We've come to a few conclusions about last week. The first being that there is greater potential for unhealthy thinking and behaviours living inside Jumoke than we had previously thought. Controlling the boy was not helping him. It kept things from getting worse on the surface, but that's all.

The lid on the pot and all that.

Last week Jumoke had the boundries in his life lifted.  The home had a fun laid back atmosphere and he took advantage of it.

For whatever reason, Tim has some sort of authority in Jumoke's life.  He can keep Jumoke somewhat contained in ways that no one else can, including myself.  Tim isn't able to help him overcome his issues, but Jumoke has a respect for something about Tim that makes him listen at least when Tim is present. If Tim is gone (vacation, business trip, daily work), and Jumoke acts out.

So those are my superficial thoughts regarding why things went so haywire so quickly last week.

It should not be taken lightly, however, that Alex asked a number of friends to pray that Jumoke would act out at their house at some point in the 30 days so they could know if they could handle the boy permanently.  I could not join in that prayer.  I knew she needed to know, but that was something I could not pray.  However, she and many others did...and the Father heard. It was His mercy on her family I suppose. How awful if it turned out the agency considered them and gave him to them and then *later*, after adoption, they saw all the things they could not handle.

I remember over the last four years the many times Tim and I tried to figure out what we were doing wrong and tried different methods of parenting.

At a couple points, we wondered if our lifestyle was too stifling for Jumoke. Our other children seemed to thrive on the structure and expectations. But maybe we were stunting Jumoke's creative way of seeing things.  So we lifted the boundries. Allowed him great freedom. Watched for him to bloom under different circumstances.

We only did it twice. We ended up in horrible situations with Jumoke.  Lift the boundries, and he would run fast and furious for the horizon, destroying everything in his path.

Well, that didn't work.

We did the baby nurturing thing. Rocking him to sleep. Dressing him. Putting his daily lotion on him so that he could feel our gentle touch. Treating him tenderly as we would a precocious toddler, but still allowing him to be a 6 year old in his play. 

He soaked it up for a while, loving the attention. We really thought we were getting through to him.  But then after a few weeks he rejected the process completely.

We thought maybe we didn't do it well enough, maybe didn't respect his boyhood while treating him like a baby.  So we tried again when he was 7 years old, trying to respect his age while comforting the baby in him.  It was gladly recieved and enjoyed for a while, but again, he tired of it and pushed us away, rejecting the process completely.

We tried making sure he had enough physical exercise, enough sleep, changing his diet, working on his self-esteem, encouraging and praising the tiniest of successes and ignoring all but the greatest infractions. Tim and I were just remembering when we talked to a man who had a son who seemed like Jumoke. The man just kept loving him and being there, holding him tightly when things got out of control.  We respect that man and decided that was what Jumoke needed.  Maybe we just did it wrong.

The only thing that has made a difference is keeping firm control on his freedoms, and that only makes a superficial difference. Nothing changes inside him.

Tim has been reading a lot on reactive attachment disorders and talking to professionals, gleaning hints and ideas from them.  I'm usually the one to do the reading and the research in our house. But Tim has taken the lead on this one.

He said today that if he could work from home, being always present, he knows we could work with Jumoke and reach him.  I'm confident that if we didn't have the needs of the "normal" children to meet that we could work with and reach Jumoke.

I believe that we are the couple to do this job.

But Tim doesn't work from home and neither of us can see a way that he can. And we do have 7 other precious, fun, intelligent, loving children in our house.

Which means we are not the couple to do this job.