Deborah Gray

Last Monday -- thanks to my dear cousin who took the kids -- I got to attend an all day conference at which spoke. I learned quite a bit and was reminded of many things I had rather forgotten about. Deborah Gray is the author of Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today's Parents and Nurturing Adoptions: Creating Resilience After Neglect and Trauma. We got to hear her speak once before; I so wish we lived close enough to go see her for therapy.

. . . be not dismissive of their tender needs . . .

I'm going to type up my notes here because, well to be honest, I have a better chance of finding the blog post months from now than I have of finding the paper in my files. Here is what I jotted down, in no particular order.


When infants move away from their primary caregiver, they experience psychobiologic disregulation. Garbanzo who recently finally got a primary caregiver, also does this. When he gets too far from me he gets physically wired up and his ability to make good decisions and control his impulses goes downhill. This is part of why keeping him home and keeping him close is so helpful. I wonder if it will still work when he is 18. Hmmmm . . .

Garbanzo is likely at the Disorganized Attachment category, always questioning "How is Mom going to be with me today?" with competing claims of "she's safe" and "watch out". Deborah did a great illustration of this, dividing the audience into thirds and asking us to shout out either "she's safe" or "watch out" or "run away" all at the same time as she asked a volunteer for a hug. This is what many of our kids experience each time they try to draw close.

Deborah mentioned that neglect is the highest predictor of anti-sociality. Kids from neglectful backgrounds have trouble recognizing some expressions on people's faces (this is Garbanzo, he sees everything, but doesn't interpret and/or register looks of annoyance etc.).

Deborah described how she talks with children about how empty hearts fill with mad and sad and we need to fill the hearts with loves. She also shared about a young woman who stole, and didn't know that stealing hurts people's feelings, hurts their hearts. We often run into similar things with Garbanzo; where he doesn't know things, doesn't 'see' things that are so obvious to us. Note to self: explicitly explain everything.

Prevent the kids from getting lonely and bored as that leads to anger, and with time and opportunity, mischief will ensue. We have seen this borne out over and over: keep him busy; keep him close.

With Garbanzo, we need to improve attachment to reduce anxiety to reduce need for control. Alas, easier said than done.

Kids that were abandoned question if they are worth coming back to. When returning to the kids, especially Tater, we need to talk up how happy we are to be reunited, how we thought about them while we were gone, etc.

Tater falls easily from frustration into despair. It is as if she used up her frustration tolerance as an infant waiting to be feed/warmed/ tended to. When frustration/despair overwhelm her now, provide empathy and compassion (she needs this retroactively) but don't dwell on it, don't let it become a defining characteristic.

Help her make a plan for when big feelings swamp her.

When she starts to melt, ask her to count things, or name things, or ask if anyone smells butter or popcorn or something. Smelling and counting and naming all engage the brain in activities that distract from emotional disintegration.

Then I have a whole list of resolutions, without commentary:
:: be more playful
:: be more affectionate
:: stroke inside of their palms (triggers for attachment)
:: do not shame them ~ "be not dismissive of their tender needs"
:: use more role-playing and repetition
:: help name feelings
:: hold hands more
:: create more positive spaces & moments
:: notice and admire
:: compliment their thinking
:: say 'yes' just cause they are cute
:: be not frightening
:: make timelines of their lives, or roadmaps . . . road to a happy life
:: play more
:: use words like "repair" and "restoration" not "punishment" and "discipline"
:: ramp up procedural learning - practice over and over
:: tell them what I want, not what I don't want

to home-school or not to home-school? that is the question

We are in the midst of a big decision here. Remember when we pulled Garbanzo out of school for a couple weeks due to behavior that is unblogable? Well it has proven to be a good decision and we are now considering extending the hiatus for the rest of the year.

Pros
:: Many more hours available each day for wholesome family interactions to promote attachment.
:: No driving! I spend 1.5 hours a day dropping him off and picking him up.
:: Chickadee wouldn't have to wake up so early -- she is always tired. Neither she nor I are morning people.
:: Pleasant mornings, not racing-out-the-door mornings.
:: I would be responsible for his education.
:: He could take math, spelling, and chess at the homeschool/school partnership at no charge.
:: He can have regular social interactions with the kids in the aforementioned classes.
:: I spoke his current teacher about this plan, and she gave her blessing.
:: He could spend a lot more time with his very special person, Grandpa.
:: We would have time to do something like Awanas or 4H.
:: Mandatory roundtrips to town drop from 120 miles per week 18 miles per week.


