Sometimes I sound like I have it all together. Even when I have a raging child, it may seem as if I am always able to step back and calmly ascertain what is really going on inside their traumatized minds.

Since I don’t sit down and blog during a storm but rather much later as it comes to my mind, I am then sometimes able to figure out what really just happened. Usually I run it by a very smart daughter of mine, adopted at age 11, now 27 with her Master’s Degree in Social Work, she translates for me; her knowledge and understanding comes from her... more

I’m not going to take this opportunity to complain about the emotional challenges that holidays bring to traumatized children. I think I’ve mentioned that before. I’m trying my best to totally tone down Christmas this year, to make it more about family and food, less about stuff.

My kids have been off the wall all month. Hyperactive, anxious, brittle nerves on edge, and difficult to reason with, they’ve pushed my buttons for weeks. We’ve been terribly busy with two different musicals, a band concert, upcoming school parties, one daughter’s cheerleading schedule, and... more

I’ve been asked to describe my adoptions and one in particular stands out in my mind as difficult. I’d flown to east Texas in early 1999, four years after my previous adoption in 1995. My caseworker liked several years to pass after an adoption finalization and I trusted her instincts totally.

Entering their foster home I was a bit stunned to find a hoochy-dressed seven year old, a four year old still in sagging diapers, and a raging, spitting, biting, non-verbal two year old who continuously pumped out from his rear end what resembled goat turds. These three children were... more

I have a once very violent, angry son who has been in several lock-ups and therapeutic settings for nearly two years now. Visiting once a month, if he earns his home stay pass, has been pleasant as his homesickness for this family has finally overcome his old reluctance to be a part of anything.

In a month he will transition out of the program, not because he is cured but because they are a nine month program and feel that they’ve done all they can, what with their intensive 24-7 therapeutic environment.

We all agree he is better, but still dangerously unable to control his temper at times.

It is with a great deal of trepidation that I’m agreeing to have him return... more

The boys were put into a foster home where they proved to be unmanageable — defecating throughout the house, destroying furniture and scratching the ivory off the piano keys…”

Please go read the entire article of a severely troubled child. These are the children we parent. I know from your comments and emails, from other blogs and stories that when we adopt older children, especially from the foster care system but also increasingly from foreign countries as FAS and FAE are rampantly coursing through our children, that we are inviting a word of challenges into... more

I’m trying to keep my life in perspective as I wade through defiant, mean children while juggling an admittance to a psychiatric hospital, not for me but for a son, realizing another son got locked up last night for not having car insurance, and learning that a friend of mine has an inoperable mass on her liver.

That absolutely stops me in my tracks. My problems here will someday cease, and will certainly ease up at some point, but my friend is battling for her life. I need to get a grip.

My kids will hopefully overcome most of their issues before the next... more

I’m a little cowed by the fact that several of my children have needed to live somewhere else in out-of-home placements. I could not meet their psychiatric needs within the confines and limitations of our family home. No one but a psychiatric facility with a staff and PRN medications would be able to keep irrational, violent children safe from themselves. The safety of others must also be considered.

This side of life has shocked me in such an abject manner. I would not have knowingly adopted... more

The younger sister of my son who is in a psychiatric facility is escalating her own destructive, anti-social, control issue behaviors. I know that part of the problem, at the moment, is her grief over her birth brother, and part of it involves stepping up to the plate to fill the vacuum caused by his void from our family.

We’ve had several mornings where she purposefully dresses inappropriately for school and then has a rage when told to go change her clothes. Screaming a lie to me, at the top of her lungs, “But I don’t have anything else to wear!”

What bullspit.... more

After nearly two months now in two different psychiatric hospital placements, my son was discharged yesterday as they are both considered short term facilities. Even if it is obvious that our family’s safety would be jeopardized by having him come home, it’s basically tough toenails. Deal with it.

I’ve spent eight weeks now, sending emails queries and making phone calls, hunting for the next tenuous solution. I’ve been here before with a significantly disturbed child, two kids of mine actually who have little hope for a good future as their choices are so limited.

I’ve documented all attempts. I’ve found that I have to prove what I’ve tried to do, how many ways in which... more

A local school here has a tradition of handing out daily awards for being caught doing something good. I like that. It's the little stuff even like being caught behaving in the hallway or acting right in the school cafeteria. With my kids, being caught doing anything good is progress.

I try and do that here at home as well. “Good job, Javy” just because he took a load of trash outside to the truck or, “Thanks Dubs, when he picks up dirty socks that someone else slung at the ceiling fan.

I know there’s the whole self-esteem issue going on and the flip... more