parenting advice please?

[prumarth]

I am currently going through the adoption process - our visits are all being done a bit out of order due to the new timelines from the govt and some resource issues. As a result, we have had 4 visits from our social worker including the home check, but not yet had our 3 day course. It was cancelled in October and has been rescheduled for the NY. Things seem to be going well -touch wood! - however I feel like we are missing out on some of the key information about the types of trauma and attachments issues that adopted children experience and parenting techniques to deal with these. So for example I have heard that "time outs" can be counter productive as a discipline technique and can cause distress - but I don't know what is recommended as a replacement technique. Would any of you be able to recommend any books or information or any advice that you feel ok sharing on your own parenting techniques. I guess I've been conditioned on parenting from friends and family that involves naughty steps, time outs and similar - and am concerned I won't have the right skills to help support my new family should we be lucky enough to get that far. Any help would be much appreciate.

Use time in rather than time out. So you do a few minutes sitting next to the child away from the original incident, no discussion, just sit quietly to calm down.
Most of the time you will want to use positive methods to encourage and reinforce the behaviour you do want. When that doesn't work, simple but small consequences work best.

I am a totally inadequate adoptive parent having never read a book about it in my life (in my defence I always meant to...)

I learnt the hard way that time out/naughty step didn't work for DS and probably won't work for many adoptive children certainly in the early years post adoption. And possibly never - DS is 7 years post adoption and any exclusion techniques are a miserable failure. This can be a bot tough at school/sports which almost always rely on time out/sitting out as a discipline tool and tehre is a limit to how much you can expect them to be treated differntly to their classmates.

As mostwicked has said I gradually refined a "time in technique" which when DS was very little involved sitting on my lap for the appropriate amount of time (similar to time out 1 minute per year or until he's calmed down) I have had to resort to holding him, sort of a firm hug when he was being violent and possibly a danger to himself and me but not since he was about 5 I think.

The problem with time out is that its all about exclusion and separation which is the opposite of what you're trying to teach them. They have had enough exclusion and separation, they need togetherness and inclusion.

As DS has got older I have found that a firm system of boundaries with defined consequences for poor choices (if you lose your temper in football this week you will no go to football next week, you will come food shopping with me instead {the horror!}) and lots and lots of praise for good choices (eg talking to a teacher instead of retaliating when teased).

DS attached to me well but he had terrible separation anxiety and it is close to the surface even now. Time out as a punishment has always been a punishment which in his mind was way out of proportion to the seriousness of the offence in the first place. You could see the fear in his eyes worrying about how bad he's been that I had sent him away and wondering what he needed to do to ingratiate himself with me to make it stop. It was heartbreaking and I only ever did it twice before I realised that neither of our nerves could take it!

I'm not sure if that ramble was helpful!

Thanks Wicked and Kew, that is very helpful. Can I clarify on "time in" - do you tell them the behaviour isn't acceptable / give them warnings in advance? Or just remove them from the situation and sit quietly elsewhere? Is there any techniques you would use outside of the home to manage bad behaviour?

I would recommend reading 'unconditional parenting' by Alfie Kohn
It is not adoption specific but is one of the most useful books I have read.
It is easy to read too
Specific tools will vary for what works for individual children. Time out and the naughty step have become very accepted thanks to super nanny but IMO no child, adopted or not, will sit and reflect on what they have done wrong
It is about looking beyond the behaviour and the reasons for it. Looking at behaviour as communication rather that being 'naughty'
That doesn't mean lack of boundaries
Use of empathy is a good start- I understand you want to eat sweets before lunch and it is hard to wait but you must have lunch first- sort of thing
If they are just out of control then something in the environment is beyond what they can cope with.
I would remove from the situation
My DD used to hurt other children at toddler group. I stayed close by to physically stop her from hurting, removed her if she did hurt and sat outside with her for a while until I thought she could cope
If 'time out' is used as a calming tool rather than punishment and you are close by it can be useful for some children in some situations

I hope this makes sense, I fear I am rambling here

Thanks roadwalker - not rambling at all, makes perfect sense. I will go order that book - at least I will be proactively doing something until I get onto the workshops next year. You are absolutely right - I don't have birth kids so most of my parenting knowledge is influenced by friends who are in turn influenced by super nanny type techniques which may not be appropriate!

Caroline Archers books are great. I read them while we were being assessed, and now our son is with us, am going to re read them.

