When Children Have Big Feelings - An Adoptive Parent’s Perspective

There are days, many blissful uplifting days, when I feel like a regular parent to two affectionate, curious, contented, effervescent young kids. But sometimes, like a fast-rolling fog, the darkness rolls in and I remember how much pain and confusion lurks behind the dazzling smiles of these beautiful little beings. Suddenly I am staring raw anger and grief in the face, reaching out to a wounded child who needs my help. When faced with their emotional, and often physical, outpourings, I have to remind myself where these expressions of grief come from, that my children have experienced trauma and neglect in their life before adoption, and that their extreme outbursts may be an attempt to express this. The hardest part is learning to identify which of their behaviours is developmentally normal and what might be an externalisation of their unresolved grief, or a result of their emotional immaturity. Most important is to separate the feelings from the behaviours: “it’s OK to have those feelings, but it’s not OK to do that.” 

As a family we have developed our own unique approaches to problematic behaviour, and most of our close friends and family support this. But outside of this inner sanctum, I am used to having to deal with other people’s often unhelpful responses. The disapproving look when my child is hyper-vigilant in the supermarket or has a meltdown in the queue; being asked to stay home on the day of the school nativity in case he spoils it for everyone else; having fewer playdate invitations than everyone else and being left off party invitation lists. These are all real situations that our family has faced, and we are not alone. 

It’s hard enough when we are there with our kids, giving them parental support through their emotional rollercoasters, but now that they are school aged, we cannot be at their sides all the time, and they have to ride it out in the company of less enlightened peers and educators. The thought of this has been getting me down a lot lately. As they get older, the gaps in our children's emotional development become more obvious, and more problematic within friendships and social situations. While the youngest’s anxieties tend to manifest as toddler-like tantrums and lashing out physically, our eight year old lacks social confidence and her coping mechanisms project as bossiness, giddiness and lack of impulse control. But how can her classmates and their parents be expected to understand what’s behind this, and to feel compassion for her rather than contempt?

It is impossible to explain to every person who crosses our path the complicated reasons behind the way our children behave; that they cannot physically control their impulses because their brains have not developed in the same way as everyone else’s due to early neglect and trauma. Or that they are in the grip of very real feelings of grief, loss and anger about what has happened to them. The saddest thing of all is that when my children are treated as different and get excluded from social situations, it perpetuates their problems. Their self esteem, which was fragile to begin with, takes a further nosedive every time they are rejected or excluded by peers, given a ‘time-out’ by teachers, or experience disdain from total strangers. Low self esteem leads to social angst and this in turn keeps the fright-or-flight part of the brain (the amygdala) in a permanent alarm state, which then leads to more hyper, seemingly out-of-control behaviour. 

I don’t want you to feel sorry for my child because of what has happened to them in the past, I just ask that you try and understand them and why they are like they are now. What they need more than anything is to feel accepted and loved unconditionally, in spite of how they act. Of course we reinforce this all the time at home, but in the wider world they often seem doomed to meet with disapproval and rejection, and I fear for their long-term social integration because of this.

I do understand why people sometimes react the way they do; goodness knows I am frequently baffled by my own children’s actions and have to remind myself to treat their behaviour as a neurological state which needs therapeutic support, rather than as naughtiness that needs to be punished. And this isn’t something that’s exclusive to adopted children. Even adults flip out sometimes as a result of emotional overload, but we tend to be much more supportive of adult mental health problems than we do of our children’s. We expect such a lot of such tiny people, and tell them all the time that they need to suppress their big feelings, rather than give them the tools to express themselves constructively. Many school discipline systems fail to recognise that children are emotionally fragile, still developing beings, and focus too much on threats and bribes in an attempt to control behaviour, rather than addressing the underlying causes or helping them to move forward developmentally. The book Punished by Rewards tackles this widespread educational phenomenon, and I would encourage any headteacher, teacher or school governor who has endorsed the use of Golden Time, Thinking Clouds or Traffic Light systems in classrooms to read it.

