Therapy

For some weeks oldest has been in play therapy and it seemed to be working wonders, his behaviour was improving, he was more responsive and less aggressive and we were hopeful. Then there were bank holidays and we missed weeks and things took a turn and everything went awful for a little while. He was fighting at school, biting other children and even spitting. Going to collect him at the end of the day was turning into a nervous wait as we hoped the teachers wouldn't need to report a new incident to us each day.

The he had his next play therapy appointment. His therapist was amazed as he was finally able to show her just has tightly wound up he always seems to be, it is like his is constantly deciding between fight or flight and it means he is really volatile in they way he behaves. She finally understood why we have struggled with him and why we insisted that we needed support with him. I could have sung Hallelujahs when she said this to me after his last session.

I was lucky that I did manage to get him to open up to me one afternoon. After a truly terrible day at school he came home in a foul mood so I explained to him that mummy was sad and that his cuddles would help, He sat on my lap and snuggled for about 10 minutes. I told him that I knew something was making him grumpy, that he wasn't going to get into any more trouble (he had enough of that at school) but that I wanted to help him to be happier. We talked about hurting other children, how it made them feel (he knows it makes them sad) and how it makes him feel - he was able to tell me that it felt good, he felt big and strong (I interpreted that to mean in control). I asked why he hurt them and the answers kept coming back to him trying to get them to do as he said, he wanted to be in control of the game/activity.

It felt like a breakthrough.

We cuddled some more and I talked to him gently about nice plans for the next few days and then we moved on to the next thing (he reading book, tea and then Beavers) and he seemed a lot brighter but it remains with me that I don't know how to help him with his disparate need to be in control of absolutely everything that he can be in control of. I know his early life was chaotic and that he was completely out of control and that this is impacting him now. We do give him as much control as we can - he controls what clothes he wears (within reason such it being a school day), he controls whether he eats or not and we try to let him choice meals as much as possible. He chooses what teddy he sleeps with, his PJs, bedding, towel, flannel. It is hard to give him control when his routine is is security blanket and whilst we have some flexibility we still need to stick to it as much as possible.

At the moment it feels like all we can do is carry on doing on what we are doing and hoping that the therapy helps the more sessions he attends. I just want him to be happy.

Party Time

It has taken me a little while to write this because at the time I felt genuinely hurt and rejected.


We celebrate another birthday last month, round 4 since the smalls came home (over 3 years ago!) and it wasn't as great as I had hoped. Everyone who up nice and early so smallest could open presents before school with a plan that once I got home from work we would have cake as a family and then she could open presents from other family members. It wasn't that great because she decided she couldn't wait and by the time I got home everything had been opened and it left me feeling pretty rejected plus awful for asking her to wait because I have to work.

In the end, after a few tears (mainly mine) we did have cake (just a little plan chocolate cake before the Frozen cake she will share with everyone at her party) and candles and we played her new 'telling the time' game before bed time. My evening was then spent putting a couple of Lego kits together (I am loving the Disney Princess range and want some for me to play with).

The party day was one of those where a week is needed afterwards for recovery. Everything was sorted - hall booked, bouncy castle arranged, cake being made by Grandma, invites were sent some weeks ago and this last week we made sure we have covered everything from food to music to decorations. I was feeling organised. I spent Friday evening (along with a local support group meeting for adopters) making sandwiches.

In the aftermath I also remembered that the next round of contact letters are now due and so my next task was to write them which I have done and they have been posted off.

A Miracle Worker?

A little over 3 months ago oldest started a 20 week course of play therapy, an option identified by our social worker when we asked for support with his behaviour and emotional immaturity. With a diagnosis of attachment disorder as well we embraced the course with a hope that it would, slowly, turn the tide and allow us to improve the home environment for all 4 of us.

12 weeks in and I am sure his therapist is a miracle worker.