Agree with what others have said, time out might not work. We have used inclusion or reflection time, but it's very nurturing and supportive. We make a point of identifying the behaviour as naughty, not him, hence avoiding feelings of shame. We cuddle him and talk in a low, quiet voice and explain things to him.

Post adoption support groups might also be good to get a good understanding of the real issues adoptive parents are dealing with. We joined one during home study and it was so valuable. There were parents there years into placement, who gave us advice and insight we would not have got elsewhere. Adoption UK should be able to give details of nearest group, or your social worker.

As an adoptive parent, I think you realise quickly that what might work for your friends children, might not work for yours. Kids who have not had the best start in life (and that's putting it mildly!), need therapeutic re-parenting, which might feel counter intuitive, but is what they need. For example, when they hurt themselves, they might need much more of a fuss making over the smallest scratch. It might not be about that scratch, it might be them looking for you too sooth previous hurt, if that makes sense.

If "time in" is used for inappropriate behaviour, then yes I would tell them. Try to keep it really simple, no more than"it's unacceptable to ..... you should..... instead. Come and sit with me for 2 minutes, then you can go back and play" It's a cooling off time. I'm not a fan of, thinking about your behaviour and what you should have done instead, or forced apologies. That rarely achieves anything at that time. You need to break the behaviour at that moment, allow the child to calm and then move on. Discussions about behaviour are best done later when they are in a better place and mood to listen.

When you are out, just find somewhere away from the original incident, corner of a room or away from others.

Lots of empathy will help them understand their own emotions - You look cross / upset / angry etc

Never got any good parenting information during the process - we were told what not to do, which was limited to things like 'never smack, ever'. Truly not helpful

I've picked most of what I do up from books, other adoptive parents and then the experience of trying things out and seeing what works and what doesn't. Also got good advice from therapists and internet resources

I recommend hunting down things in your local library to start with, AUK have a members library etc, because at this stage you don't know what will be useful and many of the books are expensive

For a younger child, I quite liked Caroline Archer and I loved "Toddler Adoption: The Weavers Craft". Actually 'Toddler Adoption' is a good one to read before placement, so homestudy is a good time.

With my DD2 and DS nowadays (this stuff wasn't around when I adopted my DD1) some of the most most helpful parenting books have been, "Attachment, Trauma and Resilience: Therapeutic Caring for Children", "Beyond Consequences, Logic and Control", "Creating Loving Attachments: Parenting with PACE", "From Fear to love" and others besides, some of which are too specific or hard hitting to start with

I guess for parenting books I'd start with something like "Real Parents, Real Children" or "What Every Parent should know" and go from there, I think "Creating loving Attachments" would also be good at this stage

I also recommend reading memoirs and adoptive parent stories as well, some of them are great - "An Adoption Diary" by Maria James for instance, and "No Matter What" by Sally Donovan is easily the best adoptive parent's story I've read in a very very long time.

My parenting style is based around lots of natural consequences while minimising "punishment" (i do do some things which are more punishment like, my DS is doing great with a Swear Jar at the moment, 50p for every swear word!), 'PACE', structured days with a routine and not a lot of spontaneity which just stresses them out, I've babies them when they regress, I treat them as their emotional age not actual age, we do attachment games and rocking. Minimising control battles to minimum is important, excercise to get rid of nervous energy is good.

Kew is spot on with her 'time in/time out' advice, I'll think of some different examples

Okay, DD2 tells crazy lies. So I might find sweets missing, then see DD2 with the sweet wrappers sticking out her pocket, and as soon as she sees me she'll cry out "I didn't do it!!"

A bad response would be "Yes you did, why did you do it?". Because it'll start a 'NO I DIDN'T', "Yes you did", 'NO I DIDN'T" etc etc. And even if she did admit it '"why did you do it" will only produce another lie because it's a compulsion for her and I think she doesn't even know why she does these things. A lecture on why lying is bad is also going to be useless.

Instead I might say "Sorry sweetie, I didn't quite catch that. You can start again" and she'll either say 'nothing' or mumble something about sweets. Then I'll say "I'm going to ask something and I need you to stop and think for 10 seconds before answering. I think it would be fantastic if you think hard and tell me the truth. There are some sweets missing, and I was wondering if you ate them?"...1..2..3. etc. Usually she'll own up as long as you let her start again and stay quiet for a while to let her think. Then she might have to go put the wrappers in the bin, and then buy some more sweets for DS and I (since she ate mine and his portion) with her pocket money.

