Adoption

[MummyoftwoBG]

Hi everyone. Looking for advice. We adopted our child 7 years ago. She was only 11 months, younger than what we originally decided. We have had various issues over this time, mostly with behaviour in that she is very strong willed and really does not like being told what to do, over the years she has treated me totally different from her adoptive Dad, I used to think this was because it was always talked about that she had a tummy mummy and not much mention of a birth father, did she think my husband was her “real dad”? We have discussed this with her and she says she understood. We have been through various SW/Camhs/Educational Psychologist etc . Social Worker- new one never met her due to pandemic- said I was negative(she asked how our “issues” we going. Camhs said it was all to do with the relationship between myself and AD- half an hour assessment then sent a report offering me parenting classes.
The real problems we have are mostly that our daughter has no emotions - she can’t see that her behaviour hurts others, she lies constantly despite efforts by us teaching her that lying is never the best option. We teach her that her behaviour has consequences but it doesn’t matter what you say, what you stop her doing, what you take away, nothing has any affect on her. I feel my relationship with her has totally broken down and I’m at a loss of what to do now. I feel that I have totally withdrawn from her and I’m only going through the Mum duties. Has anyone else experienced this?

That all sounds so tough for you. So relentless

How old is she? Has anyone come up with any diagnosis?
I think sometimes being recommend parenting classes is seen as implying that you aren't a good parent.
I've done some parenting stuff, it didnt mean I wasn't a good mum, more that I hadn't found the right strategies yet. But it has to be the right course for the situation, not just some general parenting stuff which is goin to recommend sticker charts.
Have a look at blocked care, its essentially when you have emotionally withdrawn from your child but are going through the motions of care.

OP your poor dd this must be a horrendous situation for her. It sounds as though she is blocking you out and very unhappy and angry and scared. It is likely she does not understand your explanations about hurting others, because she feels so disconnected herself, she has no way of making connections. In reality she has no control over her situation, she has no way of rationalising her behaviour or making connections with consequences. It sounds as though she isn't good at explaining how she feels or thinks and it might be that it has been so long like this, all her thoughts and feeling are now jumbled up and confused - and she is still very young, at 7 - and so she doesn't actually know how she thinks and feels much of the time. And so she is stressed, anxious and panicking and in fight/flight mode, and then when you are angry or disappointed or withdraw it makes her panic more and more and it becomes even more unmanagable.
And it then seems to you that she has no emotions.

What you could do is sit down with her and say you are sorry that things are so hard, and that you are going to do your best to make things better, and that you will sort this out, she doesn't have to worry. You will of course have the same day to day struggles with routine and talking to her about doing what she is told and about her behaviour and social skills but if you make sure you set aside time to just be with her, talking and giving her positive attention, whatever else has happened in the day, this will really help.

In that time, if you start to talk to her as much as possible she will very slowly start to have a vocabulary to explain her thoughts and feelings, and for her to understand her own thoughts and feelings. Maybe have small expectations at first, but try to help her know and understand and verbalise her thoughts and feelings slowly over time, and the relationship will start to build. Make it all about her at this time, not you. Maybe start with "do you like blue or red?" "what is your favourite tree?" just to give her practice at thinking about what she thinks and talking about it. Try to help her talk about her own struggles for example at school and think up strategies to help her. Show her empathy so that she is learning from your modeling. Do kind thngs for other people with her, so that she learns how but also how good it feels to be kind to others. And from you, when you are kind to her, so she learns how good it feels when someone is kind to you.

She will then slowly start to trust you, and in those early days you will see glimpses of that, and of the sort of connection you could have.

All this hard work work has to come from you, I am afraid - she does not have the maturity or the skills to slowly build the relationship with you. External people cannot do this for you. She needs help to slowly get to know herself and for her to start building on firm foundations which will enable her to fulfil potential and build relationships with school friends and so on into the future.

There is a website about parenting which gives information about child development, what to expect when etc, which is important baseline information for adopted children. It is also good in relation to parenting, building connections with your dc, building relationships with your dc, self care.

