Options: When to Limit Them

The Princess hasn’t cooperated in therapy her last two sessions.  Both times, we’ve wasted our therapist’s time and our money.  She is going through a lot and has decided she must seize control of all situations in whatever ways she can.  We’ve tried all the therapeutic techniques we can, but little seems to be helping lately.  After her therapy session last week, I talked with our therapist.  I knew we couldn’t make The Princess participate.  I also knew the therapist wasn’t going to keep seeing her if she didn’t start working again.

Because we’ve been struggling, and because some of The Princess’ struggles have been public, community-based services were ramped up for her and for me this month.  She is considered “at risk.”  This means a couple of social workers are involved in our lives.  One of them saw her for an hour yesterday.  This social worker told The Princess that if she didn’t start cooperating in therapy, she wouldn’t be able to go to therapy any more.  (Yeah.  I heard you say, “UGH” just like I said it when she GLEEFULLY told me last night that she wouldn't have to go to therapy anymore, looking at me with a face that screamed, “Ha!”)

You know, there is a reason I didn’t tell The Princess about this option.  She NEEDS to work on some things.  I need help for her.  And I limit options I know are not good for her.

So, I talked.  I explained that her behavior lately was very concerning to me, her Dad, her brothers, and to our therapist and the social workers.  I explained that is why these people want to see her more often right now.  I explained why we have a medicine check appointment next week.  I explained that working through these things now, while she was young, was much better than trying to work through them later when she’s older.  I reminded her how adults behave who have unresolved issues.  I reminded her that she’s been hurt and that we can’t just bury that hurt inside – that it comes out in places like at the restaurant the other night and at the zoo last month.  I told her we all loved her and wanted the best for her.  I told her God loved her and had given us both some pretty specific instructions about how to behave with one another.  I also told her that I would not allow quitting therapy to be an option.  We would still do it, one way or another.

If you happen think of us, would you say a prayer for us from time-to-time?  Pray for The Princess' therapy appointment next week, as well as her med check appointment.  Pray she cooperates.  Pray for wisdom for me on how best to handle things with her.  I still have much to learn. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s): Our Adoption

An aside before I begin:  Many thanks to the reader who pinned (on Pinterest.com) my recent post about trauma and the young child’s brain.  This has made many more people aware of the effects of early childhood abuse and neglect, as my blog was read this week by several people who would not have sought a “trauma mama” blog out on their own.  Feel free to share this blog on Pinterest.com or other sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Okay, now for the post:

My husband and one of our college-aged sons visited a local, older lady recently.  We do not know her.  My guys were there to help her with a specific need.  Anyway, in that process, Hubby shared that two of our children were adopted from Eastern Europe.  Older Lady was very interested in this.  She thought it was “wonderful.”  She told my husband he was “a good person.”  Then, she pointed to our son and asked, “Is THIS one of THEM?”  Son told me he nearly peed his pants trying to hold in the laughter.  When he got outside and into our car, he and Hubby burst out laughing.  It wasn’t funny, but it really was, because we get strange questions and comments all the time about our adoption.  It is amazing how many of those strange comments and questions happen right in front of our children’s faces. 

“How old were they when you got them?”  (12 and 9.  Why do you ask?)  “Which ones are the adopted kids?”  (Why do you ask? -- And by the way, some of my children were adopted.  Adoption happens to be how they entered our family.  It does not define their state of being.)  “Do they speak English?”  (They understand every word you’re saying.)  “How are they adjusting?”  (Well.  Why do you ask?)  “Do they have psychological problems?”  (Why do you ask?)  “Do they have any diseases?”  (Why do you ask?)  “What happened to their real parents?”  (You mean their biological parents.  Why do you ask?)  “Why were they given up?”  (You mean why were they placed for adoption.  Why do you ask?)  “Why did they have to go to an orphanage?”  (Why do you ask?)  “How much did it cost?”  (Why do you ask?)  “Are you going to send them back when they are older?”  (Um, really?  I still don’t have a kind answer for that one.  Let me know, dear reader, if you have a good comeback for that one.)  “Are they U.S. citizens?”  (Yes.)  “Has it affected your real children?”  (You mean my biological children.  Yes, it’s affected them deeply.  They would like to adopt some day, too.)  “What did your parents think?”  (My parents weren’t involved in the decision to add any of our children to our family, but they love all their grandchildren.  Why do you ask?)