I used to do 15 minutes of rocking time in the evening, I have a rocking chair, which can hold two peoples weight, and she sits on my lap and I just rock her back and forwards for 15 minutes..great for soothing and attachment

I just picked those out randomly

Thank you so much ladies, this is fantastic and so helpful. I will do some reading and research - but the live examples are tremendously helpful. As you said, Lilika, the focus so far has been on smacking which we already appreciate is an absolute no no. But we haven't had any direction on the right parenting techniques. Hopefully we will get more when we get on the workshops.

I haven't adopted (yet), but I have a BC and have found 'Playful parenting' helpful and insightful. It's written by a play therapist who translated some of his therapy methods/tools into everyday parenting approaches.

I think that whereas mainstream parenting will often not be appropriate/successful with AC (or other kids with special needs), the reverse is not true: 'therapeutic' parenting can work very well with NT BC. E.g. we do 'time in' with our DS and try to respond to the emotions underlying the behaviour, and I couldn't imagine ever sending him onto a naughty step. I haven't tried time-outs so I don't know if they'd 'work' but I don't feel any inclination/need to try.

Just saying, if ever you wanted to discuss 'alternative' parenting techniques with people, you are not limited to adoption related settings. It's just a bit harder to find them, I think, compared to the 'mainstreamers'. Especially as some who, for instance, do some kind of attachment parenting, won't do so consciously, they will just be doing what feels instinctive and right to them.

Toatlly agree with Meita - we use Alfie Kohn's ideas just because he prioritises attachment over...I'm going to use the word compliance, not sure if that is controversial?

Anyway his starting point is that we have major aims for our children (that they be happy/secure/confident) which get lost in our short term aims (that they put their bloody shoes on and leave the house now) and that we should think more about those long term aims. So I can imagine it being very good for ACs for whom that emotional support, bonding, feeling of security is even greater.

One thing I would say though is that the parenting world is not overly sympathetic to gentle/attachment/unconditional parenting so you might want to look at networks which will help you with that now while you have a bit of time. I found a great attachment parent group through a sling meet and now know a few brilliant parents who I can talk though my difficulties with knowing that they won't advise something I think will be unhelpful for my dd (cry it out, naughty step etc) and then think I'm an idiot 'cos I won't do it.

PM me if you're in London and you want details

Sorry - meant to mention that dd is our bd. We're just doing Stage One now

I meant to spell 'totally' correctly too...

Can I also say that if your future DC is anything like DS (and frankly I suspect like many millions of children the world over) is that if you smack or shout (aside from possibly making previous issues of abuse resurface which wasn't actually relevant in our case) as a punishment, what it teaches them is:

a) to smack and shout
b) to lie to avoid being smacked or shouted at.

DS always knows when he is suffering a consequence but explanaitons even at 8 are kept very simple. At one point "we don't bite/hit in our family" was repeated ad nauseum and became my mantra!

Of course now he's older it is much easier to have a proper conversation - "yes I do understand how tempting it is to hit if someone is rude to you but if everyone did that the whole world would be hitting each other and it wouldn't be a nice place to live. We want to make the world a nice place to live in our family"

It actually helps me that as a humanist we have (independently of discipline type conversations) talked about what I believe in. I believe in people working together to make the world a nicer place to live.

I also learnt a lot from his Montessory nursery's approach (which I'm sure isn't restricted to them) which talks a lot about making good choices. I avoids talking about good or bad children or even good or bad behaviour, it just talks about trying to make good choices.

sorry thats a bit of an essay!

Thanks everyone - I massively appreciate all of your advice (in this and the other threads) - there is masses I can learn from your experience and I'm very grateful that you share so openly and positively.
I think we have spent so long focusing on the process whether it's ivf etc - the good thing about the adoption process is it makes you start considering what your approach to parenting will be beyond that. Although also terrifying!

This thread reminds me why I get irritated that the adoption forum is under "Becoming a parent" rather than "Being a parent"... And that I need to say thank you to the poster who recommended Playful Parenting on another thread: I'm only a chapter or two in, but it makes a lot of sense and I can really see how it will help DD (and DS, for that matter).

(Sorry for de-railing the thread)