If on the other hand she really does not show any emotion ever - no screaming or losing her temper, etc - then she would need specialist help, but I have assumed that isn't the case, that it is more that she doesn't show empathy.

I am an adult adoptee, and parent, not an adopter by the way.

Sorry I missed out the name of the website - ahaparenting.com - it covers child development and also advice about building connections, self care etc.

@Ted27 she is 8.
No diagnosis
Thanks for your recommendations. I just don’t think you can assess a child properly in one 30 minute slot.
She is a very bright child and when any professional talks to her she does give them all the answers they want to anything so it seems that there are no concerns.
I feel at times like they think I’m just making it up.

@sassygromit thanks for taking time to reply. She is 8 and a half. I have sat down with her talking, doing things with her, doing things for others. When you talk to her she knows what she should be doing and how she should treat others but she just doesn’t physically do it. She doesn’t show any signs of stress or anxiety. She loves school and she is the perfect child at school, she was not the first couple of years but that usually was when anyone told her what to do. I have from her that the happier the house is around her the more she will do to try and make people unhappy?
She does the usual like “teenager grunting “ if she doesn’t want to do something but that’s the most emotion you get.
Everyday I feel like I’m failing. Over 7 years and I still feel the same

You’re not failing, you’re doing your best with a little one who has had more to deal with in her little life than most. At 11 months she’s gone through significant trauma, and at an age where she wouldn’t have the cognitive processes to cope with that, or any sense of the world being a safe place.

She may now have a better level of cognitive understanding but her psychological processes will take time and help.

If you think of behaviour as communication, what might she be communicating when she does everything she can to make people around her unhappy? She may not be able to tolerate happiness or peacefulness or relaxation, research shows that high cortisol levels pre-birth and in infancy can leave children in a hyper vigilant state, aware or and looking for danger. It’s not unusual for people (children and adults) to provoke or create tension and conflict because they then have some control and aren’t sitting waiting for it to happen. For a traumatised child anxiety and excitement sit very close together, if her emotional literacy isn’t great she may not be able to tell the difference. My DD at a similar age would create chaos if things were going too well because she couldn’t tolerate feeling happy, because it felt unusual and her experience was that good things very quickly turned bad, so she would behave in ways that brought about the “bad”, if that makes sense.

Things that helped were really working on her emotional literacy, from games where we showed our angry, happy, frustrated faces (initially these faces were all the same for her), looking at pictures in books and working out how the people in the books felt, drawing round our bodies and showing where we felt things (excitement for me was butterflies in my tummy, for her it was stinging nettles all over her skin). At the same time I’d went right back to basics in terms of comfort, care etc so if she was crying there would be lots of cuddles, soothing sounds and words (much as you would do with a toddler). If her behaviour was off I’d acknowledge she was finding things hard and we’d have time in reading a book, going for a walk, sensory play etc so she knew there was someone reliable to support her, and that she could tolerate her feelings - they wouldn’t overwhelm her even if they felt scary.

It’s been a long road but at 10 her self regulation is much better, and she can articulate how she’s feeling rather than needing to act it out in her behaviour.

I know some of her behaviour will feel purposeful to you, especially if she manages at school, but it really isn’t - she’s just trying to survive. I heard someone once say “if we don’t know what survival looks like, how can we help people survive”. Learning what survival looks like for your girl will help you know how to help her.

Hi OP,

My brothers and I were adopted. I was 6, DB1 was 8 and DB2 was a month old. DB2 found it really difficult when he was your DD's age, like you, my parents had explained that he had a 'tummy mummy' but didn't say much about his dad. He was confused and he did think that our dad was his bio dad and he couldn't understand why his 'tummy mummy' wasn't there but his dad was.

My parents rectified this when they realised but he still had issues for many years after (as did we all - lots of trauma to fit in in those 6/8 years we were with my bio mother.

We were all ok at school, all ok in front of other medical professionals but nightmares for our parents. My DM always says she felt like she wasn't believed about how we were acting at home.

