I told someone recently that I feel as if we live in an alternative universe. What’s normal for others is rarely so for us, not simply because we’re a large family but because of all the issues, diagnoses, challenges and behaviors that we present each day.

While one family was at the high school homecoming, I was babysitting for my friend whose son was sent to a psychiatric unit. I’d picked up two of her other children to bring to my house which is also their version of normal, knowing my kids would distract and entertain her kids while she tended to a difficult situation.

A new reader has commented, “I have recently adopted an older child--14--and as a single, never-before parent, I am struggling in many aspects. My family tends to minimize the experiences--especially the two-year old tantrums. My friends have no concept. And because my child is so charming to others (attachment disorder), most seem to suggest that it might be my over-protective parenting strategies. So, I am very much walking a tightrope.”

This is a crowded tightrope; all of us adoptive parents who are parenting older children are in this arena also. It constantly grieves me to think of what happened to my children before I met them. I have reams of paperwork detailing their abuse and neglect and it pierces my heart. It bothers me that I was not there then to protect them, that someone hurt MY kids so badly.

Last night on the soccer field a kid blatantly slammed my son, the hit was so hard, I heard it across the field and I let out an involuntary shout of protest. The ref tended to it, called it a foul, and my son got to kick the ball…not a goal kick, I can’t think of the right word, but a wrong was made right.

I too have to make the wrongs right for my children. I have to show them that the world can be a good place, that I parent them with love even when they resist it, which is usually the case. I have 12 year olds with the emotional capabilities of two year olds because their needs were not met then. I have to parent in a very different, elementary manner.

I’ve read the love and logic books, social work books, parenting books and books on coaching, management and leadership. I love to read so it’s easy for me to soak up information. What’s difficult though is applying it all to such extenuating circumstances.

When a 9 year old screams cuss words at and about me because he’s angry at all those people who abandoned him, I have to remember all that and not react in anger. I usually wait out a rage rather than feed into it. There’s no reasoning with a child when they are that furious. It has taken me many years to learn this one thing.

This tightrope we walk, teetering between showing firmness and flexibility, love and discipline, forgiveness and appropriate behaviors to large children with the emotional development of toddlers is a near impossibility but, once again, I’m encouraging all of us to do so. I truly already know how well it pays off eventually in the form of grown kids who’ll make you proud someday.

I’m asking my new reader, Sara, to suspend disbelief and trust me on this.


Photo Credit Cindy Bodie