Attachment and social media...

I think that anyone who has ever heard me speak publicly knows that I am not on the attachment bandwagon, at least not in the way its held out as magic treatment for kids and youth who present chronic conflict. However, I don't argue that children and parents have to develop an emotional connection and that this is a basic goal in any family formed through adoption. So, my concern around this today is that I believe that social media is having a very negative influence on the attachment process (in whatever meaning that word has for you) and we aren't adapting our attachment strategies to include this.

Let me explain - I've been a therapist for 30 years, and an adoptive parent even longer. I've raised children and counseled families though a variety of trends and changes but up to the last 4 or 5 years, I knew that by providing some basic strategies,a few communication skills, some new ways of parenting, a bit of effective therapy, and allowing time, the parent/child relationship would be established. It might be wobbly and fragile, but it would be develop. However, with the addictive nature of social media, many, many kids and youth spend more of their time communicating with people who aren't present than communicating with people who are. In other words, the time that Junior could be spending in conversation or games, or even tv watching with parents, is now spent on their electronic device.

The time and energy that kids used to put into bonding with their new parents, is now overwhelmed with the psuedo bonding they have with peers via constant texting, snapchatting, etc. Even the basic emotional presence that is required for attachment is shut off as Junior's presence is focused on replying to each text and each chat. Furthermore, the lack of words and the lack of emotional context (other than violence and intimidation) that are part of social media are very appealing to a dis-attached child or youth. After all, any child who has been through the foster system has learned far too early that adults aren't to be trusted and that the only things that are permanent are change and loss. And, while the child bounces through foster care, they are too busy surviving to pick up relationship sustaining skills. So, again, relationships that exist via social media are going to appear to be more familiar, less demanding, and safer to the child or youth than the complex knot of feelings and connection that the adoptive parents are trying to establish. Its as if social media builds a wall around Junior that is as impenetrable to the adoptive parents as the whole set of negative experiences that existed for the child pre-adoption.

As a therapist and a parent I'm putting a lot of thought and consideration into adapting my way of relating to my own teens and my own clients as we pioneer this new reality.

Okay, what are your thoughts and experiences on this?
And, remember, you are entitled to a better day.

http://www.hazardousparenting.com

Secrets and lies...

Many years ago I was at the forefront of advocating for open adoption and even access. I believed then, and still do, that we can't simply erase the first years of our children's lives and pretend that the relationships (good or bad) with the genetic parents and extended family won't continue to pull at our child. 

Of course, that was back in the age of dinosaurs when the openness and access was done by letter or phone call, or maybe the occasional scheduled visit. It was also done with the adoptive parents' knowledge.

Well, among the New Realities of Adoption is that the communication that now occurs between the genetic family and Junior is likely to take place through social media, without our knowledge, without our permission, and without our monitoring. Junior may well be having daily chats with birth sibs, with birth parents, with aunts, uncles, friends of birth parents etc. and the adoptive parents know nothing at all about it. The only sign may be the increased acting out that results. 

If you think that this isn't happening with your child----- think again. All of our kids learn quickly how to set up hidden accounts that we can't find. And don't think that because your child came from a foreign country that the parents don't have access to computers. They do. It may not be the parents who communicate with Junior - often its a sibling who wasn't adopted or its the grandparents or birth mom's current boyfriend.

The problem, of course, is that if these people were emotionally healthy they would be initiating the contact via the adoptive parents - but they aren't. They may not be out to harm the family, but they sure don't help it as they fail to understand the emotional impact on Junior of their communications and how this can pull apart a fragile attachment and create confused loyalties. Very often the genetic parents lie about how Junior came to be adopted - they minimize their drug abuse or violence and blame the mean old social workers who never gave them a chance to clean up and keep Junior. I understand the guilt and remorse that underlies this, but I also understand the way this makes Junior feel kidnapped and emotionally disoriented. And, for children or youth who also have FASD, adhd, ODD, long term impact of neglect and abuse and all the rest - this added emotional complexity invariably fuels the chronic conflict that the family is already experiencing. 

Even when the genetic family means well, there is still going to be upheaval - any normal 15 year old has complaints about their parents - when you have a pre-teen or youth who also has the above mentioned behavioral issues and then they have free rein to complain to the genetic parents ("My parents don't understand me" "My parents are too strict" "My parents yell at me all the time" "My parents ground me for no reason" "My parents don't trust me") you can be sure the genetic parents are giving lots of sympathy and assuring Junior that they would be soooo much nicer. 

This is a very difficult reality because for the most part, the genetic parents have "issues" just like the children. They may have severe lifestyle challenges, addictions, fasd, and other concerns; or, they may have stabilized their lives.  However, you can bet they don't have boundaries nor do they have respect for the integrity of the adoptive family and most importantly, the capacity to prioritize the best interests of the child. 