Of course children must learn about rules, and need to be given boundaries, but this doesn’t negate the need for compassion and understanding for their underlying emotional distress. Fortunately, thanks to initiatives like the Thrive Approach, things are beginning to change, in schools which embrace this approach at least. But it is not enough to simply bolt this system onto existing practices. The overall mindset of schools and parents needs to shift towards a more empathetic approach, and away from labelling children as “naughty” or “disruptive” - a reputation that is hard to shake off. We need to help our children to manage their feelings, rather than punishing them for having feelings. A reward chart for compliance in class does not address children’s emotional needs, or equip them with the intrinsic motivation to Do The Right Thing.

Due to the sheer amount of time children spend there, schools play a crucial role their pupils’ emotional and moral development, but we as adults in the outside world are responsible, too. Next time you see a child having a public meltdown, or your own child comes home reporting someone else’s “bad” behaviour at school, take a moment to consider your response. Offer empathy and support, rather than disapproval. Since becoming more enlightened about infant neurology through Thrive training and from reading around the subject, I have found it easier to stand back from the midst of an outburst and remind myself what is happening, scientifically speaking, which helps me to take things a lot less personally when I am under attack by my own kids. I now know that there is no point in trying to reason with a child whose brain is locked in fright-or-flight mode. First I must help them return into the thinking part of their brain (the neocortex), and I have strategies up my sleeve to help get them there. I am also comforted by the knowledge that with the right input, young brains can still be developed and neural pathways forged to help them eventually be able to self-regulate.

I was prompted to write this post after reading an article in Psychology Today, which really resonated with my own experiences and aligns with much of the thinking behind the Thrive Approach. I would be interested to hear from others who are parenting with these thoughts in mind, too. Comment here, or tweet me @rowstar.

Love Is The Question: Adoption and Matters of the Heart

Ten months ago, two small strangers moved into my home. Last week they became, permanently and legally, my children. Our journey, which began with a spark of chemistry at an adoption activity day just over a year ago, has been challenging, eye-opening; a complete revelation. In between the confusing emotional muddle of the first few months of parenthood, I will always remember distinctly the day They arrived to live with us, after a period of introductions in the foster home. These unfamiliar little people were suddenly my responsibility – reliant on me to feed, clothe, protect, entertain and comfort them. After 20 years of freedom as an independent, unchained adult, it was a shock. Although I’d planned for and pondered about their arrival for almost as many months before, nothing could have prepared me for the reality of becoming an instant mother to these fully formed and highly mobile creatures, with all their hopes, fears, foibles and baggage.

Adoption is not something one takes on lightly. As soon as the formal journey begins, one enters an often-frustrating application process of form-filling and hoop-jumping, designed to actively weed out less resilient adopters. There is certainly no sugar-coating around the possible emotional and behavioural challenges associated with children from troubled backgrounds (which most children waiting for adoption inevitably are), and you are expected by the Powers That Be to demonstrate your preparedness for the near and long-term, in order to be accepted as an adopter. While the candid scenarios presented by social services were not enough to deter me from going ahead with adoption, the process was eye-opening, and did prompt me to acquire as much knowledge and understanding as I could around the most common issues. I wanted to feel ready to embrace whatever adoptive parenthood may throw at me, and I knew that having some proven strategies and techniques up my sleeve – even if I were never to need them - would give me more confidence than relying instinct alone.

During this quest for pre-adoption enlightenment, I found that there is plenty of valuable, practical advice to be had - from both professionals and parents with hands-on experience - on the subject of adoptive parenthood and its particular trials, and I was encouraged by this; soaking up as much knowledge as possible. But in between these self-help binges, I worried; was I over-complicating things? Should I be relying instead on maternal instinct and the reparative powers of Love? Some would say so (and did). But with almost a year of adoptive parenthood now under my belt, I feel justified in saying that, no, Love is not enough. Adoption is no fairy tale, and Love does not automatically spring forth from some sparkling well with a wave of the proverbial magic wand. Had I trusted in Love alone as a panacea in troubled times, I fear I would have found myself drowning in confusion and despair over the past few life-changing months. As wonderful and powerful and desirable as it may be, the hard truth is that Love can be tantalisingly elusive, unpredictable and strange.

