Some of my thoughts today…

I think most of my readers know that I have 2 adopted children.  My youngest 2.

They are challenging.

They challenge everything I knew about raising kids. 

Yesterday, I wrote that post pouring my heart out about my fears & frustrations… And I’d love to say… “you know what we had a really good day yesterday, I poured out my frustrations to the Lord, He took my burden & everyone was happy.”

Nope.

We spent almost 2 hours at the pediatricians office doing check ups on how things are going.

It struck me, and the doctor confirmed, that perhaps part of my own issues this week is the shot I got on Monday for my poison ivy.  EVERYTHING is making me cry.

I was starting to feel like I was really in trouble mentally, I don’t believe I have ever been “depressed” & I know that depression is a very real thing, the way this shot made me react to things was not the way I normally react.

Realizing that eased my mind that maybe I was going to get over this constant crying, and I did go buy some vitamins to help with stress, decided to wait & see if I calm down, and today I am better.

Poison Ivy is better too.

But, I was a mess in the doctor’s office and because of my “mess” which even though she had already told me was because of the medications, she still told me some things and prescribed some things that really don’t make a lot of sense to me at this point.

I left discouraged & frustrated.

I met a lady who lives in this area & has a child who’s behaviors are like Jadon’s, & talked to her a couple days ago.  She told me of a specialist that her doctor had sent them to, and that this set them on a trail to find some answers, solutions, tools.

THIS IS WHAT I WANT!!!  TOOLS!!  HOPE!!! ANSWERS!!!  HELP!!!  RESOURCES!!!  TESTS!!!!  SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING BESIDES GIVE ME ANOTHER MEDICATION TO TRY TO SEE IF IT HELPS!!!!!!

I am sorry.  I am angry.

The doctor gave Kiahna a referral to the place I asked for & said she didn’t think that place would help Jadon.

Instead recommended a physiatrist.  Mentioned some mental illness that I don’t even want to talk about.

I HATE when people throw around SERIOUS conditions without PROOF OR TESTS TO PROVE THAT THIS COULD EVEN BE A REMOTE POSSIBLITY!!!!  These conditions and the people that deal with them are nothing to mess around with, nothing to throw around lightly.

I am sure that this dr is not trying to be that way, she wants to help… but sometimes the biggest help comes from admitting you don’t know the answer and referring to someplace that might!!!  SOMETIMES!!!

PLEASE don’t throw around MAYBES or COULD BE & please don’t ask me to trial an error another medication for one of these COULD BE illnesses!!

I have watched as someone I love’s life was destroyed & is a continual fight with the condition that the dr suggested “might” be what Jadon “could” have…  I KNOW the life destroying effects this condition has, please don’t use that term lightly!!

OH MY GOODNESS, IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY!!

I feel like someone is playing mind games with me.  Like this is some joke. 

Insurance hoops.

Referrals.

Counseling.

Specialist.

Pray.

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO??

Last evening, Jadon threw another fit.

In desperation I jumped in the van with him and started driving.  Didn’t know where to go for help.  Called the counseling place we have been going to for over 2 years, they said to come.

The counselor doesn’t know what to do.  (This is pastoral counseling & prayer counseling)  He is praying for us.  God You need to show us.

He shares with us that he is seeing more & more of this behavior in adopted kids.

Where is the hope?

God?  You are calling your people to care for the orphans.  And then we bring them in our homes & they don’t respond to our help.  And things grow worse instead of better.  What are we missing here??

I mean, to be brutally honest here, I’ve had some thoughts these past weeks as Jadon’s behaviors deteriorated once again, that I won’t be able to raise him long term.  Have you ever had a thought like that go through your mind as a parent??  The thought is devastating… I can’t imagine what it would feel like to have to institutionalize one of your children.    Or to be wondering if they will end up in prison after all of this?  Or if there is any purpose to what you have attempted to do in the long run???

I am sorry, adoption is a wonderful thing, and I NEVER want to be a nay sayer on it.  NEVER.  We should adopt.  We should care for orphans.  We should help other people who are trying to adopt.

What we cannot do is leave the families to their own resources AFTER they have adopted.  WE CANNOT!!

IF THIS IS WHAT GOD IS CALLING HIS PEOPLE TO DO, THEN THERE HAS TO BE A WAY THAT HE WANTS US TO DO IT!!!  WHAT AM I MISSING HERE?????

Nothing in my life (you know outside of my husband’s leaving & refusing to work on our marriage at all) has left me more frustrated.