I answer a lot of questions with, “Why do you ask?”  I do this because some people ask questions simply to satisfy their curiosity.  Afterall, adoption is not “normal.”  People are curious about it.  However, some people ask because they are exploring the idea of adoption for their own family.  I want to be especially sensitive to those who may become adoptive parents themselves.  For the curious, I want to be kind whenever possible.  Most are well-meaning people, even if they are clueless, like Older Lady.

Positive Adoption Language

There are plenty of charts and articles on the web that deal with positive adoption language, so I won’t go into depth here.  I’m going to assume anyone reading this blog knows how to use Google or some other search engine.  What I will do is give you a chart below, showing common language vs. language more appropriate when talking about, or asking questions about, adoption.  Feel free to print it out or copy and paste it to your own blog:

Common Language	Positive Adoption Language
real parents	Birth/Biological Parents
real siblings	Birth/Biological Siblings
real siblings	Siblings
natural child/parent	Birth/Biological Child/Parent
adoptive parent	Parent
is adopted	Was Adopted
give up	Terminate Parental Rights
give away	Make An Adoption Plan
keep	Parent
track down	Search
unwanted	Waiting Child / Child Placed for Adoption
taken away	Court Termination

Constant Crazy Questions

Have any of my dear trauma mama friends noticed their kids tend to ask a lot of crazy/silly questions?  Does it seem to increase even more when you’re stuck inside the car with them?  I can pretty much guarantee every time I am alone in the car with The Princess, the questions will start.  Even when there are five of us in the car, she asks more crazy/silly questions than she does when she’s at home, for example.

Both of my hurt kids use questions to bait me into an argument.  

Kid:  “Mom, do you think it’s going to rain today?”  

Me, looking up at a lot of gray clouds in the sky:  “I don’t know, but it sure looks like it.”  

Kid:  “No, it’s not.  The weather man said it would just be cloudy.”  

UGH.  Those are questions to argue.  But that’s another topic and I’ll write about it on another post, later.

Remember, I raised four boys before bringing home The Princess and Youngest Son.  I’ve been through the silly questions stage a few times before.  With the older boys, however, constant silly questions stopped by the time they were about four years old.  The Princess experienced a great deal of her trauma at age three.  If kids get “stuck” emotionally at the age which trauma occurs, then the constant questions would be normal for her emotional development.  The thing is, I don’t want her to stay there.  (Selfishly, that’s for my sake more than it is for hers.  Okay, not really.  But yeah.  Kind of.)

We’ve taken to being silent when The Princess asks a silly question – one that doesn’t need an answer – one she can figure out herself – one she already knows the answer to, but just wants to hear the sound her own voice, so she asks.  Silence bugs the crud out of The Princess.  But silence helps her to realize she’s being silly.  Oh, she still tries to cover herself and does the baby voice and says, “What?  Why won’t you answer me.”  Still, we are silent.  (It’s usually about then that one of the boys [usually Youngest Son] will say, “Duh.  THINK about it!”)

One technique I read somewhere suggested parents give a child who asks constant questions a limit to the number of questions they can ask at a given time.  For example, say you’re driving across town.  You might give your child an eight question limit.  This will make them think (if they’re able) about whether or not they want to use one of their questions, or whether the thing they’re asking is worth their time (and yours).  I just may try that when I pick up The Princess from school today.  I haven’t thought about trying it for a while.  I think if we make a game out of it, and I don’t make it too big of a deal, she may actually start to think.  It’s worth a shot.

I also haven’t thought about why she may increase her questioning while riding in the car.  I realized today that her anxiety does indeed seem to increase when riding in the car.  She’s not usually obviously nervous, nor does she SEEM stressed out, but she does get more animated and she really does talk a LOT more in the car.  It could be the confined space.  It could also be that the first time she rode in a car at age three, she was being taken away from her first mother.  Riding in the car could be a trauma trigger.  What do you think?