Behaviors

We were taught in foster care training that every behavior meets a need.  Some children had mild behaviors, some motherate, and some children you just learn to keep in constant line-of-sight supervision.  They struggle so much with their feelings that it comes out in different ways.  Sometimes they just don't know any better or they are just acting out things that had been done to them or that they had seen before.  Of our 3 adopted children, I have one basic child (Grace) and 2 moderate (Joy and Christopher).  Christopher requires line-of-sight supervision at all times though.  Things are never boring around here.

We went to behavior therapy for maybe a year or slightly longer.  I needed some extra help.  2 of my children (Joy and Christopher) had ADHD with ODD (oppositional defiance disorder).  The psychologist there told us that they normally worked  with parents who lacked parenting skills and that we could be teaching that class.  They worked with our own individual family for a few months afterwards, but we didn't see much improvement so we quit going.

The more books that I read and other adoptive parents that I talked to, I really started to wonder if we were weren't dealing with RAD (reactive attachment disorder).  I began to look for an attachment therapist.  I e-mailed one in Austin, but he wanted to see us every other Friday for an hour for each child.  I didn't know how that was going to work with it being a 3-hour drive one way.  I've come to realize that therapists that treat this disorder are not easy to find and you kind of have to be willing to travel a bit.  I prayed about it and stumbled upon a blog of another adoptive parent here in TX.  She was parenting kids with RAD and was saying how much finding a good therapist would really help.  I e-mailed her and she helped me to find a couple more local therapists in my area.  I did some research and decided who I thought would be better for our family.

Christopher was really ramping up his agression and was lying more and more.  He would refuse to comply with even the simple things, he wouldn't leave his seatbelt on and he would unbuckle the girls.  He would throw fit and fit and hit, kick, and tip over furniture.  He would sneak things that he wasn't supposed to be into and break them.  He woudln't sleep at night and he heard everything even if you stepped on the carpet outside his door.  He blamed us when he got consequences.  He didn't connect his behavior to the consequence.  He could tell you what he should have done, but he'd never apply it.  He had no fear, no sense of danger, and was constantly moving and talking.  We had him in occupational therapy working on sensory needs, motor skills, and other delays that he had as well as behaviors.  Our therapist even told me at one point that if he was her only child, she wouldn't have any more and that whenever she had a bad day she thought of me and figured that if I could do it, she could do it.  I asked her if my house was really that bad and she said that she knew that we were doing all that we could to try and work on behaviors, but she knew that we had our hands full.

Joy was lying, stealing, and breaking things all of the time and getting in trouble at school with not wanting to do her work, but wanting to crawl around on the floor making animal noises and putting her hands on the other kids and she was always into everything.  That did settle down once we met with the teacher and she thought that she had ADHD although she wasn't allowed to say that.  I had my hands so full with Christopher, that I knew something was going on with Joy, but it wasn't to the extent that it was with Christopher.  We had her tested and started on meds and once her adoption also happened and she realized that we were telling her the truth, alot of the behaviors settled down.  She still struggled with being impulsive and fidgety and had a hard time focusing, but her behavior was definitely settling down.  The main thing that I was concerned about at that point was I noticed it took her a LOT of repetition to learn things.  It took her almost 3 years to learn colors, shapes, the alphabet and numbers and phonics and reading was a struggle.

Grace came to us at 23 months and majorly struggled with temper tantrums.  She wouldn't explore her environment.  She would scream if I put her down or had to go to the bathroom.  She either had to be in my arms or she played at my feet.  She cried and screamed all of the time.  Finally, a respite worker that we had at the time told me that she thought Grace needed to go in Mother's Day Out to work on knowing that I would come back as she screamed and cried so badly.  It took her almost a year to learn that.  However, she still struggles with crying and throwing temper tantrums over a lot of things.  I think it's anxiety related myself.  She also struggles with memory and not knowing certain words for things and so when she doesn't know the proper word for what she wants or what she's trying to express, she gets frustrated and starts to cry.  She also has been diagnosed with ADHD.

All of my adopted littles struggle with ADHD.  Christopher has RAD.  My girls have attachment issues, but nothing severe like Christopher.  Christopher also has PTSD, is on the autism scale with PDD (pervasive development disorder) and just last week we added another diagnoses due to him having hallucinations and delusions of psychoses nos and due to all the behavioral problems at school, he will be starting to go to the behavioral unit in a couple of weeks.  Time will tell what the psychoses diagnoses will turn into.

I continue to pray for God's healing and we continue to go to therapy and different doctors appts to address various needs.  Each day brings blessings and trials and I will talk about them here.  One day God will show me what His plan is and how He is going to turn it all around for good.  I firmly believe that.