He has an hour a week with her, just him, where he can play with what ever he can find and there are very few rules but he controls everything about the session (within the rules and allowance of time). Whoever takes him sits in the waiting room until his session is over. We were expecting progress to be slow, halted at times and we even expected regression at points and whilst we have seen regression the progress has been so much quicker than we expected. At home we have noticed a real difference in his ability to stop and think for a second before he explodes in a raging temper - sometimes this is all we need to reason with him to negate the severity or even stop it before it starts. We still have bad days: tiredness seems to be the factor that magnifies everything closely followed by hunger but these are getting fewer and less regular. I am really proud of him.

He has also been able to articulate that his sister is often the recipient of much of his anger. He doesn't know why and I doubt he will every full understand why but this is still a huge step forward for him,

It felt like such a breakthrough when he answered the question 'what do you want to achieve in Y1' (asked by a teacher at school) with 'I don't want to angry when I am cross'.

1 step forward, 2 steps back

It has been a few weeks since oldest started play therapy and, if I am honest with myself. I thought that it was really helping.

Last week was the last week of term and a challenging one as routines changed around grandparents who usually do school runs being on holiday. It meant that we used after school club (not an issues as they both enjoy it) more and I took time off to collect them. They coped amazingly well, so well in fact that on Friday I took them out for dinner and made a big fuss over how well they had behaved and how much I appreciated the fact that they had been so good and so helpful.

Friday evening concluded with a great evening for oldest at Beavers and bed. I, for the first time in many months, went out with some friends to an 80s night for a few drinks and a dance. I had a fabulous time.

Saturday morning dawned and everything changed.

He got out of bed like a bear with a sore head hell-bent on destroying everything and anything he could.

We had planned a weekend away at my parents which included a trip to a local theatre to see a production of a favourite story 'We're going on a bear hunt'. Youngest loved it to the point of tears when it ended because she didn't want it to end. Oldest sat stoic through it all barely cracking a smile, refusing to acknowledge when he was spoken to. I have no idea whether he even watched what was happening on the stage. Sadly he continued and I felt awful when it came to us going out for the evening leaving my parents to babysit.

Sunday morning he woke us with a temper that sleep had done nothing to improve - he has demanded to sleep on the camp bed in the room with us rather than in the small bedroom on his own (a reverse of how we usually have them when we stop over).

The drive home has to be on of the worst we have ever had. Oldest went from screaming because he didn't want to leave to sulking. He then got giddy, egged on by youngest who really has worked out how to push him buttons. After three quarters of the way home he demanded to stop somewhere for tea. We refused. We explained that his behaviour hadn't earned stopping where the golden M hangs (what he really wanted!) and that he could have something to eat when we got home. The giddy turned to anger and the shouting started - 'you will stop and buy me food', 'I am not going to do as I am told until you give me what I want' and variations of the above. All shouted through gritted teeth with as much anger and aggression as he could manage. Youngest thought this was a great game and joined her voice to his,

10 minutes of this and something in me snapped.

'Please stop the car'

My husband did so at the next layby.

I got out, opened the back door and calmly asked the children to exit the car. The refused, in hindsight they knew they had crossed a line. I explained to them that it they were going to continue to shout and scream at us they were not being in the car with us. I was no longer prepared to be spoken to with such rudeness and such a lack of respect. I undid oldest's seat belt and lifted him from the car and placed him on the grass verge. My husband undid youngest's seat belt and moved to her to where I could reach to remove her from the car. I explained to them both that there behaviour was unacceptable, that we were not there for them to shout at, scream at and demand things from. I stated that, with no compromise or bargaining they were not getting back into the car until the behaviour stopped (as well as the tears that had now started).

Eventually they got back in the car and we had a quiet 20 minute drive home.

Bed time was another matter. Youngest was quiet, compliant and apologetic. Oldest was defiant, rude and out to try and reassert some control over us.

I accept his need for control but he is a 6 year old boy and I will not allow him to grow up thinking he can have whatever he wants whenever he wants it regardless of any external factors nor that it is acceptable to shout and scream at people in order to get his own way.

After the dust has settled.

Now that the dust has settled I can reflect on a much better holiday period than we have managed before.

