not talking about the “normal” Christmas crazies – the holiday themed commercials on TV even before Halloween is over, or the trees and the lights up in the stores, or even the Facebook messages from annoying people who post things like, “Careful planning.  Check.  Watch for bargains throughout the year.  Check.  Christmas shopping finished.  Check.”  I’m talking about the over-the-top hyper, the grumpy, sullen, nasty attitudes, and the looks that could kill.  I’m talking about post-traumatic stress in my adopted children.

Whether or not your adopted child’s past involved hard things that happened around holidays, this time of year is pretty much a sure-fire prescription for elevated trauma reactions in your kids.  If your children were adopted internationally, you can add the post-institutionalized, Lord-of-the-Flies orphanage behaviors to it, too.  The holidays bring out the crazies in kids who’ve suffered severe trauma.  Consequently, they can also bring out the crazies for mama and papa, especially after a few years into parenting a child with PTSD, because you get to a point where you’re always on high alert, waiting for something else unpleasant to happen.

Okay, so by now, if you’ve been reading this blog since the beginning – way back to a few days ago -- you may be thinking, “Sheesh.  This Mama T lady sure is a Debbie Downer.”  Sorry.  ‘Just trying to be real, folks.  There is joy in the journey, don’t get me wrong.  But the journey isn’t a walk in the park.  It’s hard.  I wish someone would have told me how hard it could be five years ago.  I mean, REALLY told me.  I wish I’d been better prepared.  I wish I’d learned more before I adopted, so I at least had a head start.  You know -- a REAL head start.  Not just a little inkling.  Not the kind of inkling you have that tells you it’s not going to happen to your family, though you’re sorry to see it happen to anyone else.  I wish I had the kind of head start that gave me a chance to brace myself for when I got that first hard smack in the face of trauma.  That’s why I’m blogging about this.  I don’t want you to be smacked.  I want you to be ready with a quick block to that upper left that’s coming.

If you’re newly home with an older adopted child, like I was when the holidays came along that first year, you may not realize just how much this time of year can affect your child.  I wasn’t.  We’d been home just over two months when Halloween came that first year.  I never had a problem with having fun on trick-or-treat night.  I know there are some Christians that do.  I didn’t.  My older kids always went trick-or-treating and we always gave out candy.  We never did the ghosts, zombies, witches, blood and gore stuff, but we had fun with super heroes, hobos, pop-culture and even politics.  We carved pumpkins and we went to parades.  That first year home with our younger kids, we dressed them up and introduced them to American greed just like we had our older kids.  They seemed to love it.  I didn’t know them well enough at the time to know it scared the bejeepers out of them in ways they could never fully comprehend.  They didn’t have enough language ability to tell me about their nightmares, or that they were so distracted, they couldn’t remember how to do simple tasks.  They didn’t have the tools they needed to let me know they were overwhelmed. 

By the time Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled around, things were totally out of control.  I had no clue that it wasn’t just part of the normal adjustment of becoming part of a family.  I didn’t know I could have made it easier on them, and on us, by toning things WAY down, by not overloading them with sugar and “stuff,” and by shielding them from some of the rest of America’s crazy consumerism.  Instead, I helped feed their fears.  I aided and abetted the all-too-often older adopted child’s sense of entitlement.  I fed my wants, like giving my little girl a great big doll house and all the STUFF to go with it (because I never got one and always wanted one as a child).  It wasn’t that I didn’t know a little bit about how it’s important to keep a newly adopted child’s world small, especially that first year you’re working on initial attachment, it was that I didn’t want to believe any of the hard stuff would ever hit us.  I wanted to believe we’d make it through that first year of hard adjustments for everyone and then everything would be okay.  It would be our “new normal.”  I said that a lot.  “New normal.” 

The thing is, there is nothing “normal” about raising a child you did not give birth to.  I may be setting myself up here, but I do not believe it was “God’s plan” for our two youngest children to lose their biological family, including a sibling, and be adopted by us.  His perfect plan is for children to be raised in happy, healthy homes by their biological parents.  That’s what “normal” is.  We humans messed up normal and God’s perfect plan.  Free will and all that.  That leaves hurt people in the wake – including children who become orphans.  We humans are to blame for it, not God.  Thankfully, God gives us a second chance.  Adoption is a second chance.  BUT, it is NOT part of His original plan.  I think it’s really important for our kids that we acknowledge the loss in their lives.  It’s a huge loss.  It’s a trauma every adopted child has experienced, even those adopted domestically at birth by parents who agree to an “open” adoption.  It’s not “normal.”  So I’ve stopped calling our life a “new normal.”  It’s simply “our life” and we are presented with new joys and new challenges every day.  It’s a second chance.  God is indeed a god of second chances. 