Friends, this isn't going to end. This is a reality we have to live with. What I am advocating for here is that the adoption professionals start overtly addressing this and developing strategies to help adoptive parents manage this dynamic. I looked up a bunch of adoption conferences that are happening this year and the only ones I could find that even acknowledged genetic parents were the old fashioned things about how to have openness with a young birth mom who made an adoption plan at baby's birth. Well, that's not good enough.

We need to know how to recognize the signs that Junior may be in contact, and even seeing, genetic parents. We need to learn how to help Junior work through the conflicting messages from both sets of parents, we need to learn how to avoid a power struggle with the genetic family, we need to learn how to deal with our own feelings about this. Oh, so much to do on this topic. 

So, like everything else I write about, this is one more thing we need to be discussing openly and putting on our self-advocacy list. 

In the meantime - do some healthy breathing, hug someone who cares about you, and know that you are doing better than most with the challenges you face. 

You are entitled to a better day. 
http://www.hazardousparenting.com

"Don't give advice to a drowning person..".

I joined the The Caregivers Network when my mom was slowly dying from Alzheimer's. I still subscribe to their newsletter and I received this valuable and relatable piece the other day. "Don't give advice to a drowning person" was the title of a blog by Susan Macauley and said, in part, "It’s clear to me that a lot of the advice offered to dementia care partners is given by people who have never cared with/for someone who lives with dementia and/or who don’t appreciate the challenges care partners face. If they did, they wouldn’t make some of the suggestions they do."

Isn't this totally true of those of us who live with children and youth who engage in chronic conflict? If we even dare to risk telling the truth about the struggles we face we are so often told to take another course in early neglect & abuse because somehow the reason we can't manage our child is because we don't know enough neuroscience; or, to get counselling (whatever that means); or, to be more patient; or, ...or....or....yup, I still hear about other therapists giving suggestions about sticker charts and contracts. 

We often feel like we're drowning  while we try to keep ourselves and our family afloat despite the crashing waves of our youth's rage that drag us back under time and again. If we say we that nothing is working then either the service providers give up on us because they know that if had only followed their brilliant instructions then everything would be peachy; or, in some locations, the child protection services charge on in. Rarely, so very rarely, do they ask us what we need. And even less often, is what we need provided. 

Many of you have mentioned that we need organized and appropriately trained respite and we need effective strategies for managing (not changing or resolving) rages. However, it isn't enough that we talk to each other about that - we need to saying this to the adoption industry as well. The people who have influence over the training of social workers and counsellors need to hear us. 

To that end, I invite you to start speaking up. Church? Adoption support group? Social workers meeting? Agency meetings? Parent panel at major conferences?  If you're attending a conference then don't be afraid to button down some of the speakers and tell them you need more help than another workshop on how to talk to teens, or another attachment workshop. You probably know more about this than most presenters because most of them aren't parents of children like ours so don't feel shy - speak up. Give witness to your reality! 

We don't need advice, we don't need support, we need action.

And, in the meantime - have your best day possible. 
http://hazardousparenting.com/

"No" isn't the answer....

The other day I was having a discussion with another therapist regarding the wonderful training she had recently completed. It was delivered online, over several months, by a  well known expert in early neglect and trauma. My colleague was thrilled with all she had learned and so was I because I am always happy when more professionals learn about the long term impact of early trauma. However, I can never leave anything alone, so I asked her how she intended to use that to help struggling adoptive parents manage the rages, stealing, lying, verbal abuse, chronic conflict, sexual acting out, drug abuse, etc that most live with. 

She blithely explained to me that she would teach the parents about the neural issues underlying their child's behaviours and......and.....I waited.....and waited some more.....and nope.....she didn't get it. So, I explained to her that by the time their children reach middle childhood or adolescence,most adoptive parents have already likely taken the same course, or several just like it and will have a solid understanding of the way in which their child's brain has been harmed. 

What they won't have learned, and what she doesn't seem to understand she should be helping them with - is a) learning what the years of raising a child with chronic conflict has done to the parent's brain and health and b) what the parents can do to manage the conflict and care for themselves so that no one's brain continues to be harmed. Oh, and c)  understanding that the goal for the family is to be still living or at least relating together in a loving and supportive way rather than in a "I've crawled to the finish line so get me out of here now" kind of way. 

Well, that ended that collegial relationship. 