Cons
:: I would be responsible for his education.
:: I may get a bit weary of hanging out all day with Mr. Intensity.
:: We'll have to be more proactive about finding kids for him to be friends with. This may mean that we will have to socialize with other families. Oh the horror.
:: Seems as if there should be more on the con list. What are we overlooking?

Parenting the Child Adopted at School-Age

When reading literature on parenting the adopted-when-older child, one will often -- very often -- read that the children need lots of structure.

. . . how do I reward a kid for good choices when all the rewards I can think of set him up for bad choices?

We can do structure. We have calendars that tell us what to do each day. Chore jars that help us organize our time. Cellphones that tell us when to wake, eat, and depart. We have a wall chart for school days that tells us what our activities and deadlines are (in addition to the little charts upstairs that help them remember to wash up, get dressed, etc.). And so on . . .

What we didn't realize, however, is that it is more than providing marching orders for every waking minute, it is also necessary to never ever lighten up. ever. even if you really really want to.

We have noticed that when we do lighten up, Garbanzo sees this newly-won permissiveness as open season. If any one boundary is relaxed, he things ALL boundaries are relaxed. So when we try to reward him for good behavior, he spirals down. As my B.I.L. says, "if you give him an inch, he'll take 40 miles, in about 20 seconds." And it's not just that he thinks all boundaries are off, but that he starts sporting an attitude.

When we are micromanaging his every move, he can graciously receive correction. But as soon as we allow an indulgence or two, he will chaff bitterly under correction, glowering and festering and acting as if we are trolls.

Today he lasted two minutes in Free-Play before he started cutting his sister's paper crown up with the scissors that had been returned to him just last night. (Note to face-to-face friends: no scissors for Garbanzo.) I guess the exhilaration of having both scissors and a half hour of free choice was just too much for him.

So, my question is, how do I reward a kid for good choices when all the rewards I can think of set him up for bad choices?

to post or not to post? that is the question

This was written mid-November and I have been equivocating about posting it ever since then. Obviously I decided to post it.

---

We've had quite a trying two weeks with Young Garbanzo. I've been debating if I should post or not, as it seems a little odd to broadcast one's son's troubles, on the other hand, other families with children adopted at older ages may be able to advise or console me. Or at least we can say to each other, "what, you too?"

Here is what we have had in just the last two weeks.

He was asked to leave music class -- too disruptive.
He forged our sign-off on his homework.
He cheated on his spelling test.
He was asked to leave art class -- too disruptive.
He was sent to the principal's office twice, once for poking a classmate in the bum with a pencil, and I forgot what the other one was.
I personally pulled him off a schoolmate upon whom he had a choke-hold.
He has lied nearly everyday.
He has stolen his sister's money.

And you know what? If you met him you would be totally impressed with what good manners he has, what a charming and sweet boy he is. And he is! He is a great kid, except for when he isn't, then he really isn't. I guess I should give him credit for being thorough.

As much as the disruptive behavior must annoy his teacher, it's the keeping his hands to himself issue and the integrity issue that really worry me.

He comes by ALL his issues honestly. We completely understand why he is the way he is. This does not, however, inject us with renewed energy to deal with him. Unlimited commitment? Yes. But we are indeed weary.

---

boot camp report

Very very happy to report that after 5 days of detention we have seen the first flickering of remorse and a desire to comply. Whew.

Detention

It's Day 5 of Garbanzo's detention. The honeymoon is definitely over (did we have one?). We have had a horrific run of sneaky, duplicitous, destructive and sometimes mean behavior and have implemented a modified boot camp. Modified because Chickadee and I were not misbehaving and did not want to be deprived of our outings.

We talked to Garbanzo about trust. We talk a lot about trust. We talk about how at the detsky dom being sneaky and manipulative works as the care-givers and the children do not live in a circle of trust with one another. The care-givers keep the kids safe and fed (marginally) whether or not the care-givers and the children are in a circle of trust together. Trust really doesn't matter in an orphanage.

In a family, trust is everything. We live in a circle of trust and when someone lies, or steals, or is sneaky, the circle is broken and that person falls out of the circle. We draw pictures of a nice family of four inside a circle. Then we draw pictures of a broken circle with 3 people in and one out. We illustrate how this would apply if Mama and Papa lied to each other. Garbanzo agreed that it would be awful to live with one of the parents outside the circle.

Being out of the circle is a bad bad thing. Because he is not ready to be trusted to move around the house, he is confined to whatever room I am in -- and if I am busy -- to a throw rug in that room. Because he is not ready to be trusted to stay in his bed at night, he has lost his bedroom. He sleeps somewhere where we can easily spot-check him. Because he is not ready to be trusted to obey me on outings he takes his rug with him and sits as we do whatever we are doing (visiting friends or family or the lake).

