There is nothing more fascinating to me than the study of human behavior. Since I have become a mom, I have naturally become passionately interested in what has shaped behavior in my children. Because I wasn’t present for their early childhood, and they both suffered neglect and abuse, it has become the ongoing quest of my life to try and figure out:
How early neglect and abuse affect behavior
How one can overcome the effects of early abuse and neglect
There is a popular notion among some adoptive parents that LOVE is enough. Our kids need love, vitamins, and maybe a good vigorous soccer practice and they will be just fine. However, those of us who see baffling and disturbing behavior in our children understand that ignoring the irregularities in a child’s behavior and not digging for answers is the worst sort of denial.
I was one of those people, for a long time, who was an ostrich. I buried my head in the sand and hoped that I could just love my kids and give them a “normal” American life, and things would right themselves. I was wrong, of course. Seeing how they blossomed under the care of the therapist taught me so much.
I’ve recently seen behaviors in my kids that upsets me, but much of it is “unbloggable.” I walk a fine line between my need to spill my guts here and my kids’ need for some privacy. As they get older I am trying to respect their privacy more.
The hardest part of mothering older adopted children is to pull back from your own hard-wired emotional responses and try to be detached and cool about discipline. I was raised by parents were who strict disciplinarians. My father simply didn’t put up with disobedience or disrespect. My mother was less harsh, but there were lines in the sand that my brother and I knew better than to cross, ever. As we grew up, they relaxed a bit.
However, I never would’ve dreamed of telling my parents “No” when they asked me to do something. My kids tell me “no” all the time. Then I have to try and decide how to respond. My first instinct is to yell and scream. The therapist said to just remain calm and say something in a sad voice like “Well, I’m sorry you can’t help me with this, because now you will not be allowed to go to the pool” – or whatever. Easier said than done.
What got me to pondering all this is that I am reading a fascinating book called “Mindsight, the new science of personal transformation,” by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. The jacket blurb says the book is a way to “focus attention on the internal world of the mind in a way that will literally change the wiring and architecture of the brain.”
You should look the book up on Amazon if you have any interest in it. http://www.amazon.com/Mindsight-New-Science-Personal-Transformation/dp/0553804707/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283027158&sr=1-1
I fully believe it is possible to re-wire your own brain.
I know this to be true in my own life: what you tell yourself becomes your truth. I have to remind myself of that occasionally. I used to have a tape in my head that ran frequently, and went something like this “you’re short, fat, and stupid. You will never amount to anything. Nobody will ever love you.” Finally I decided to just stop that tape, and stop beating myself up emotionally. One reason is that I would hear that tape a lot in the car on the way home from work, and I would stop and buy a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and a bag of potato chips, and that was dinner. Controlling my weight was never really possible for long.
So I don’t say those things to myself any more. Sometimes I hear a faint echo of that in my head, but I squelch it. I am still fat, but I am not unloved or unworthy. Becoming a mom gave me a real reason to live, a purpose in life. My secondary purpose, but one I am still passionate about, is to advocate for the adoption of older kids.
The thing that I keep wondering is how I can help my children to stop feeling unloved or unworthy, or whatever it is that keeps them from being confident and contented. They both suffer from a lack of confidence. I had to punish Michael for not talking to his teacher the other day, but when he found the courage to talk to the man, it went well. I said to Mike about 6 times over the course of several days “He is there to help. He wants you to succeed in English. He is not going to be mean.” Michael had to learn that for himself, though.
Michael is profoundly frightened by ALL new experiences. I had to fuss hard at him to get him on the bus to summer camp the first summer, and he was furious with me. Then he had a great time.
Watching my kids learn things for themselves is really hard. Michael is trying to teach himself to do a flip off the diving board. He keeps coming home sore and bruised and abraded, but he insists he is going to keep trying to learn.
I had to say to Alesia the other day after a run-in, “There are two ways to learn, Alesia. You can listen to me, or you can learn from Experience. Experience is a much meaner teacher than I am.”
I cannot draw any really satisfactory conclusions here. I just wanted y’all to know what occupies my mind a lot right now. I will probably post about this book again, as I go through it.
If anyone else wants to read the book and trade notes or ideas with me, I’d welcome that.
[The secondary thing I keep thinking about is how much I need to give my room a thorough cleaning and that’s not such an interesting topic, huh?! I have so.much.junk.I.don’t.need. I am a closet hoarder. Don’t tell anyone.]
