What a draining holiday I’ve just had.
Even though the week preceding Rosh Hashana I was away for a few days to be with my daughter who had a baby, I still managed to have everything ready for Rosh Hashana without any pressure or rushing. It felt like an accomplishment.
But the child care front is a different matter completely. Ds8 is in a new school and really likes it. I’m so grateful because last year wasn’t a good fit for him and it was a very hard year. The first week at his new school he had short school days, and then for the next two weeks he had a full day, coming home late in the afternoon.
This longer day is what I was told before they came would be their schedule, but it never has been until now. Having some time without him home in the afternoon has been a gift and I love it! It gives me one on one time with ds8.5 and dd8 and the house is so much calmer, I’m more relaxed and able to enjoy being a mother. Him coming home later is also what made it possible for me to leave for a couple of days at a time to be with my married daughter and grandchildren.
However, almost immediately after attending for the longer days, his behavior became dramatically worse. Really, really worse. As in, the difficulty of last year when he was regressing seems like nothing compared to what I’m seeing now – I can hardly remember what felt hard then.
All through Rosh Hashana, I thought and thought about the impossibility of the situation. Since he’s spent so much time with us, he’s had dramatic improvements that have made it possible for him to rise above what was expected of him. When he has extensive time at home, he’s overall a sweet and loving boy, albeit one who needs constant oversight.
However, he can’t be home all the time, and I don’t want him home all the time. The lack of that extended time at home means he’s not able to regulate himself and he has become difficult to live with. So I find us in a catch 22 situation that I don’t see a resolution for.
It’s scary to see how fast his behavior changed, and how bad it’s gotten in just three weeks. Obviously something isn’t working for him internally, and he’s acting it out.
My biggest concern is his behavior towards ds8.5, sometimes being verbally and physically aggressive towards him. I have absolutely no tolerance for that. Every person in this family needs to be safe and feel safe. That’s foundational to how our home functions.
I mentioned to someone on the first day of Rosh Hashana that he had been very disrespectful and physically aggressive. She told me, “You think my kids are perfect? They also hit each other and don’t speak nicely.” I’m really not talking about the same kind of thing.
His reactions to someone saying ‘no’ or stopping him from doing what he wants are extreme – screaming with fury through clenched teeth while physically lashing out at whoever is near him.
Then there’s the verbal aggression that comes right after he stops screaming, spewing the most angry words he can think of.
I should be grateful that since we speak pretty nicely around here, the worst he can yell at me is: “Get away from me! Stop it. Stop it! Don’t touch me. Be quiet. Stop talking. Stop talking. Don’t talk to me. Don’t talk to me. Don’t touch me. I can do what I want. You can’t tell me what to do. Stinky mommy. I’m in charge of myself. I’m going to do whatever I want. I can do whatever I want.”
While he’s yelling, his body gets as stiff as a board and then he stops talking and starts having what looks like an autistic meltdown (but it’s not). I was sitting across the table from my husband one of the times this happened and as he held ds on his lap I saw the worry in my husband’s eyes at how extreme ds8’s behaviors were.
Finally (we’re always holding him on our laps at this point) he stops, kind of sags and puts his head against our chests and gets quiet and calm. Then when he starts to talk again, for up to an hour afterward, he speaks in a babyish voice with babyish movements.
This is much worse than the behavior he had even when he first arrived, and I felt so disheartened that after two and a half years of so much love and guidance for him, that we’re behind where we began. It’s also hard to feel warmth or compassion towards him when he acts like this, even when the cycle ends.
I’ve been concerned about the affect it’s having on ds8.5, who was so scared seeing this behavior that he spent hours on Rosh Hashana secluded in his room, not joining us at all for one of the meals. I took steps right away to address this and fortunately ds8.5 seems to be regrouping really well.
It’s been really hard dealing with ds8, but just as hard dealing with my thoughts – turning and turning the situation around, looking at it from all directions, wracking my brain as to how we can help him – and coming up with very little. But at a time I want G-d to have compassion for me and judge me favorably despite my flaws, how can I pronounce a harsh judgment on this child and say I’m done?
I spoke to my social worker right after Rosh Hashana, detailed what’s happening and said, while I’m not saying we’re quitting right now, we need to talk about what the next step would be if we can’t continue. She told me that several months ago, the therapist I spoke to then called her and said she had told me to emotionally prepare for him needing to be transferred to a residential treatment center. The therapist also told her, she sees it as inevitable that due to his complexities at some point he will need to be transferred out of home care.
There’s one diagnosis that scares me more than any other, and that’s RAD (reactive attachment disorder). When I first heard about ds8, I wondered if he had it and have wondered about it a number of times since. While a lot of behaviors match, I’m not convinced. Even though he was diagnosed with RAD (as well as PDD) by a psychiatrist several months ago, I’m still not convinced. When I think of him having RAD, I feel like I just can’t continue because there’s no hope; for me, it’s something so hard that I’m not able or willing to deal with it. (Here’s a great website to learn more by a parent of two adopted RAD children – Every Star Is Different.)
So I decided to put the diagnosis out of my mind since that’s too worrisome, and just deal with the child in front of me, with what I see right now. When I do that, I can feel more warmth and compassion.
My husband and I had an appointment with with the foster care therapist yesterday morning, and she told us that every single day we give him in our home is a benefit for him. She stressed that we need to take very good care of ourselves because parenting him (and dd8 is a lot, also, even though I’m not mentioning her here) is so demanding and draining. She cautioned us to have our finger on our emotional pulse, to recognize and respects our limits, and not to push ourselves beyond what we can do.
While dd’s therapist commented in response to something I said about him, that it sounds like all foster/adopted youth behaviors, the social worker and this therapist who knows the specifics of his background understand that we’re dealing with hard things and are very supportive of us. They’ve both made it clear that they think all we’ve done for him has been heroic and they understand if we can’t continue.
Avivah
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