Adoption is a big thing here.  And it should be.  It feels a little bit sensationalized to me.  The easy part is the adoption process.  The hard part is raising children to be healthy adults.

Maybe this is just me? 

Maybe I need lower expectations?

I read another book, in fact I am almost through the second time.  Some of the things in there are wonderful, some don’t work at all with my kids.

The older I get, the more books I’ve read, looking back on some of the things I read & thought would be good & worked, I realize now that you can’t take one author’s whole book and apply it to your children (multiple) and think that #1 one strategy is going to work for all kids # 2 that everything one author says is gospel! 

While an author may have some good points, he probably doesn’t have it all right.

Here’s an example.

I read in the latest book I am reading, which is very good, and has many great points, many of which have changed my approach to many things… one thing it has not changed my approach on is bed time for my 5 & 6 year old.

(I’ll paraphrase because in the book it’s long)  Bedtime, “we introduced something called room time.  Instead of ordering them to be quiet & to go bed, I told them, ‘It’s room time.  We don’t want to see you or hear you until the morning’”

And of course you do.  Then you go to their room and say “Are you not tired?”

And they of course say no.

So you take them out & give them a chore to do.  “When you get that all swept up, there’s a garbage can.  If you’re tired you can go to bed, but if you’re not tired I’ll find something else for you to do”

Let me tell you.  BACKFIRE!!

My 2 love this, I don’t believe they will EVER get tired!!  Meanwhile, me their mother, is exhausted & this is NOT OKAY!!

I tried it 3 nights.

Strike off the list.  Doesn’t work for us.

Last night I put them both to bed, and they were both in their beds yelling (who can yell the loudest) and kicking their walls.

I s*anked them.

Judge me.

They shut up.  Went to sleep.

This morning.  I woke up.  Thankful that I was able to sleep after the day yesterday.  And the first thought I had was that I was letting Jadon’s temper tantrums paralyze me.

The force of his fits is so strong, and growing increasingly stronger, that I have become immobilized to know what to do.

Time outs fail.  Kicking, screaming, tearing apart bedroom, destroying things.

Time ins.  Kicking, screaming, biting, hitting, spewing every hurtful thing that can be thought of.

Somewhere along the line I quite s*anking him.

Somewhere I along the line I lost touch with any possible discipline for a child like this that is so out of control.

This morning I told him I was not allowing him to scream at me any more.  If he screamed at me I was going to s*ank him.

He screamed. 

I s*anked.

He screamed.

I s*anked.

I gave him choices.

He refused.

He got another s*ank.

And then he obeyed.  He did what I asked.  He wasn’t happy about it, but I praised him and he smiled.

He went to school happy.

I hate s*anking my kids.  It is the worst.

You can read books all over the map about it.  I have my kids in counseling, I don’t want to be criticized or accused of abuse.

I am not here to debate it.

I am just trying to survive.  Raise these kids that I love more than anyone in the world.

How about I end this with a positive I’ve gotten from the book I just read…  I tried this last night.  This one worked.

“Levi had been having a tough time.  He was in the second grade & wasn’t reading… when Sheri went to school to pick him up, he was waiting for her.  Sheri thought to herself, ‘Here we go.  My words are spirit and I carry vision for my son.  I carry it in my heart and in my life.  I carry what it is that I want him to have.’”

“Hey, rough day?” Sheri asked him.

“Stupid backpack!” He got in the car.

Sheri drove to the store and went inside with Levi.  He just trailed behind.  Then she stopped halfway down the aisle, turned to him, and said, “Levi, my son, who I am so proud of.”  With one eye, he barely looked at her.

In the next aisle she stopped and pointed at him “Levi my son, who I am so proud of.”  Still he avoided her face.

A couple of aisles later she did it again.”

I think you get the drift.  Last night after Jadon’s fit, I was holding him in my arms and this is what I said.  “You are my son, and I love you, and I am proud of you”.  And I repeated it as I rocked him.

He responded by a nice yell that “I had already said that!”. 

I responded that I know I did, but I was going to say it again.

This morning I said it again as I dropped him off at school.  He smiled.

Dogonit, I don’t have the answers.  If I wrote a parenting book it would say, “PRAY HARD.  the end.”  But, I love these kids and I am not going to give up & sit back while their lives disintegrate before my eyes!!

I will fight for my family.  I will make mistakes.  I will have victories.  I hope that my life is an encouragement to someone.

Thanks for reading all of this.

Pam