We avoid saying "We can't trust you." as this can become a label. Instead we say, "We notice that you are having a hard time making the good choices with such-and-so and this tells us that you are not quite ready to be a boy that we can trust with this choice. When you are ready, we can try again."

So, Day 5 of being the warden. He is compliant, but not contrite. He does not get off his rug without permission, yet when I give him a wee task -- "Do A then B then C" -- he'll do D. There is a strong oppostional streak running. We are hoping that he'll apply it to the "not ready to be trusted" bit and say "Oh yeah? Just you see how trust-worthy I am!!"

This morning he is filling in his Trust Notebook. I got a binder and he is drawing pictures of all the things he is sure he is ready to be trusted with. We've talked about how these are promises he is making. If he messes up on one, he'll have to tear out the corresponding page and lose whatever bit of freedom went along with it.

So far his notebook says he is ready to be trusted to take out the garbage, feed the cats, have good table manners, tidy up the bunny area, and have books and shoes. I think what he has left out is as telling as what he has included. He did not include his bed, nor being out of the room from me. He included lots of chores, and very few behaviors.

transfer of motivation

We are halfway through the first week of summer vacation and I am knee-deep in parenting my 'busy' boy that is a real 'handful' or even a 'character'. These are all the phrases used by others to tell me that my son is a bit a of challenge. "Yes." I answer. "I had noticed."

There is a bit of foolish stubbornness in him (and in all of us, most likely), where he will pick something petty and just flat-out refuse to do it or pick something simple and feign difficulty with it. Most recently it was refusing to change his underwear, day after day. "Fine," I said. "Then you won't be needing all these clean pairs." I gathered them up and they disappeared.

Days pass.

Garbanzo: Mom, may I please have some clean underwear?
Me: If I give you clean underwear, what will you do with them?
D: I will change my underwear.
Me: Why would you want to do that?
D: These are stinky.
Me: Why would you care about that?
D: I don't want to be stinky.
Me: Why not?
D: No one will want to snuggle me.
Me: Oh my, that would be sad. Okay, here, have some underwear. How many do you need?
D: One for every day.
Me: Okay. Good idea.

My underlying principle is that I have to move the controversy of the moment away from Me-Wanting-It-Thus-And-So to Him-Wanting-It-Thus-And-So. I wanted clean clothes on him; he didn't care. I stopped caring; he started caring.

The hardest part was that he really was getting smelly and I had to ignore it. Thank goodness we were spending our days outdoors, including meals.

Today I sent him up to wash his face. Nope. Couldn't get that done. (He brushed his face with his toothbrush instead and returned to me still grimy.) "Oops!" I said. "I can see that you need practice with washing. Please wash the kitchen floor for practice and then we'll see if you are ready to wash your face." Kitchen floor gets washed.

Garbanzo: I'm finished.
Me: Was that good washing practice?
Garbanzo: Yes.
Me: Are you sure? Maybe you need more practice before trying your face again?
Garbanzo: No, I think I can do it.
Me: Okay, go try. I hope you have had enough practice.
(minutes pass - boy returns with clean face)
Me: Great! You did it! Nice work! Next time you need to wash your face, do you think we'll need to practice on a floor first?
Garbanzo: No I think I can wash my face okay next time.
Me: Yeah! (lots of smiles)

At first I wanted a clean face; he didn't. After the practice experience he wanted a clean face (to prove he didn't need more practice); he knew I would be okay with a not-clean face as we have lots of floors to practice on. Transfer the motivation.

We did boot camp over the weekend: no talking, no yummy food (just the basics), chore duty, and rather rigid expectations of obedience. It was awful. It was worth it.

. . . for institutionalized children, giving more than the least is
an offering of love
that will not be noticed, appreciated, or requited,
so giving the least is the safest bet.

Garbanzo is usually a really good worker, usually does a good job with minimal supervision. This weekend he did really poor work which just keep extending his time in boot camp. When it became obvious that he was doing poor work as an act of defiance (which is what got him into boot camp in the first place) we talked it over.

In the orphanage, with rotating care-givers, the children learn to give the most efficient (aka the least) amount of respect and obedience that they need to without losing access to food and warmth. So Garbanzo has six years of fine-tuning his ability to be in a constantly-diminishing state of compliance. This is a coping skill that makes sense for institutionalized children. Giving more than the least is an offering of love that will not be noticed, appreciated, or requited, so giving the least is the safest bet.

When I put this in front of Garbanzo (in simpler language) he affirmed that this is how it is in the orphanage. We call it orphanage-thinking.

