Sometimes my friends’ children have similar issues to mine, but their children are biological or adopted at birth, and this confuses them. One conclusion some parents make is that our son’s issues are typical, not adoption-related after all. Another conclusion, however, is that these issues could come up with a biological child as well, and here’s how.

Essentially, the gains we’ve made in Little Dude’s behavior are from altering our parenting approach to address past trauma to his brain, which causes altered neurochemistry – creating a neurochemistry of fear, in which Little Dude is easily triggered into a “fight, flight or freeze” stress response. In our case, this is related to his adoption, but there can be any of six causes for this. Continue reading →

Oh, yes they do, and stop calling me Shirley! The IRS offers a tax credit to help defray the cost of adoption, and they’ve made some changes this year. Instead of allowing families to carry the adoption credit over to the next year, they will write you a nice fat check and give it to you all at once… Or will they?

Is the IRS targeting adoptive families?

In point of fact, we submitted our tax return in early March, and we are still waiting. They gave us part of our refund… minus the amount that would have been from the Adoption Tax Credit. A few weeks later, we received a letter requesting more information. We know three other families locally who had the same experience.

It’s hard to know what this means – are adoptive families an official target? I can’t find anything concrete on that. However, even if it’s unofficial, it’s certainly annoying and it doesn’t have much basis. With our initial tax return, we were required to submit a copy of our official adoption decree, and we were required to submit our taxes in hard copy (not e-file). Thus, they have proof that our adoption is “real.”
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We live near a Fedex distribution center, and I frequently get to see the trucks lined up in the morning to deliver their packages. Sometimes I’ll see 8 or 10 trucks, all filled with packages that someone is looking forward to: it’s like an army of happiness. It always gives my spirits a little lift, just thinking of what might be in there….

Somewhere, there’s an old guy, waiting for that elusive part for the muscle car he’s rebuilding. Or a kid waiting for the video game he saved up for and got on eBay. Or a military family, waiting for a care package from home. Or a sales guy, waiting for his signed deal to come in.

Sure, there are probably some nasty-grams in there, but who cares? For me, FedEx trucks always bring something I want.

This is one of the core philosophies of ADOPTS filial therapy. It makes sense, right? How many times have you been annoyed by your child, only to have him come down with a cold a few days later? At first, playing with my Little Dude to get him to obey seemed severely counter-intuitive. In actuality, there is a very strong, if indirect, correlation, as follows:

… and by the way, same goes for adults! As adults, our communication options open up a lot: we use words, body language, tone, actions, etc. The principle, however, remains the same – we we feel understood, we feel better. When we feel better, we’re better parents, spouses, siblings, coworkers, etc. Continue reading →

Trends in the world of adoption affect how and who gets adopted.

Legalization of abortion meant that fewer infants were available, creating more demand and paving the way for open adoption as an incentive for birthmothers to choose an adoption plan. Adoptive parents who were uncomfortable with the open concept began to adopt internationally because international adoptions are almost exclusively closed, and in fact very little information is known about the birth family.

A new trend has appeared in which foreign countries are becoming more interested in “domestic” adoption – that is, keeping orphans in their birth country via adoption by nationals. Putting all of this together, adoption of older children from the US foster care system has become a more viable option, and I’m excited about that.

In many ways, adoption from the foster care system is more similar than people realize to international adoption. Children adopted internationally are usually older than infancy, for many reasons, such as the time required to complete the referral and relinquishment process. These children often spent their early years in an orphanage, and even the best orphanages simply can’t provide the level of care required to prevent attachment and developmental issues. So, in point of fact, international adoptees and domestic foster adoptees often grapple with similar issues. Continue reading →

Yesterday, I was racking my brain to figure out how to get Little Dude to tolerate his play therapy. After 2 1/2 months of his complaints, I finally tried something that worked, and he more than tolerated it: we had a great time. {happy dance}

The return of goodness.

Here’s the thing: I’ve been reading this book (Child Parent Relationship Therapy) and the aim of the therapy is improved closeness between parent and child, as well as increased playfulness with your child. Other moms in the book talk about enjoying their child more and having fun in the play sessions.

As I was reading those parts, I was thinking, “Am I doing the same play therapy?” My experience has been increased friction between my son and me, and the play sessions had become a grind – not fun, but work, and not even fun work, lately. I began to feel resentful that all these other women were having fun, but not me, and then I began to feel determined to get.my.fun! {I am woman – hear me roar!} Continue reading →

I’ll bet that’s the first time you’ve heard someone say “don’t praise your child” in this post-Dr. Spock era! I came across this advice in my readings the other day, and the gist of it is this: encouragement seeps into you little one’s psyche, and becomes the foundation of self-esteem, whereas praise tends to sit on the surface and have only a fleeting value.

Re-defining Praise and Encouragement

To explain further, let’s look at slightly new working definitions of praise and encouragement.

Praise is a non-descriptive and evaluative statement, using words like wonderful, good, great, beautiful. Praise is about what you think about the child.

Encouragement is an acknowledgment of time, effort, and hard work. Your child can internalize and integrate encouragement into his concept of himself. Continue reading →

I was violently ill recently (all better now), which gave me a chance to renew my appreciation for my typical good health… and for nurses. Here are three valuable resources for medical advice for yourself and your kids. These are especially useful in the middle of the night, as they are “open all night.” Continue reading →

For the first half of ADOPTS training, my son seemed to like our special play times, and we saw some neat changes in his behavior. Then… something changed. Now, he complains about the sessions when we’re there, and if I say similar things when we’re not there, he complains about that, too. Great – just what I needed: more complaining.

