Children who come in to foster care and move into a pre Adoptive home, after TPR has occurred, often come with a lot of issues. Most of the time therapy should be continued for most of the children.

The oldest child in the sibling group that my husband and I adopted, was an eleven year old female. She had been the oldest in a sibling group of seven. The birth parents had been on drugs and alcohol for a long period of time and this child had taken on the role of parent.

Stacey was a beautiful little girl. At eleven she was controlling and corrective of everyone around her. While preparing meals, she would tell me how it should be done. At first this bothered me but finally I gave her a kitchen utensil and told her to show me. I think it shocked her because she broke all the yokes of her sister's eggs. I then took the spatula back and showed her how to turn the eggs over lightly not causing any grease to splash and to secure the egg yolk.

From that point on she didn't bother me to much at breakfast. I would just give her a job to do right along beside me. In no time she learned that I could handle feeding the troops on my own and she began using dinner prep time for reading or watching TV.

I would often hear her whisper to her younger siblings telling them what to and what not to do. It was not long before the kids just sounded off and told her you are not our mom now. Then they would run and ask me for whatever it was they needed.

I pulled Stacey aside and hugged her. I let her know it is ok for her to allow me to deal with the kids and for her to just be herself.

She had a few melt downs and cried a lot but with the tears came a tremendous healing. She quickly became the "Too Good Child." She was so perfect that we never had to discipline her. I know it sounds crazy but that worried me more.

I took class after class at the agency and I read books on the How to and Why's of Parenting. But nothing I read or took as a class prepared me for parenting my kids.

Each child was so different. Each child handled stress in a completely different way. During times of conflict they expressed themselves in various ways.

Thank goodness for therapy. One day a week we would drive together for a group session. I would inform the therapist of what had gone on the prior week. She in turn would give the kids crayons and talk about how they were having fun. For the life of me I could not see where coloring and talking about fun was going to help these kids.
But then again I didn't have a Masters Degree. So I trusted her.

As a mom at the end of the day I would curl up in my rocking chair and watch TV with the kids. Sometimes the kids would take turns crawling up on to the arm of my chair and rocking with me. That is where we began to snuggle and talk at night. They began to trust me and they began to open up and talk to me.

Some of the things they shared with me kept me awake at night. I often prayed myself to sleep. I began to tuck the kids into bed at night and I would sit out in the hall and sing or read a book until they fell off to sleep.

Most of the abuse the kids had lived through had happened to them at night, so they had a horrible time sleeping. If I was not able to be up in the hall with them they would run from room to room and stay awake until the wee hours of the morning.

We tried early evening relays and exercise to get the kids tired, reading books and listening to music. Nothing seemed to work.

We bought each child a radio and head phones (which they did not use). It only made life louder at bedtime for all of us. They would each choose a different station and by the time we settled on which station it would be. Everyone was exhausted.

That is when we began setting household rules and making charts and identifying boundaries for each child.

We made colorful posters to hang in the children's room. But it didn't get us off to a very good start. The kids had to read and agree with the rules and understand them. So we read them together and we explained them. The excuses they told for breaking a rule could have been a good act on Comedy TV. However, it was not long before the rules felt natural and we all just simmered down.

Sometimes I think the cuddle time in the rocking chair was worth more to us as a family than the counseling sessions. The kids always seemed to tell me things before they would tell the therapist. That gave me the greatest feeling to know they trusted me and that I was in fact becoming their mom.

Parenting children with emotional and mental disorders is not easy. You have to get good therapists and doctors that can help you understand what the diagnosis of your child is. Research is needed to identify and help a parent to understand behaviors that are and are not chosen by the child or in fact are a symptom of the child's disorder. Discipline changes drastically

Always allow a professional to diagnose a child. Never assume. If medicine can be used to help the child stay in control, learn about the medicine and what the side effects are before allowing the medication to be used on the child. Most of the time the benefits of the medication far outweigh the side effects. But a little understanding of what a medicine can do to help your child, is gratifying.

We had to change therapists because the quality and quantity of care the children needed was beyond what the first therapist could handle.

By knowing your child and understanding what kind of abuse the child has encountered, you can seek out a therapist that has direct experience in dealing with the proper issues.

From cooking meals in the kitchen to choosing a good therapist for your family. It is all basically taking control of your family and their primary needs.

Sincerely,

Shar