Then we talked about how, in a family, we give our best. The children often ask me why I am eating something different than what they are eating. We only had enough of the super-yummy stuff for them, so I eat something not quite as lovely. I give my best to my family. We have lots of examples of this, and Garbanzo really got excited about listing them all. We call this family-thinking.

Then we got to talk about how families love each other and are each other's special people. This is also family-thinking.

Garbanzo is a logical kiddo, so he quickly got the next part. Can we take family-thinking, having a mama and papa that are just yours etc., into the orphanage? How would that work? "Only sad," Garbanzo answered. Family-thinking won't work in the orphanage and will leave us sad.

How about taking orphanage-thinking, giving-our-least, into the family? How will that work? Garbanzo is nodding his head at this point. "I have to learn new thinking."

So, boot camp got his attention and let him know how seriously we take defiance, and we walked out with a new tool, "Garbanzo, give us your best respect and obey, remember, families give each other their best."

We also stumbled on chore camp in the process. A job poorly done lands one in chore camp, where one gains new chores until one's work ethic returns.

boot camp

I do confess that I am having a hard time with Garbanzo. All my clever parenting tricks work for about a week, and then he starts to slide. Then I spend my days being the enforcer, which leaves me drained and crabby and not real fun for The Gift to come home to.

So, I've been reading other blogs and listserves and resources. I'd like your comments, input, etc. on this posting, which echoes something we have done. We called it Martial Law, but I am re-thinking it and considering morphing it into Boot Camp. The posting is copied with the gracious permission of the author and is slightly abridged from the original

I called it "punishment camp" on the list though sometimes the kids and we refer to it as "prison camp." They are treated as if they were prisoners. Meaning, you don't speak unless you are spoken to. You don't have any privileges whatsoever. You eat what you are given. There are no snacks. There are no luxuries. You ask permission for everything, even going to the bathroom. I know this all sounds extreme but it works and some times behaviors have to justify it.

We haven't had to do this too many times but boy the results stick for ages. They remain in prison camp for as long as necessary. Usually they are out w/in a couple hours and the message & lesson are very well learned. They essentially do nonstop chores until there time is up. Pulling weeds, vacuuming baseboards, lots of cleaning stuff you usually only do for spring cleaning.

If there is no whining, no complaining and job done right, then they are released. Some get released earlier than others. I've only had one time in the history of starting this that I had all the kids in it at the same time. It is a pain for us as parents trying to come up w/ some things but we manage. The kids absolutely despise this so it definitely has an impact. They hate not having freedom.

I'm serious when I say no talking, no privileges.

One time I went so far as to make toast and water for breakfast. They knew I was serious. I make it clear to them that if they behave badly they will end up in prison for real. They all say if this is like real prison, we will never lie, cheat, etc. (whatever the offense was) ever again. I want the message clear as day that bad behavior in real life once older will have much more serious consequences than just doing chores all day.

None of these chores are what I'd call hard labor. Like I said spring cleaning stuff. What they don't like is they have to keep doing it. This is only done w/ extreme behavior problems.

Yet, all I have to do is mention it if we are in a car and behavior seems to be fine at our destination. I'll say in the car, if you can't behave at XYZ, then what will happen when we get home. Six of the voices( one can't talk yet) all say together punishment camp. So, we then have a pleasant dinner out, or bbq w/ friends, etc. It took us awhile to find something that worked.

Being the warden is tough b/c I literally have to give up whatever I'm doing to play warden and make sure they are doing wha they are supposed to be doing. Urghh. But, worth it in the end to have cooperative, respectful kids.

We used to make them run laps but that was never successful. They'd just laugh the whole time running and try to play tag.

Like I said, you have to find what works for all your kids. For us, doing chores nonstop seemed to help. And no luxuries such as soda or chips for lunch. If they are in prison camp, meals are kept very simple, boring. No good stuff as the kids would say. They finish one chore, they go onto the next. No stopping except at meals.

I figure if they can play nonstop all day, they are capable of doing chores nonstop all day. One time, I had them sort socks. At our home w/ 9 people, it's a nightmare job that everyone in the family hates to do.

This won't work for everyone. But we have 7 very individual children w/ some severe behavioral, mental and emotional issues. We found something that worked and we've used it since.

The reward system never worked at our house. We tried over and over again per recommendation of our neurologist/psychologists, etc. This works and our neuro said [name removed], if you ever find something that works, you stick to it! So we have. Well, that's the jist of it. Basically find what works and stick to it. I wish you all the best. Maybe we should have others chime in what works for their kids.

With lots of ideas, one might work for another family. What do you think??

Take care,

So, what do you think? Have you done anything similar? What cautions, concerns, encouragements, or advice do you have to share?