how do i help my friend with her two new children....

[countydurhamlass]

without sounding patronising! I am not sure where to put this.

my friend came to visit me this morning. she adopted two beautiful little children who came to live with her a couple of months ago. She brought them too. She ha mentioned to me that the littlest one may have some anger issues and doesnt understand the word no. As she hasnt any other children nor does her immediate family and close friends i thought that he was only being a little naughty and she was overreacting a little. OMG how wrong i could have been. in the half an hour they were at my house the youngest (aged three)caused complete havoc and threw the BIGGEST tantrum i have ever seen over the slightest thing. NOW I do not claim to be the best parents in the world or not it all, far from it! but she didnt seem to have a clue how to cope with them. she has bought all the books etc,
when we were talking they were both constantly interupiting which she let them do without pointing out the fact that she was in mid conversation!

when the youngest had his mega trantrum she just tried to distract him and nearly gave in, if it hadnt been for me being there i think she would have. she then tried to be the nice loving parent and didnt really seem like she wanted to upset him by disciplining him.

she then told the youngest how good the oldest was and how naughty the youngest had been compared to the other.

at one point she dragged the youngest across the floor by the arm to sit him on her knee and blamed the oldest for encouraging him (she hadnt) to only fuel the situation even more.

Can anyone give me any advice on how to help her without sounding like i know everything. When i made a suggestion about how to handle his tantrums she didnt seem to want to know

Her DH doesnt seem to be helping her very much and its obviously not turned out how she imagined it would.

How can i support her

thanks

Having two traumatised children placed for adoption is HUGE and so overwhelming! Adoptive children have faced huge problems in life. These childre have probably been neglected and abused, then they lost everything they knew and went to live with strangers, then as they began to get to know everything, again they were moved and lost everything once again. That does have a massive impact on how the children function - they cannot trust adults, they can have issues with aggression, huge attention seeking, rage filled tantrums, problems eating, sleeping, huge school problems, the list goes on. Their behaviour will not be like other children - and whilst good therapeutic parenting helps with most behaviors it cannot make them disappear. These children will not forget what has happened to them and they will not turn into well behaved normal children. They are not 'just being naughty' either, they are hurting inside and very angry and confused. Thise feelings will stay, probably for the long term.

For instance, the constant interruption often has its roots in teh child having been neglected and completely ignored in the past, so they try to get all the attention on them - it's dangerous when people start ignoring them! Some children have been through so much that they talk constantly in order to reassure themselves that they are still alive!

Having suddenly to cope with this x2 is exhausting in the extreme! The first year of adoption is usually just a haze of trying to survive, and can be totally overwhelming - plenty of people get Post Adoption Depression (PAD), which is just like PND, but after adoption rather than birth. You have tio cope with the worst and oddest behaviors when you don't know the child and have no positive memories built up with them to cling to

IMO, the best way youy can help your friend is

1. be a listening post for all her worries and for her rants! Barely any members of the general public understand adoption and trauma and behavior issues - plenty of people seem to think that a child can go through hell and just forget about it and they will blame the mother for the childs problems - THIS IS NOT THE CASE! The problems are caused by the past, not the present! Just be there to listen - that will be massive on its own

Understand that the chldren are this way not because of anything she does, but because of their past. Understand that most of this behavior will take years to resolve or may never be resolved. Try to understand her emotions

1. Offer practical help - take the burden off tasks like laundry and cleaning if that is possible for you. That could be absolutely massive as well - give her time to relax after the kids go to bed, because some housework is done!

SS will sometimes provide cleaners for new parents as they also (spmetimes) understand what a struggle it can be. Also gardeners and other such services can sometimes be provided. Is she aware of this?

1. Is she a member of adoption UK, who have an excellent message board? If not, encourage her to join if possible. The people who can give her the most help with parenting techniqies are other adoptive parents, who have been through the same thing, and can suggest techniques that worked for them

1. Tell her she is 100% welcome here to post, and we will all help as much as possible as well!

1. Be there for her 100% without ever judging

Wow Lilka, that's a fantastic response!!

I am extremely thankful that I adopted my three separately. Adopting more than one child at a time can bring with it some huge difficulties. Every child placed for adoption will have had a very traumatic start to life. Some children are more resilient than others - two of mine cope well, one doesn't.

I would recommend (for her and you) the Margot Sunderland book - What Every Parent Should know. This explains in an easy to read format how a child's brain develops and how neglect or trauma can affect that development.

Adopted children simply aren't the same as birth children and require a different - therapeutic - type of parenting.

Consequences often don't work as children don't understand cause and effect. Time out is very threatening, time in is far better.

These children are very newly placed and probably very frightened. They've lost other carers - why should they trust this new one?

I would definitely recommend Adoption UK - it's been my lifeline through some very difficult times.

thanks for you replies, will definitely suggest she joins adoption uk,

bumping up for countydurhamlass

Some brilliant posts here, especially Ilka and by others who clearly understand the diffiulties for children and adoptors and ho their past traumas are manifested in all kinds of difficult behaviiours. The triggers are usually internal - as children cannot process the hurt that has been inflicted upon them. The only thing I would add (and sorry if someone has already mentioned it) there is almost slways a big difference between an adopted child's chronological age and emotional age, and that sometimes it is necessary to allow the children to regress. The little boy of 3 with the tantrum may have been emotionally nearer 12 months or even younger.

Incidentally what does "bumping up" mean?

There is another thread on here from a friend who is concerned about her friend who has recently adopted 2 children - maybe they could get "talk" on MN. Can't remember what the thread was called but I was posting on it a few minutes ago, so it is very recent.

Bumping is when a thread is an old one, and has dropped off the first page of the board, so you post on it, not to offer advice, but to 'bump' the thread back to the top of the board - in this case, because I think it's similar to countrydurhamlass thread you just posted on, so she might want to read it

All I can really add to these great posts is that a couple of years ago an old friend of mine adopted two toddlers. At the time, I was vaguely aware of the importance of not patronising her in a 'Let me, an experienced birth mother, tell you as a novice how this stuff works" kind of way. Now, as a new adoptive mother myself, I am so relieved I held back! Parenting a birth child really is different from parenting an adopted child, and my friend rapidly became expert at things that those birth mothers around her (me included) had absolutely no understanding of. Now I, too, have learned to grit my teeth when well-meaning friends start tutting about my refusal to do controlled crying, for example, or put my child into a nursery.

So your friend probably doesn't need your advice, but she does need your support. She will be having such a rough time, and having somebody who will just listen, offer cups of tea, ask how she can help etc will be wonderful for her.