It just seems so hard to get professionals to realize that understanding the child's dynamics is hugely important, but for those children who aren't responsive to therapy during the growing up years, it's vital to provide support to the parents. The parents needs conflict management skills that are appropriate and effective for chronic conflict kids who can't change (yet), and respite so that the parents can sleep a few days without fear, and teachers who understand that kids who negotiate with knives aren't likely to do homework. I know, I don't need to go on, you already know this. So why do I keep writing about it? Because it needs to be public and it needs to be shared over and over again until something in the system changes. Hazardous Parents need specific services that are rare to be found and rarer still to be funded. Silence won't get us those things. Speak up - tell anyone who will listen that you, and your family, are entitled to more. When you ask for respite and you are told there is no funding - write a letter to the relevant politician and to the head of the agency that doesn't have the money, and to your local paper. Write your own blog about this. Give a talk at your church or book club or professional association. Do something, stop accepting "NO" for an answer - you hear it enough from your child or youth - you don't need to hear it from the services that should be helping you. 

Hey, you are entitled to a better day. 

We need to be witnessed....

This morning I read an excellent post on a social media site. It was about our need to be seen, to have witness to our lives - whether that is pain, fear, joy...whatever...we need to know that we exist in the reality of others. 

I've long argued that abandonment is the major issues in older child adoption and for all trauma victims. Human beings are pack animals, and when the pack loses sight of us, we become vulnerable and we are harmed. That's what happens to our children - they have been left, they have been vulnerable, and they have been harmed. And after we adopt them, we are left, we become vulnerable, and so we are harmed. 

So, what does this have to do with the new realities of adoption and Hazardous Parenting? Well, I think that in Hazardous Families, the parents become invisible. We get lost in the child's trauma and the industries that are built up around it. Our reality is denied. We are told we have secondary trauma from witnessing the pain of our children's trauma - uh, I don't think so. I am well aware that I have primary trauma from fearing for my life, from social isolation, from living with chronic conflict etc. Okay, I've written about that enough in my old blog, but today, in linking it to the need to have witness to my reality, I was struck again by how we are silenced in our struggle and our pain. 

Don't worry, I'm not paranoid - I don't believe there is a conspiracy to silence us. I do, however, believe that the failure of the adoption and trauma industries to recognize the reality of mental health problems in children and youth has left parents in the lurch. We are led to believe that our children and youth will outgrow their behaviors - and many do. Yet, that doesn't mean that we aren't harmed during the years that they are presenting the symptoms. 

We are also silenced by our love for our kids. I'm sure none of you want to run around telling the world how hard it is to live your life because of your child - you love Junior and you naturally want to protect him or her from your pain. 

We are also silenced because the professionals focus almost solely on the children. Any parenting support provided to us is about how to parent, not about how to heal from parenting. And, of course, when the therapies provided for our kids don't work, the parents are blamed for not following through, or having too high expectations, or not accepting our child, or....whatever. 

When nothing works we often buy into that it was our fault and we accept that we just weren't good enough for our child. And, as any parent knows, if you feel you aren't good enough for your child that leads to feeling that you aren't good enough PERIOD. And that friends, is a clear path to severe depression, more social and emotional isolation, and more invisibility. 

This isn't going change until we stop being silent about what our lives are like. We need to make others see us. We need to stop just talking to each other on our blogs and in our support groups. We need to stand firm that we are not blaming our children for their behaviors but that we are not going to be silent about how those behaviors impact us. I don't know how you can do this but I know what I can do. It started for me with my book "Healing from Hazardous Parenting: How to Fix Yourself When You Can't Fix Your Kid". I also no longer accept speaking engagements about how to parent, I only agree to workshops that are about how to survive (and thrive) as a parent and about the other realities that are present in today's adoptive family life. I'm shortly going to start a blog talk radio program so that other parents can have a real voice and a place to speak. 

What are you going to do? You have talents, you have a voice. Your deserve witness to your pain. 

Hey friends, you are entitled to a better day. 

Re-thinking disruption...

I hope you have some patience for me today because I am sorting out my thoughts on this as I write (I can't wait to blog till I have it figured out because I don't have time and once I figure something out, I move on). 

So, as I ponder the New Realities of today's adoptive family, I really think it's time to change how we perceive an interruption in the family life of an adoptive family aka a disruption. The first point of changing our perspective is, in my opinion, changing how we perceive adoptive families. As I've said before, we aren't living Shared Fates, we are living Parallel Fates - we are socially constructed families who are put together because children/youth need parents and parents want a family unit that includes children/youth and for some reason that is deeply unique to each family, they have chosen adoption as a means of creating that unit. How or why  we all go to these places are often irrelevant to the creation of the family. That is, a child's social worker looks through files and picks one that suits the social worker's view of what is best for the child. Sometimes the child has input ie "I want siblings" or "I want to be the only child" or "I want to live on a farm" or ......  Why on earth we think a traumatized child or even the 11th social worker in the file actually knows what is best is beyond me. Too often, the family is chosen because they are the only family who will accept the child or sib group and all other factors that may support or hinder the merging of this child into this family are then pushed aside. 

