With 39 kids you’d think I wouldn’t bother trolling newspapers in search of articles about children, but I’m constantly attempting to figure children out, to understand their internal motivations, and to circumvent the negativity that can, and does, land on my own children. I also want to continue encouraging them and helping them to discover what they want to do with their lives.

There is a huge part of me that believes that if I talk issues through to my children, and listen to their responses, I can try and prevent them from making some poor choices. Note that I qualified with the word “some”. The decision making apparatus in their brains, in the brains of any teenager, add issues and trauma to that age group, and the recipe for confusion is brewing at high speed. Maybe the best I can do is to lower the flame that is burning under their feet at times?

In my many adoptions there were some issues I avoided in children, as I didn’t feel qualified to parent them. These included sexual acting out, fire starters and pet abusers. I personally believe that those are indicators of severe problems, not necessarily fixable by a mama’s love. I’m not saying that my love can fix any problem; it can only make the child feel better about themselves, that they are valued and cared for finally.

Yesterday I participated in a goal setting session with my 15 year old son, who’s living in a therapeutic placement. He and I shared with the therapists our description of an armpit kid, since he is one of my armpit children.

Sound gross but we use it interchangeably with the term Velcro kid. It is a child who, every time I turn around, is snuggled up in my arms, practically in my armpit, glued to my side, pressed against me, underfoot constantly…and that is fine with me. It is what they need.

The son pictured above, a brilliant, gifted 11 year old, is fooling around after a haircut. He’s goofy and standoffish, is not an armpit child as he’s afraid, deeply and profoundly afraid to trust me. The fact that he did this with the hair speaks volumes and I, of course, called him on it. “OK, son, this proves you wanna be my armpit baby.”

He laughed and ran down the hall, “I do love you Mom, I just don’t want to show it. I’ll just tell you.”

OK, for us that is progress, it took just under five years for him to get this far emotionally.

I’ll wait him out.