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1. You have a child who does the exact opposite of what you say ALL the time. In fact, this child will repeatedly do everything you tell them NOT to. 2. You have a child who can chew the same bite of food for at least an hour. 3. You have a child who, after taking that hour to swallow the bite of food, will vomit it up and chew it again later (especially during "cuddle time" with Mom)....you know, kind of like a cow chews the cud.... 4. Your child refuses to eat or eats massive quantities of food until they are crying because it hurts (and still wants more). 5. You have a child who tells you that "you are a mean Mom", "I don't like you", "this is a poo-poo family" or worse, depending on the negative vocabulary they have been introduced to. 6. You have a child who has been potty trained for a long time but still chooses to put their pee and/or poop in places outside of the bathroom at least once, but probably more like multiple times, a day. We aren't talking "accidents" here. 7. You've seen your child reach down the back of their pants and smear something on the table.. 8. You have a child who has done the above and you have had to respond by saying "WOW, that is such a cool new hobby you have, maybe you could practice it in your room for a half hour so you can be the best butt-crack germ smearer in the world!".. 9. You have a child who has emerged from the bathroom and suddenly decided they want to rub your bare arm or leg (when they normally don't want to touch you). Perplexed, it finally dawns on you that this probably wasn't a friendly gesture. 10. When faced with the above, you had to respond by saying "Here's my arm, if you want, you can spend the next 15 minutes rubbing "potty germs" on it. You might even run to the bathroom and (pretend to) join in the fun. You now escort your child to the bathroom to make sure he/she is not "sharing" any more. 11. Your child regularly threatens to break things, tries to break things (like windows etc.), or run away. Possibly attracts the attention of neighbors while trying to break the window out of the door. 12. You own a door alarm and a security camera because of the above problem (and the below problem). 13. You've found your child playing "the mommy bear kills the baby bear" with your 2 year old. 14. You've had to hold your raging child against her will so no one else would get hurt. I could go on and on here....there are even some worse behaviors that we (praise God) have not experienced but others have....setting fires, mutilating animals-you know....that kind of stuff. (All of the things in the numbered list are our personal experiences) But I'll stop! The reason for this list is just to vent my frustation over other people's reaction to an attachment challenged child. Sometimes, it is even more frustating dealing with these people than it is to deal with Leona's behaviors. I just don't know what they are thinking sometimes! Do they not see the 9 other "normal" children in our family? Don't they see that one out of those 9 is also adopted and doing well? Do they think that we just single out Leona and not let her have any "fun" because we don't like her (Well, she really DOES make it hard to like her!!)? Don't they know what happens when they say she is a "good girl" or "well behaved"? (Once when this happened, she made SURE she wasn't being good by wetting her pants, purposely throwing up on herself and completely losing it!..I hope we're past this point!) It is true that she is always with me (no Sunday School, junior church, no VBS classes unless Eric or I are with her). This is all she can handle for now. She needs to learn what it means to be in a family and receive love first of all. She is emotionally more like a 2-3 year old and that is how she is treated because that is what she needs, not because we want to be mean to her! She DOES get to have fun, just not a lot of fun around people who aren't in our immediate family. That is too stressful for her.. Mostly "fun" for her consists of playing blocks, playing with her doll, coloring, jumping on a trampoline. Keep in mind she doesn't get to roam the house, I KNOW where she is at all times and she needs to stay where I put her. She usually has playtime for an hour or so in the morning and afternoon. It took her months to be able to have this much fun! I know that sounds weird but she was so angry that all she wanted to do was battle and would sabotage any efforts for fun. The nicer we were to her, the more angry she got! When she first started handling little spurts of fun, it was always followed by A LOT of anger! But, praise God, she has even recently been able to do new things like play in the yard with her siblings (supervised!) and even try riding her 2 wheel bike and she did well. OK, I'm done with my ranting.....Now for more of an update: Recent setbacks: I gave Leona something with a little milk in, thinking that the gluten-free, milk-free diet wasn't that important. She had a week and a half of wetting episodes! One day, she even wet 3 times! Yikes! A few days here and there where she got mad and refused to obey. Still not on as large a scale as before. Mostly lasted a few hours each time. Recent progress: I've been able to verbally correct her successfully without her doing the behavior I asked her to stop 500 more times to make me mad! She has stopped wetting again. (No more milk!!!) This could be in part due to our new "game" where Daddy, Josephine and I get a sticker on our part of the game each time she wets her pants. The other teams include lying, new "hobbies" (see number 8 above), and disobeying. They have lots more stickers than we do (we picked these teams carefully!). Interestingly enough, She has even stopped using her "potty bucket" at night/early morning and is just waiting until I come to get her each morning to use the bathroom. She even said she doesn't need the bucket anymore and so she has not had it in her room for about 4 nights. She was not feeling well and came to me for comfort. This is from a girl who fell ALL the way down the stairs and got up and walked back up them by herself-no tears, nothing. She has said "i love you" a few more times and it hasn't been followed by any major downward spiral. (just a note, she has also tried the "I love you" for manipulation too!). She sometimes stops in the middle of saying "i love you" and just can't finish. I tell her that it's OK if she can't say it and it's even Ok if she doesn't love me because I still love her and, even better, God loves her. She smiles a lot more and seems happier. Her angry glare has been replaced by what we call her "duck face" when she is upset. She prays and asks God to help her learn about love. I even heard her say "Thank you for giving me this family"......whoa! There is so much more I could say, I just don't seem to have the time! Again, I want to thank all of you for your prayers for us in this difficult situation. Keep up the great work!
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Posted by Anonymous
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