DD's best friend leaving :0(

[misspollysdolly]

I'm posting this here as DD is adopted (as some of you will recall) and so this is as much (?more) of an adoption issue as any other. DD is 12, just completing year 7 and her best friend is due to leave school shortly as her family are moving to another city at the start of July. We have known this child for two years through our church, and have always known that this move will be happening as her Dad has been training to be a vicar and us now moving to start work in a church. So, despite knowing this, the reality of her friend moving on is now hitting home with DD. This coupled with her attachment disorder is hitting buttons all over the place and her behaviour is up and down, all over the place :( The friend will moves in about 3 weeks time, so the next three weeks will be choppy waters for us, and I can tell that it's going pretty deep for DD - involving her own issues with feelings of sadness and hurt at being left or abandoned by important people. It's so hard to know how to support her - I am sympathetic and can listen and understand, but the way DD expresses it has a tinge of anger - as if the best friend leaving is 'unfair' and somehow a kind of personal slight to DD - she very quickly switches into 'victim' mode and this makes my blood boil! Any thoughts? Any advice? How to stay sympathetic, without getting annoyed at the moping...?! MPD

Hi Misspollysdolly I am not an adopter (yet) but I just wanted to pop on here and wish you all the best with this thorny issue.

My own DD is 7 and seems to have anger issues at the moment. I am trying to work out how to deal with them. It is very tough. The hardest bit for me is how it makes me feel about myself, myself as a mum and how I deal with my daughter's behaviour.

I hope some others will pop on here with good advice for what to do, all I can suggest is for you to keep your calm and cool, stop the blood boiling (I do know how that feels) but try and find some coping mechanisms for yourself, chill out, prayer, removing self if safe to do so, etc, and try and help her through this time. Would it reassure her to know she will see her friend soon? Could you plan a weekend visit or something in the not too distant future and focus on that? Can they chat on line etc or phone and would that be a bridge for them both? I am sure they will be on the phone to each other a lot and maybe once she actually moves it will not be as bad as your dd thinks.

All best wishes.

I too hope somebody more experienced comes along to help you.

However, I do understand how much deeper the feelings will go for an adoptive child though. My own adopted daughter (now an adult) suffered terribly after after she broke up with her first boyfriend. At that time all her supressed feelings and emotions regarding adoption came up, and we all realised that the sense of loss/abandonment was not about the ex boyfriend at all. We got through it though, but it took some time.

I also understand what you mean about the unfairness/moping too - and my daughter is truly the world's best drama queen. But all I did was to tell myself whatever my daughter was feeling was right for her, and I had no right to belittle that, or believe that there is a timescale on loss. Every emotion she felt was valid for her, and I had to step inside her world for a while and stay with her while until she was ready to climb out of it (hope that makes sense).

I wish you both luck.

I'm not an adoptor but your post made me think that the loss of the best friend is like a bereavement (think many people think bereavement is just about death but of course it can be about any loss) and various emotions rise to the surface, and anger is definitely one of them, and a very natural emotion in loss, as is denial (she isn't really going) resentment, sadness, fear, eventual acceptance and resolution, but these emotions aren't linear and come and go at all sorts of times and I wonder if this is what is happening for your daughter now.

I think it might be better when the girl has actually gone. I assume your DD will be moving to secondary in September and she might not have seen that much of her best friend anyway because they mix them up quite a lot in secondary.

She will move on, and I'm sure you will give her all the support she needs.

Just posted on a another part of mumsnet about my DD's behaviour and someone suggested hand in hand website.

I found this, it looks excellent to me.

www.handinhandparenting.org/news/197/64/When-Your-Child-Screams-I-Hate-You

It may or may not ring any bells with you. Obviously some is aimed at a younger child but I am sure some emotions transend age.

at 12, her hormones are going to be adding to this mix, so its not going to be easy. Id recommend that you talk to her about how normal these feelings are, how her anger and feeling that its not fair are OK to feel. AT 12, she is possibly old enough to understand how some of what she is feeling is linked to her attachment issues, and these have just turned up the volume of what are normal feelings of sadness.

Knowing that what she is feeling is normal (albeit extreme) will allow her to work through those feelings more effectively. Id recommend that you do whatever you can to make the next couple of weeks really special - plenty of visits and sleepovers. Plus make plans for visits over the summer holidays, so they have something to look forward to (and a sense of continuity).