While we made it through that first year home with our kids, and our lives changed, and we found what became our new routine (if there is a routine) of our new life, there was no new “normal.”  There will never be a “normal” for us.  We need to be aware in ways “normal” families never worry about.  We need to run interference for our younger kids in ways we never imagined while raising our older ones.  So, what are some ways to run interference and keep your adopted child’s world small during the holidays?  What are some things you can do to minimize the crazies?  Let’s start with Halloween, even though it’s past.  After all, some people will leave those pumpkins rotting on their front steps until December 24^th!

Halloween:  Stay home.  Hole up.  Snuggle up.  Watch a movie.  Celebrate being together.  If candy is a problem for your kids, don’t get it.  If it’s not, give them a bag of kiddie crack and remind them it’s a once-a-year indulgence.  If you have teens, talk about the gore.  They’re repelled by it and attracted to it at the same time.  They will watch the yucky movies every chance they get, even if you don’t allow it in your house.  And they will have nightmares like a four-year-old.  Expect your hyper one to be more hyper.  Expect your internal-processor to shut down and be even more surly.  Expect the looks that could kill.  Don’t take them personally.  You’re paying the dues on someone else’s investment of hurt in their lives.  But if you keep Halloween away as much as you can keep it away, the crazies will be less.  As the kids get older, you can talk about WHY Halloween is a trauma trigger for them.  You can talk about trauma triggers.  You can talk about the bad stuff.  Keep it age and development appropriate.  Your four year old won’t be able to process the same as he will when he’s 16.  But I guarantee you, he’ll still be processing trauma for years to come.

November 1^st:  Whenever possible, avoid taking your child to Wal-mart, Target or even the grocery store.  Do this through January 15^th, or whenever the Christmas left-over sales are done.  (Valentines stuff will be all over the place by then.  But I’ll save that for a later post.)  Plan to keep your child’s world small.  I’m sorry, American consumer, but there is no reason your 10 year old needs a smart phone.  And your 13 year old doesn’t need her own lap top.  Make the holidays about family and treasured memories together.  Develop traditions.  If your kids want to remember their birth country’s traditions, incorporate some of those.  (For some, these may also be trauma triggers.  They are for my kids so we avoid Eastern European traditions for the winter holidays.)  Make Christmas WAY less about the “stuff” and more about relationships (including a relationship with God).  Set a budget – a reasonable budget – and stick with it.  Let your kid make a wish list, but don’t get him everything on that list!  Don’t even get him five things on that list.  Three tops.  And remember what I said about smart phones and lap tops.

Many kids adopted from orphanages have a sense of entitlement rather than a sense of gratefulness, like people around us usually expect.  How many times has your kid heard, “Oh, you’re so lucky to be part of that family?  Aren’t you happy for all the things they’ve given you?”  (Yeah.  I know; it’s repulsive.  The thing is, it’s true.  They are lucky.  They are blessed.  At some point in time, they need to learn that.  And it’s okay for you to realize, mama and papa, that this kid is indeed lucky to have you – just as you are blessed to have them.)  My kids are not grateful.  They are competitive.  They keep score.  They notice when one sibling gets something and the other does not.  The youngest one has no idea why she shouldn’t have all the things her adult brothers have, including a car waiting for her in the driveway.  (Remember, she’s 13.)  They want.  Want.  WANT.  And when they get, they pay attention to that thing they wanted so badly for a day and a half, put it in the closet and forget about it – unless they’ve broken it before then.

“Things” did not need to be taken care of in their lives.  Things were disposable.  Nice things they got were stolen by "caregivers" and sold in the market place or given to the caregivers' own children.  Stuff broke all the time.  Missionaries and other nice people were always there to give them more stuff.  It came.  It went.  There was no gratefulness.  Momentary glee.  Sure.  But no lasting sense of being grateful.  Just a sense of more, more, more.  And that sense of more, more, more is fed to giant proportions when they make it home into a Western family, richer than 80% of the rest of the world – even those of us under the 6-figure income mark.

Another tip:  Don’t replace things they break.  Help them figure out how to fix it (if you want) or make them fix it themselves.  If it’s not fixable, they do without it.  My daughter has already DESTROYED a pair of boots this year because she wanted new ones.  The boots were in fine shape until I told her she wasn’t getting another pair.  So what now?  Now, she has a pair of boots that have been repaired with super glue.  If the glue fails and her feet get wet, so be it.  It’s not about the boots.  It’s about entitlement for her.  It’s about teaching her to be grateful for what she has for me.

Last tip (for now):  Keep the parties and the number of people in and out to a minimum.  Too much is too much for our kids.  Too many people coming and going is bound to set off trauma triggers.  Give them tools that work for them.  For my daughter, reminding her to “Stop.  Breathe.  Breathe again.  Think.  And then come back,” will often tone down the crazy hyper reaction to trauma triggers.  This is an adaptation of the old, "Stop. Think. Relax" cognitive therapy technique.

"Stop. Think. Relax." is a good tool for us trauma mamas, as well.  Sometimes we need to “Stop, breathe, breathe again, think and come back” to the crazies so we don’t get caught up in them ourselves.  Hang in there, friends!