Building Blocks

Every once in awhile (at least monthly) the need arises for heightened creativity; the kids get more savvy and up the ante and challenge the status quo of boundaries and discipline. This particular need has been evolving and developing for quite some time. The stick-my-head-in-the-sand-and-hope-it-blows-over strategy is failing. Time to yank up the bootstraps and wade into the deep.

Setting boundaries for kids is no fun. It squelches their freedom, it puts an end to the chaos, it impedes their natural bent toward curiosity and messy creativity.

Setting boundaries for kids who have come from a place of very loose or entirely no boundaries is not just no fun. It's hard, it feels mean. Boundaries and accountability feel scary, painful, and confusing to kids who have walked through trauma. These kids go from no one caring at all to feeling suffocated by rules. It backs them into corners, and more times than not they come out with swinging fists and hurtful words.

Earning the trust of traumatized kids is a long and hard road. Teaching them that they need to not only trust but be trust-worthy is a double-whammy. How, when children have been neglected and left to fend for themselves, are they supposed to believe that there will be food on the table for every meal, every day? After being abused and ignored, how are they to trust that any "parent" would treat them with care and concern? With adult role models who steal and lie to survive, why would any child see value in honesty?

One of our kids is used to no boundaries, no accountability, no consequences. For the better part of life this child saw abuse, denial, medication, and excuses as coping mechanisms. And now we are asking this child to leave that all behind and trust in a new and foreign systems of operation; an unknown and untried way of doing things with new parents who may or may not be just like the last set of parents.

Where do we start? How do we begin to build trust?

Honestly, it's been a year or so of trial and error. Progress has been made by our child, despite the way we seem to flail about sometimes; guessing at what might work better, or what consequence will cause the child to stop and think. And then we have weeks at a time where we are lied to at every turn, excuses are made and siblings and teachers are blamed, property is destroyed, and we are verbally attacked. Clearly this child feels backed into a corner and is coming out fighting - thank goodness there's still a fight. No fighting is a red flag; a danger signal (and a topic for another post.)

And so this weekend - with our child having destroyed any trust that we've built up in the past months - my creative juices started flowing. Another visual chart, a way for the child to see how trust works. How trust begins small: You have this chair to sit in. I trust that you will stay seated in that chair. And can grow: You have earned trust by doing what was expected; you may be on the main floor of the house where we can see you at all times. And then eventually (with three more steps in between) trust will be learned and built so that the child has all the privileges available to a child of that age.

To move from the chair the child will need to be trust-worthy on four different occasions. Like now, with the child in the chair while I am in the other room writing. Staying seated will earn the child one step toward trust. Each level will require more incidents of trust-worthiness. Sounds complicated, but when I look at my basic visual aid, I think it makes sense and awards trust builders: be truthful & honest, keep hands to yourself, respect property, do what is expected, complete school assignments, no excuses; rather than point out trust breakers: lying, destruction, excuses, dishonesty, blaming, and deceit.

This child is a smart cookie; you have to be to continually come up with ways to survive. Hopefully this child will soon be able to see that trusting is better than just surviving.

Finding the Words

We've adopted four children from four different situations. Some lived with their birth parents, some were neglected or worse, some had developed relationships with birth family members, some were bounced from place to place before landing here, all have been traumatized.

We are at the point of considering adoption number five - and we couldn't be more blessed. This adoption situation is as different as all the others, but equally as heart-breaking. This child is going to have any bonds - regardless how minimal and frayed - with the birth family severed.

This child is not aware of how close we are to adoption; and yet what a long journey it will be to get there. This child has watched other children come into our family and leave to be reunified with birth family or move into a forever adoptive family; as well as witnessed the most recent adoption of our son within our own family.

What words do I use? How do I explain that birth mother loves her child, that she loved the best she could - and I do believe that - when it is evident that support from family and community were lacking as well as birth mom's ability to access those supports. But birth mom has been out of the picture - no visits, no contact with case workers, no contact with her child - for the past nine months. Nine months...

What words do I use to communicate that birth mom's choices do not negate the worth of this child? That the hugeness of her silence in her child's life does not overshadow the determination and resilience of her child. How do I reassure this child that even though birth mom is absent in presence, she will never forget her child, her baby.

What words are there for me to appropriately express my frustration toward this birth mother? The hope against hope that she will suddenly "get it" and pick up the phone and call someone, ANYONE and step up and back into her child's life. Or the words of relief that maybe now that it's been nine months this is it, the end is in sight, no more popping in and out and making half-way efforts - enough to keep the court satisfied to give her "one more chance" or "a little more time."

Words are weighty and irreversible. They hurt and heal; weapons and balm. For this child, my child, who has already borne the brunt of unspoken words, the words that I speak need to be the right ones at the right time with the right intention. I feel the weightiness and the burden, as well as the healing and joy that those words might bring.