I think we can attribute our successes to the following:

1) lighten up on food

We let them eat their advent chocolate straight after finishing breakfast and were less strict on Christmas Day etc about what they ate and when. It is only for one day so they had what they wanted on their plates and the only rule was that if they took it from the serving dish then they had to eat it unless they didn't like it. Some meals didn't even happen - they were asked if they wanted something to eat and if the answer was 'just a biscuit; then that it what they got especially when larger meals had already been eaten.

2) Alternate activity days.

One day out, one day of calmer things so they were taken bowling, to a theme park, to a soft play centre but never 2 days in a row. We broke activities up with at home days of craft activities and things in the garden. Doing thank you letters, going on bug hunts and colouring in are great quiet activities that seem to work for us.

3) Keep the bed time routine as much as possible.

We have worked out that routines are the backbone of coping and it is when the normal routines are gone that havoc ensues. It also worked during the day. Instead of asking them to go catch up on sleep we let them take their brains out in front of a film on the sofa or had some long story times.

4) Let them find their own space.

I think sometimes I expect too much of them, especially when there are people everywhere and things are a little bit different so this holiday I let them have extra time on their tablets, I let them them run around the garden when it was reasonably practical for me to let them do so, I let them be alone when they wanted to be and gave them one to one time when they asked for it.

It does feel like that they have a better idea of what to expect so there was a lot less anxiety surrounding what was going on around them.
Hopefully next year will be even better!

Epic

That is the only word that I can use for the tantrum that we faced last night, It has to be the worst we have seen in the 3 years that the smalls have been with us.

The frustrating thing is that it could have come from a number of things or nothing at all.

It seemed to start when we declared time on Wii games because he was getting really frustrated but there was a minor paddy when he did his spellings and he got 7 out of 8 (still a great score as they were hard spellings). It continued because he couldn't decide what story he wanted and escalated because he didn't get the CD story he wanted either. The screaming (full on proper screaming) started. No tears but stamping, shouting, growling, running up and down the stairs, door slamming and throwing himself about went with it. We decided to approach this calmly and returned him to his bedroom each time saying we will talk to you when you calm down. This ended up with him pinching, slapping, pushing and trying to bite us. We were told to 'go away'. 'leave me alone'. At one point he even tried to push us down the stairs. It took him a full hour to dissolve into floods of tears and then calm down enough to listen to us, to accept a cuddle and them to settle down in his bed for sleep.

In the cold light of day I can add things to the list of things that might have unsettled him enough for last nights tantrum - his sister is having her friend for tea tomorrow, he started Beavers last week and he started play therapy on Monday. It could be too much all at once, But it could have been something at school or nothing at all except being tired. At the end of the day we have to set down boundaries that include tantrums are not the way to get what you want. We are trying to let the little things go, to give him choices and allowing him to make decisions but I am starting to question whether we are doing the right thing.

In other news we are returning to our house move plan - we are getting back on the market and hoping for a buyer so we can find a bigger property with 2 essential additions - another bedroom so that the smalls can both have a big room and there is no jealous because one has a bigger room than the other and a second bathroom so I can have a shower in peace. Fingers crossed.

Unconditional Love

Some time ago, at work, a colleague and I were talking about our children. It is no secret at work that they are adopted - they watched me leave work not pregnant and come back 12 months later with 2 pre school aged children. Then she made a comment that stopped me in my tracks:


"it must be so hard to love them as much as birth children"


I couldn't believe what I was hearing.


She really thought that all those parents who adopt children, take on step children, generally look after, care for, and love children that are not biologically linked to them didn't love them as much as a birth parent loves the child they have created.


It made me desperately sad.


But then I thought about it some more. I know lots of parents who have taken on the children of their parents, who have adopted and they all love their children. In most instances there is no difference between then and the families with birth children that we know and spend time with.


I have nothing to compare it to. I don't have birth children so I may never really understand whether I would love a birth child more than I love the children that I have. What I do know is that I love my children. Unconditionally. I would move heaven and earth for them, take them to the stars and bring them back again and as far as I am concerned that is all I need.