Our five year old daughter has been home since June of 2012, and from the moment we met her in China, we felt a huge sense of relief that
she was such an enjoyable little girl.
We had heard about children who display
what is commonly referred to as “orphanage behavior” and to be honest, we felt
like we had dodged a bullet because our daughter was obedient, in control of herself,
and kind to others.
Until about five
months ago…
It seemed like it came out of the blue, but we started to
notice that meal times were more of a struggle with Julia’s behavior than they
had ever been. She started putting her
hands into her food, hitting whoever she could reach, making a huge mess, and
basically had regressed to the level of a toddler. It was frustrating, and we
tried the traditional parenting methods that we had used with our two homegrown
children to no avail. She seemed to get worse!
Riding in the car became a nightmare with hitting, yelling
loudly, and destroying toys or the occasional takeout cup. Again, time outs and
punishments didn’t seem to make a dent in the mountain of misbehavior that we
were experiencing, and again, rather than improving, her behavior seemed worse
after consequences.
When we stayed home, things were no better. If Julia was
ever out of my line of vision, she was more than likely in her brother’s or
sister’s rooms getting into their things and leaving a trail. I could locate
her by the sound of her out-of-character, high pitched laughter- not a joyous
sound, but one of mischief.
School was a major frustration at this point. She was often in trouble, missing out on
activities and being sent to the office.
At bedtime, she started to beg me not to make her go to school the next
day. This was so unlike her!
What had happened to our sweet, easy-going daughter? Had
life to this point just been a honeymoon of sorts, and was this the real girl
beneath the facade? We were worried,
exhausted, and also very sad. We missed the daughter we had brought home
fifteen months earlier.
In a bit of desperation, I pulled out my copy of The
Connected Child by Karyn Purvis, dusted it off, and began to read it. I had
read it months before we even traveled for Julia, but many of the concepts had
gotten lost in the realities of jet-lag and life with a new four year old. Now I read it with fresh eyes searching for
answers and solutions.
The Connected Child is an amazing book! It was written for those who parent children
from hard places, but the ideas and methods are equally appropriate for the
child who has been nurtured since birth.
As I read, I started to practice the concepts presented. Each time I used one of the techniques
outlined in the book and it would work, I was pleasantly shocked! We were starting to make some headway with the
negative behaviors that we were experiencing, but honestly it was exhausting! Was this our new normal? I won’t lie to you.
We were still discouraged and missing our sweet, fun daughter.
Our epiphany came on Christmas day, which seems rather
appropriate because it was almost like a gift to us. We got together with
family for the day, and when we entered the house, we were greeted by a large,
friendly dog. Julia scrambled up my arms
until she was almost perched on my shoulder. After a bit, the dog was removed
from the room, but I noticed a huge change in Julia’s behavior. While I was
holding her she started hitting me in the face, pulling at my sweater,
repeating nonsense words, and generally acting completely out of control. As I restrained her hands and tried to calm
her, I remembered something that I had read in The Connected Child the
week before.
“Youngsters… can be physically safe
in their new adoptive home, but past traumas encoded within their brains are
easily reactivated. Hunger, abuse, or
abandonment that occurred months or years ago can still trigger terror, which
in turns leads to out-of-control behavior. Chronic fear is like a schoolyard
bully that scares children into behaving poorly. Parents might easily confuse
fear-based outbursts with willful disobedience, but they are not the same thing
at all.” (pp. 47-48, The Connected Child, 2007, Purvis, Cross, and Sunshine)
Wondering if this could be a fear-response, and feeling a
little desperate, I took her to a bedroom downstairs, closed the door, and sat
on the edge of the bed with her. I cradled her like a baby and began to rock
her and talk softly to her. I told her
in very simple language that she was safe and that daddy and I would take care
of her. I reassured her that we would hold her all day if she needed us to and
reminded her that the dog was very friendly with children. Within minutes, she
calmed down and was ready to go back upstairs. The dog was kept in another room
for the rest of the day, but whenever he was mentioned Julia would begin to
unravel. A little bit of reassurance
whispered in her ear brought her back. It was amazing!
Over the next several days I thought about this new-found
discovery. I realized that there was a direct correlation between her begging
me to keep her home from school and the timeframe of when her negative behavior
started at home. The questions that I
asked led me to believe that she was really struggling with fear at school. She
was caught in a vicious cycle that began with her noncompliance, resulting in
negative consequences, triggering a fear-response of out-of-control behavior,
leading to more penalties, and so the cycle went. Her teachers tried some positive
reinforcement strategies at school, but her fear was just transferred to her
concern for her friends who were getting negative consequences. (The “negative consequences” mainly included a
check on the behavior chart and lost recess time.) Please don’t misunderstand. My
goal is not to speak poorly of her teachers or school. Her classroom was probably no different than
most, and her teachers loved their students. But we finally came to the
conclusion that this was not the best situation for Julia.
Since pulling her out of school and enrolling her in a
preschool with a play-based environment, her behavior has changed
dramatically. She is no longer
functioning on a high level of anxiety, and while we still deal with behavior
issues, they are age-appropriate and much more easily modified. As she has relaxed,
her sweet, fun, silly personality has returned. We have our girl back!
Now that we’ve identified the results of fear on our
daughter, we've begun to notice the fear response when we see it creeping into
our home. Sometimes it masquerades as a
wild, silly girl who won’t stay in her bed at night. Recently, it appeared in
our car as we drove up north for the funeral of a dear family member. It was
camouflaged by the repetition of potty words, screaming, hitting, and
cackling. A simple, “Is something
scaring you?” and other such leading questions, coupled with the resulting
dialogue and lots of reassurance, usually was all it took to diffuse the
situation.
Recognizing and having strategies to eradicate the fear
response in our daughter has been life-changing for our family. I felt compelled to share our story, not to
expose our daughter or to reflect negatively on those who have worked with her,
but to communicate that there might be another option when it comes to poor
behavior. Perhaps there is a family who is struggling with behavior issues like
we were and is searching for an answer. Perhaps there is a child being punished
for behavior that is more of a reflex than willful disobedience. Maybe fear is involved? As we’ve found, it doesn’t always present
itself in typical fashion- trembling, crying, hiding, etc. Fear is a master of disguises and we’ve come
to realize that it’s our responsibility to recognize it in its various forms
and replace it with a strong feeling of safety and security.
Every. Single. Day. She said those words with the most serene, happy look on her face, and she would usually be holding my hand, so she would snug up on my arm and melt into me. What a treasure! What a treat to hear those words even when I had made mistakes or mishandled situations earlier in the day. When we were playing together or taking a walk, just spending time together, inevitably she would look up at me with her dark brown eyes and speak her happiness into my heart. "I'm so glad to have a mommy and daddy!"
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