Okay, now we have this socially constructed family unit and somehow it is supposed to magically transform into something that resembles society's view of "family". Generally that includes everyone developing relationships that allow opportunities for the child to blossom cognitively and emotionally and for the parents to feel good about their parenting skills and for everyone to be eventually (sooner rather than later) sitting happily around the Christmas table so very thankful to be together. Well, if you are reading this, then you know that isn't how it works out. 

In some families, in fact, in many adoptive families, we don't get that happy Christmas scene. Instead, we get anger, resentment, mental health issues, lying, violence, drugs, stealing, chronic conflict, depression, anxiety, stress, isolation, mood dysregulation and more. Most families stumble through this and if we are all together at the age of majority it's considered a successful adoption. If we don't quite make the finish line, then it's considered a disruption or a dissolution. We are broken as a family and the relationships are legally and socially terminated. Good bye, toodle-oo, hosta la vista. One way exit. 

Well friends, as I've said before, I don't agree that arriving at the youth's age of majority with the parents' health wrecked, and the relationships barely present, and the young person leaving the home filled with anger and resentment toward the adoptive parents, hey, that isn't success. And I don't think that not making it to the finish line and having the youth or child re-placed in foster care is a failure. We aren't genetic families and we don't have neurotypical children and we can't live by the same rules or have the same expectations placed on us.  Success and failure are very different for us. But, too often, we don't get a choice. If we can't live with a child or youth anymore (for whatever reason), then we are pushed out his or her life. There is no alternative that allows us to change and adapt how we relate ie youth in kinship or foster care most of the time but continuing to see the adoptive family and to participate in whatever is possible of the adoptive family life. I don't agree that simply because we can't get along in the same house or sit together for Christmas dinner (or any dinner - or even sit in the same room) that the adoption has to be over. There needs to be time and space and support for those who want to continue the relationship to do so in an alternate form - to find their own way to be a family - and to have the time for the youth and parents to mature, to learn new skills, to let go of resentments, and to create a relationship that works for them rather than one that fits a pre-determined template. 

Or, rather than placing an older child or youth into a family with the expectation that these parents will become mommy and/or daddy in the traditional, genetic sense - they are allowed to live together in a way that doesn't force expectations of relationship and roles and allows them time and support to develop what will work in their unique situation. 

I know that's a huge challenge because we have a DNA drive to be parents and to be the mom or dad. But, DNA doesn't consider adoption - it doesn't consider taking a traumatized and neurologically harmed child from one setting, to another, to another and so on, until he or she finally ends up with some random people who now claim to be mom and/or dad. 

We need to acknowledge that we are different from genetic families, and that we have to have different rules and different expectations, and that neither our successes nor our failures can be defined by past or traditional models. We need something new that fits today's adoption realities. 

Well, back to work. Please have your best day possible and stay true to what you know is right for you and your family. 

Aiming higher...

It seems that in the adoption industry, an adoption is considered successful when the family makes it to the finish line - that is, they are still together in some form when the youth reaches age 18 or so. It doesn't really matter that many of us have crawled to that finish line over the debris of broken relationships, stress related health conditions, fractured marriages, financial devastation, social isolation, a devastated sense of self- worth, and ptsd. 

Well friends, I'd like to aim a little higher than that - I'd like to aim for success to include parental health, strong marriage, stable finances, good relationships with our other children and extended family, high self-worth, well developed social networks etc. Is that unreasonable?

I don't know why it's okay for Hazardous Families to suffer. And we do suffer. For some reason, it seems like if we admit that, then we are betraying the industry or some adoption myth that must be upheld. I have never pretended that my family was all rosey - but I have also held back on much of it to protect Junior and because I'm Canadian and we tend to value privacy. 

Well, I don't see how that helped my family or anyone else. The fates still befell us in confusing and terrible ways, and continue to do so. Like you, I can't access the kind of help I need - good respite, effective professional services......... they just aren't there. 

I follow my own advice and strategies for surviving each day, but my family, like yours, needs and deserves more. Our Juniors are entitled  to a family that can maintain the energy to get to that finish line - and we have the right to get there with our relationships in reasonably good shape and with the energy to leap happily into whatever the next years will bring - you know, sort of like neurotypical parents do when they transition into their next life stage.  

So, from here on in I'm not accepting the industry's version of success --I'm aiming higher, and I damn well intend to get that finish line with Junior and myself and the rest of my family in good shape and feeling like it was worth it. 

What about you?