How do you discipline a child adopted when older than infant who continously lies, steals, breaks, and hurts others?
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Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control
Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control: A Love-Based Approach to Helping Attachment-Challenged Children With Severe Behaviors
A lot of international adoption families have started using bits and pieces of the philosophy behind Forbes and Post's BCLC book. It even has a nickname because the title is so long. And the idea is very, very basic. Traumized children due to abnormal brain development are stuck... they cannot help themselves. And must be parented in a very different manner.
Some folks read BCLC and think it is saying let the kid do whatever they want. And they struggle implementing it.
It means the parents must be secure within themselves and notice when their behavior makes a situation escalate.
It means parenting the child at the emotional level they are at... If the child is behaving like a 2 year old in panic... ignore the bad behavior (you will circle back to that later)... rock the child like a baby... cry with them... comfort them.... And when the child is calm talk about the behavior is a distance third party manner. Use roll playing or drawing to talk through the issue.
Post is a former foster child who was "RAD". So he is speaking from personal experience. He survived his childhood. He is a social worker with a wife and children now. He is highly interested in brain development. I got to attend a day seminar and listen to him speak. He is a better speaker then writer.
But there have been numerous studies done on adult brains and PTSD. Why in the world shouldn't this same thing be happening to kids. You will find people in mental health who will still claim that children cannot experience PTSD.
BCLC is a strong advocate of re-parenting a child. It means doing simple and basic things with the child; rocking, doing finger painting, telling stories, reminding the child they are a child and they safe, measure adult hand against child hand, breathing together, playing baby games like this-little-piggy, hugging, etc...
AngelaW
The ones that you love the most are usually the ones that hurt you the most. - Unknown
Structure is essential
Angela, the problem part of that approach seems to be an intentional lack of structure. Huggy touchy feely, is great and a key part of what is needed, but will not convey safety, or reliablity to a damaged child, safe has to come first. Unfortuantely, kids who come from foster care desparately need structure. They measure you against, can that person keep me safe? For them, that means considerable structure that you don't set aside, no matter what. If you don't get to safe, all the huggy in the world will just bounce off the defensive shield. John
PS With some kids, you don't get to safe, just as Linny talks about.
Tons of Structure
There is tons of structure with BCLC... It just isn't as visible to the outside eye. And it is very, very specific to the child.
My darling came home from a Ukrainian orphanage at 3.5 years of age. Her emotional age was about 18 months. The only emotion she knew how to express was rage. Her physical skills and language skills were around 2 years of age. She spoke a strange mishmash of Russian and Ukrainian that my translator struggled to understand.
She had crossed eyes, PTSD, no clue what attachment was, strong willed 1000%. She was a survivor and nothing that I did or said made an impact on her behavior... because she was so totally focused on surviving.
The first 4 months of our life together were the worst 4 months of my entire life. The first year together was the hardest year. I guess that I should write about this more...
What worked for us... what helped Natasha and I attach together... Natasha's world was very limited during that first year, except for specific events that I used as "training" or "practice". She did go to a preschool and day care that actually understood "attachment". I didn't realize just how rare that was until later.
Every week or two weeks, I would focus on a specific behavior. We had a happy hands week (ie no hitting). And I would catch Natasha and praise her for not hitting. Because her brain was so stuck in survival, she literally couldn't hear my praise. So I had to go WAY, WAY over the top. I would catch her doing the right thing for 2 seconds and I would praise her, give her a hug, etc..
Every morning, Natasha and I would talk about the day's events. Every evening, we would debrief about the day's events. We would talk about the week's theme (ie no hitting). We role played A LOT. I got to be the spoiled little girl who yelled and hit. Natasha would pretend to be the patient mom. We would finger paint, draw in shaving cream, walk the dog. Heck breathing played a major role.
I would model emotions for Natasha. I dropped and broke a glass. So I let tears come to my eyes and my face get mad. "I AM REALLY MAD. I LOVED THAT GLASS." Then I sniff and tried not to cry. "I am feeling more sad now. I don't think feeling this." Then I take 5 deep breaths. "I am feeling better. I need a hug, that will help me."
Natasha's day was highly structured in terms of events. In fact I was very rigid during that first year.
BUT the touchy feeling stuff.... I was very flexible in how I decided to react to certain events. Hmm.... I need to be more specific about this.
AngelaW
The ones that you love the most are usually the ones that hurt you the most. - Unknown
Same stuff, different day?
A lot of what you describe Anglea is the standard, very non-standard parenting, for very damaged kids. Like a politician does message of the day, this is targeted behaviours only, and the rest slides, so that the child can focus. Simple goals, 'no hands week', again, more is overload. The part that is different is the amount of modeling, I can see the value of that. Indeed there are tons of structure, but selected structure. The debriefing is valuable, and again, more than would be there without this type of parenting. Interesting ideas, obviously it worked, the best proof of all for this set of techniques. John
As a parent who had more
As a parent who had more than one child who exhibited some and all of these behaviors (and more), I have to admit that we were willing to try just about anything and everything to stop them.
They occurred DAILY in multiples. It became a way of life for our entire family where nothing was safe, and everyone was vulnerable to whatever the child would choose to do. (Whew, it was awful to say the least.)
We'd been to SO many different counselors, teachers, therapists, etc....and no single way was helping in any case. Truth be told, NOTHING seemed to work, because the children had moderate to severe attachement disorders. Even attachment therapies weren't working; and so, nothing mattered to any of the kids--nothing.
How do you 'teach' a child anything, when nothing matters to them? Hard question to answer. I still have acquaintances who're dealing with these issues. In our case, the most severe child ended up in residential, because the stealing, lying, breaking and hurting others-----ended up in trying to hurt in much more severe ways. In no way could we continue to have that in our home.
To date, this kid still gives the initial impression that things/people matter to him; but the reality is, they 'matter' only when it means things will go as he wants.
For the moderately AD child......due to other circumstances, he ended up being adopted by family matters. They continue to have problems with his behaviors, and I suspect they always will.
Sincerely,
Linny