I know I am not the only adoptive (or otherwise) parent who would admit that the pursuit of Love can be heart-breakingly mysterious and frustratingly nebulous in the early days of parenthood. Adoptive parents especially may find themselves baffled and disheartened by their unspent desire to love a child who does not know how to be loved. While a new born baby is an empty vessel just waiting to be filled with love, adopted children may never have experienced it, or be too afraid to accept it. My son had just 50 words when he came to us, and 'Love' was not one of them. In the first few weeks he added 'cuddle' and 'kiss' to his limited vocabulary, then one afternoon, while I was handing him a drink in the kitchen, he quite casually uttered the L word for the first time, as if testing out its relevance. But for me, to hear “My love mummy” was sustenance and salvation. I knew then that love could grow between us, even if its significance was still less than palpable to all parties.

What I have learned is that before love can blossom in either direction, there are more important jobs that must be done – wounds of the past to be healed, bridges of trust to be built. The most encouraging counsel I’ve received over the past few months has been from good friends who were brave enough to confess that they, too, struggled in the first few months of parenthood, and did not experience the expected thunderbolt of love with their new child. They described how it grew slowly and in unexpected ways through the humdrum routines and rituals of daily life. This candour gave me the strength to ride out the dominant early emotions of fear, grief, loss, anxiety and doubt - to name but a few - and to feel encouraged by those exquisite moments when a shimmering glimpse of Love would flutter up, precious and fragile and begging to be caught. But however much one has desired and pursued It, surrendering to Love is a daunting prospect, and for me, the scariest part of becoming a parent.

“Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love.” 

Ewan McGregor, Moulin Rouge.

In almost 40 years on this planet, I have loved and been loved constantly. I know what Love is and how it feels when it goes away. Even though Love has sometimes hurt me, I trust that it will endure. My children have not had the same experience, and it would be naive to expect Love to keep us together - for now at least. But here we are, a little family growing together, getting used to each other and getting through the day. Love is all around, but we do not rely on it to sustain us. Instead, we have had to take a more pragmatic and practical approach. More than anything, I have needed...

Patience. Just having the inner strength to wait for each little attachment milestone to happen - without judging and berating oneself in frustration at the seemingly endless time it takes – has been crucial in maintaining self-confidence and sanity in the early days. Then there’s the daily patience needed to support and nurture two hurt, grieving children with their baffling behaviours; to remain calm in the face of raw, irrational, impenetrable anger. And a longer term kind of patience that involves reassuring each other that life as we knew it has not completely disappeared for good.

Resilience. My inner well being and the flourishing of the children has required all of us to be tough. I have found that my resilience to the daily trials is strongest when I have plenty of adult company and support, and I try not to let a day pass without seeing another grown up who can reinforce my mental health and sense of self.

Resourcefulness. Finally, I’ve needed to be incredibly resourceful in order to maintain any kind of equilibrium in our family. Certainly, much of this comes from instinct, from my own upbringing and other life experiences – but I do regularly draw on what I have read and been told about adoption, attachment, child psychology and parenting. Don’t knock it.

Love is important in adoption, and of course in any kind of parenthood. The love of my partner, family and friends has cushioned and consoled me through the most challenging days of my life so far. And now the promise of love blossoming between me and my children propels us into the terrifying and exhilarating next phase of our 'official' life together. But if you are embarking on adoption, or considering offering advice to someone who is, please, do not mistake the role of Love and expect it to solve all of your problems. Call me a cynic, but through my own experience, I now firmly believe that Love is the goal, not the solution.