So, I’ve started doing some research on filial therapy – the official name of what we do in ADOPTS training. Basically, I’m trying to come up with some troubleshooting steps as to what could cause a child to dislike play therapy.

Reasons Children Dislike Play Therapy

1. Parent talks too much: our job as parents is to speak reflectively about the child’s actions, but if we just spout a constant stream of chatter, we risk sounding like a sports commentator. This has a distancing effect. A sports commentator is not playing the game – they are up in a booth, far from the action. The goal of this process is connect more intimately with the child, so your child could be reacting to this implied distance.
2. Parent talks too little: our job as parents is to speak reflectively about the child’s actions, but if we just say nothing, the child feels “watched,” and not in a good way. If we are sitting there like a person in the audience of a stage play, there is, again, a perception of distance: the guy in the audience may love the play, but he is not connected to the people on the stage.
3. Child senses a change in power structure: a major goal of play therapy is for the parent to regain control, while at the same time encouraging the child to become responsible, independent and self-controlled. Coming into the situation, the child has used his or her behavior to get some predictable reaction from you, the parent. Now that you are managing your own reactions better, this takes away some of the child’s past abilities to get you to do things by pushing your buttons, and they may not like that.
4. Child feels like they are in trouble: if you have a child who is attempting to heal from past trauma, he is likely to be very sensitive to changes in routine or environment, and also fearful of same. The “special” play times can trigger these fears, as they sense a difference in the way Mom or Dad is behaving and/or increased anxiety in the parent because the parent is stressed about learning all these new skills.It’s possible, then, that your child draws some painful conclusions about the play times. For example, they may think that they are “in trouble” and the play time is the punishment. In some cases, adopted children can even wonder if they are going to be adopted again, because they realize that you are seeing a social worker, and the last time they met a social worker was when you adopted them. Scary stuff.

How do you figure out why your child complains about filial therapy?

Well, this is where it gets hard, right? You have to be in tune with your child’s feelings, as well as your own feelings and behaviors. It becomes very murky, what with all the feelings going around. For instance, I tend to talk too much in the sessions, and my husband tends to talk too little, yet my son seems to like play times with my husband much better, so is he just upset about the loss of his own power in the play times with me? Or, is he freaked out by the whole process, thinking he’s in some kind of trouble?

It becomes a matter of trial and error, asking questions of yourself and the child. Our Little Dude is adamant: any time we ask, he says he doesn’t like “the rules” and he wishes I would “not say anything” in the play time, just let him do what he wants. Meanwhile, on my side, I find the playtimes stressful as I attempt to say and do the right things. I find it difficult to be interested in what he’s doing, at the same time as I feel somewhat hurt that he never invites me to do it with him. I struggle to “be myself” in the play times, because the whole thing is so foreign to me. I’m not sure I played much when I was a child, let alone now, as an adult. I read for entertainment and always have – not exactly interactive!

Work on yourself first.

I have been trying to talk Little Dude out of his negative feelings about play therapy, but to no avail. He’s got his story and he’s sticking to it. I realize that I will have to go back to basics: we can’t control other people (even our children), we can only control ourselves. The stress that I feel as a parent attempting to implement filial therapy and the associated skills is not uncommon. According to A qualitative study of filial therapy: Parents’ voices, parents surveyed said that “their parenting stress decreased; however, the stress due to personal awareness and efforts to appropriately apply the new skills increased.”

So, the stress is common, and my stress makes me less pleasant to be around, and I can only control myself. The obvious conclusion is that I need to decrease my stress surrounding these play times. If I am dreading the sessions, why would he look forward to them?

For ideas, I’ve been reading Child Parent Relationship Therapy, and by reading the different experiences of other parents in filial therapy, I’ve seen several areas of potential stress release.

1. I’m not a failure if he doesn’t ask me to play with him. It’s his play time, and he can do what he wants. He may get a great deal of value from me just watching him, since one of his most common requests is, “Mommy – watch this!”
2. I don’t have to interpret why he does things. It’s enough for him to feel like I see him doing it, and I don’t judge how he does it.
3. I don’t have to track so closely, and in fact, I may try not talking at all, which is something he’s asked me to do. Without words, I still have several tools for making him feel like I’m with him, such as eye contact, facial expressions, sounds (hm, ah-ha, etc.) and body language.
4. It’s not my responsibility to change his behavior – it’s his. I am responsible to educate him on his choices, give him consequences for same, and be supportive of him as a person… but I’m not in charge of the results. I’ve certainly noticed that I can’t control him (duh), but this is the first time I’ve felt the permission to stop trying. Our society places a ton of pressure on parents to keep their kids in line, but we should be focusing on helping kids keep themselves in line, since at some point they will be on their own.

Putting this all together, I will try to make the play times more fun for me by taking off some of the pressure to perform perfectly. If he doesn’t want me to talk to him, perhaps I can use that effort on self-talk! As it says in the CPRT book, “You can’t give away what you don’t possess. You can’t extend patience and acceptance to your child while being impatient and unaccepting of yourself.” Words to live by!

I love the idea of mixing up my own cleaning supplies from stuff in my kitchen – it makes me feel so “Little House on the Prairie”! Besides my fantasies of being a pioneer woman, these cleaners are better for the environment and far cheaper. Plus, I don’t have to worry about having Little Dude use them, so he can help me clean, and he’s still young enough to find it fun.

Now, it’s only fair to confess that recently, I do not personally clean my house. I have some very lovely ladies who visit every three weeks and do a fine job. However, I’ve been in the mood for some spring cleaning lately, so lookout! As my last roommate used to say, “You don’t clean often, but when you do, you clean circles around me!” Continue reading →