Surviving an older child adoption

It's been months since I've posted on my blog. I'm not sure if anyone still reads it but I wanted to give an update and talk more about adopting an older child. I also find it helpful to myself to come back and read where we have been so I can gauge just how far we've come. I've been silent for months now because things have been really overwhelming here and once again, I didn't feel I had any thing productive or nice to say. I have since decided that even if what I say isn't nice, some of it needs to be said just to get it off my chest and those of you considering this path need to hear it so you can be prepared. As older child adoptions go, ours has been difficult but not as bad as some of the horror stories I've heard. A (11) and M(4) have done absolutely wonderfully and have not had any issues what so ever. I think a large part of that has to do with their personalities and the amount of resiliency they have.

M (14) on the other hand did well at first but once the reality of the permanency of her situation sunk in, her behavior has continued to decline. I have hesitated writing about all of this, partly because I do not want to embarrass M... but I am to the point where I believe that there may be someone out there who needs to hear it. Maybe it will strike a chord with someone... maybe it's you and you are going though the same thing... maybe you are considering adopting an older child and this will help you to know what to expect. I know that God has us go through things for a reason and many times it's so we can share our testimony and help someone else. My heart is totally sold out on adoption and my intention is not to scare anyone away from it.
I am going to be painfully honest here in hopes that what we have experienced will in someway help someone else.

We basically had 4 months of hell with M. Jealously, stealing, lying, cheating, anger, manipulation, you name it, some or all of it was all a daily occurrence. She was so hateful and rude to me, it got to the point where I didn't even want to wake up in the morning and face another day knowing it would be more of the same. I reached the point where I was so beaten down that I honestly didn't care if she left our house and we never saw her again. I felt blank inside. My dear husband was so stressed out trying to meet the needs of M, Se and myself that he could hardly sleep at night. We felt like emotional hostages in our own home. The manipulation abilities of this child are really unbelievable, J and I both had to be on guard every minute of the day. At one point we actually listed her behaviors on paper to help us to see all the little games she was playing. We had to work really hard at not letting her come between us as a couple and to remain connected to each other. Thank God for my Mom who watched the kids so we could have a couple of date nights, where we could talk openly and with out interruption. We tried to find a counselor in our area but failed. It felt hopeless to me, but I'm so gald we persevered.

As we read books on attachment, things started to make more sense and we started being able to see things differently. We got so we could see the bad behaviors cycling and we could predict what she would try to pull next. Journaling all of this was essential to my sanity and my ability to take it all in a less personal way. I found that many attachment books have the same thing in common, and that is encouraging the parents to detach themselves and not react. The experts say that a child who is hurting will try to hurt others in order to make themselves feel better. In the book When love is not enough by Nancy L Thomas, she talks about this and how we as parents view these unacceptable behaviors. If we view them as a threat, an attack on us personally, our other children, our home or our possessions, we come to think of the child as our enemy. If we respond in anger, the child feeds off from that and is therefore getting there need to hurt others met (I know that seems sick but it's really a subconscious thing). If on the other hand, if we view the child's behaviors as a warning sign (like "danger") we can strive to maintain a proper sense of perspective. If we can see them as waving warning flags that say "help me!, help me!" we can look at them with compassion instead of anger and that can enable us to react in a way that will make a positive influence on their life instead of adding to the negative.
I honestly have to admit that I viewed M as a threat and an enemy. I felt justified in my anger towards her because I had done absolutely nothing to deserve the way she treated me. I could not tolerate the way she would manipulate the younger children, telling them not to talk to me and Se (16) and not to love us anymore. My mother bear came out every time that happened!! I was so drained and depleted, the only way I survived all of this was to cry out to God on a daily basis and beg him to fill me and give me the grace to get through one more day.

Over and over again, God would bring me to Romans 12: 9-21 these are the words that spoke to me... "love must be sincere" , "honor one another above yourself", "bless those who persecute you", "be patient in affliction", "do not repay evil for evil" and most of all "heap burning coals". In the foot notes of my bible it says that "forgiveness breaks the cycle , even if the other person never repents, forgiving the person who has offended you will free you of a heavy load of bitterness." M has never once apologized to me for anything, not for lying, stealing , cheating, treating me like dirt... forgiving her even when she is not showing any repentance has been an extremely difficult thing for me to do. Maybe that's pride on my part, I don't know, but God has been doing an amazing work in my life.

The healing of my heart has been slow and over time as I am learning to forgive and look at her as a hurting child instead of an enemy. One thing that really helped me was to sing (and trust me, I am not a good singer !), Micheal W. Smith's song Mighty to Save spoke volumes to me. I started singing it out loud every time I could feel the tension and anger building inside of me.
It's funny how that worked, because then M would start singing it out loud too and it wasn't long before she had it memorized and it became her favorite song.
I started to think of ways to "heap burning coals" on M as a game. No matter how nasty she was to me or how she tried to insult me, I would try to smile and reply with "thank you!". After awhile I noticed she was using this same tactic with her siblings as they teased her or irritated her.
J and I had to start getting really creative with our discipline and tried to instill reality type of tactics with her. We recently made a list of desired behaviors (for all of our kids) and the consequences for breaking our house rules. This has taken a huge load off from me and has helped me to respond in a way that is fair to everyone and to do it in a way that is calm and not out of the frustration of the moment. We have been trying to bring scripture into every disciplinary discussion so that we can show M that we aren't just being hard on her or picking on her but that God has clearly written these things in His word as a way to guide us so that we may become "blameless and pure children of God". Slowly but surely, all of these things are working.
M still will not open up to us about her relationship with her birth mother or her life before the orphanage. But we pray that in time, she would come to look at us as Mom and Dad and she will trust us enough to open up to us. Meanwhile, consistency is the key and it's exhausting.

Things are much better than they were but no where near perfect. Christmas was actually quite difficult. We just had to keep reminding ourselves that her behavior towards us was just a reflection of the pain she felt inside and it wasn't a personal assault on us. We pray that next Christmas will be better and that the year 2010 will bring healing for all if us.

For those of you who read this and pray for our family, Thank you, seems like such a small thing to say...Your prayers really mean the world to us!!

Beth ~