Our parents ended up paying for us all to have weekly therapy sessions, both by ourselves, with eachother and our parents too. This made the biggest difference as it felt like a safe space that we could talk in. It took a while, but we got there in the end.

If it's any consolation, we have all turned out ok! My DM would say the same to any person who is considering adoption - it's the hardest thing she's ever done but also the best thing she's ever done and she has no regrets despite all the hard work it took. Please be assured you're doing a good job, get any help you can get. I really hope it all works out for you

I'm so sorry, Mummyoftwo. I can see how hard it is for you.

I can assure you that your daughter does have emotions but for some reason is programmed not to show them, or not too often. I was the same (also an adopted child); my mum used to say, often, "You never had any affection for me", and at school I would often be deadpan which caused me to be accused of all sorts.

She is young yet and will change over time.

Please just accept your daughter as she is and don't push it too much. She will appreciate being treated as an individual person in her own right, not just your daughter. You too are a person independent of her so live your life alongside. As long as she doesn't do anything terrible, don't put any pressure on her to be your ideal daughter.

I don't think it's unusual for little girls to prefer their dads to their mums, they do however learn to appreciate their mothers later on.

Does she know much about her biological family or is it a difficult subject to talk about?

Good luck.

Sorry about using the word 'often', so ...... often :-), I didn't read through before posting.

I'm not adopted although am in the middle of doing all our reading and research while we get ourselves financially ready to adopt.

But something you said made me really think back to when I was little. My Mum used to say I was like a robot, I would rarely show emotion or do the things she wanted me to do for her or others.

But it definitely wasn't the case at all, I had a lot of big emotions I just didn't feel safe enough to express them to her. I felt like she needed me to be her emotional support rather than the other way round because she was struggling and I felt responsible but had absolutely no way to express that.

It was hard work containing everything and managing at school to keep things hidden and it meant I didn't have anything left in the tank for doing anything on top of that so she also got a lot of grunting and screaming fits about looking back now totally normal requests for a 7 year old.

I think the suggestions of a safe space therapy session on a regular basis sound like a good idea.

This sounds incredibly tough for you

I know you've said you've been through SWs, CAMHS, Ed Psych etc with not much joy but just wanted to flag up DDP (dyadic developmental psychotherapy) as something that may help.

It can be funded through the ASF and your LA has a duty to assess you for post adoption support.

DDP is a talking therapy that parent and child do together. Me and DD have been doing it for a while and it's been transformative. I would recommend it.

I hope that things have been going okay for you both.

I am sorry, I made a mistake about her age - 8.5 is slightly older, though it is still very young.

In relation to your example that she said she wanted to make happy places unhappy, I think that my starting point would be that she might be communicating that she is very unhappy. It may not seem that she is showing anxiety or stress but her behaviour and what she is saying is showing distress, I think.

I wondered what she was like - what are her unique qualities, her passions. You say she is clever - I wondered if you read together, such as children's books aimed at 8 year olds about space or history or politics or physics etc etc, and go to art galleries and science museums together and generally explore things she shows interest in, in the world around, does she enjoy sports, or learning a musical instrument, or spending time with animals, does she enjoying going on trips with you to new places, or themed events, when does she seem happy (or almost happy)

When you talk about school, is she able to talk to you about all the usual 8 year old things - like who she played with at breaktime each day, did she enjoy it, who is getting bullied and why and how does she feel about it, who is getting into trouble with the teacher and why and what does she think about it, did she find her work easy or hard, has she learned her times tables and did you help her, etc

At school as well as academics at this age there is also usually a focus on self expressive work - can you ask the teacher about how your dc expresses her feelings at school and do you get to see examples of her writing and art?

If you know her inside out it will be easier to help raise her levels of happiness and also help her come to terms with what is making her unhappy. Is she experiencing grief at the moment that her family is not the same as other families?

I agree with the advice given about safe space to talk and potentially DDP, I hope that things go well.

Has she been tested for autism?

Hi I'm a first time adopter and I am currently looking into adopting an older child (6 yrs old) . I have initially specified an age group of 0-2. What are the main challenging behaviors for this age range and what are the best ways to deal with them