These real case examples are published with the written consent of the clients and their parents with identifying information changed or removed to preserve confidentiality.
Allen
and Andrew
Allen and Andrew came
with their mother and grandmother, their adoptive parents, at age five. We worked together for 33 sessions over two
years. Allen had been displaying
separation anxiety in school, crying and clinging to his mother, relieved only
in the company of his twin brother, Andrew. Their parents wanted help
explaining their adoption and addressing their sometimes aggressive behavior toward
each other and defiance of parents. They could not be apart nor sleep in their
own beds, they screamed in the car refusing to go into stores, and they
demanded their electronic toys and could throw hours-long tantrums.
The
boys were named Jerry and Joseph by their 18-year-old biological mother Kathy. The twins each weighed about five and a half
pounds at birth. They were healthy. Kathy cared for them for three weeks at her
mother’s home then took them back to the hospital for a check-up. That’s when their mother admitted using drugs
and alcohol and the infants were removed from her care, deemed to be
underweight. Child welfare services
placed the twins in the home of a foster parent then moved them six months
later to their adoptive home.
Their
biological mother herself had been adopted.
Kathy and her sister were abandoned on the streets of Tijuana and placed
in separate orphanages. At the age of
six Kathy was separated from the children with whom she was raised in the
orphanage and moved to her sister’s shelter.
From there they were adopted by a San Diego couple. At the age of 12 the sisters were removed
from the adoptive home because the adoptive father had molested one of their
friends. He was convicted and sentenced
to prison and they were reunited with their adoptive mother. At the age of 16, Kathy gave birth to a boy
who was subsequently removed from her care and adopted.
Allen
and Andrew are the smartest, funniest, most articulate, caring boys you will
ever meet. They come up with the most meaningful and thoughtful things to say
and they are interested in everything and everyone around them. They are hard to say no to. Their mother, Diane, had wanted children but
never married. So, she and her mother, Claire,
decided to adopt together. Diane is the
breadwinner, and Claire is the stay-at-home parent. They each have a sense of humor and plenty of
support from family and friends. But
they do come from two different generations.
Diane’s focus was on making the boys happy. Claire needed them to mind her. So, whether it was bedtime or chore time
there was a lot of whining and pleading, sometimes also by Allen and Andrew.
In
the first few sessions as I learned more about the boys and they became more
comfortable in the therapy room and with me, we explored their personalities
and strengths. We played games and
explored the topic of adoption in general with books. At that point, the boys understood little
about their own biological history and assumed their lives started in the twin
cribs they shared as infants, constantly hungry and eating and growing, until
they could crawl out of one crib into the other and sleep together. We drew out their “placement map” and
identified the people and places in their lives including their biological
mother, the unknown father they named “Bill”, and the older brother who went to
another adoptive home. To help with the
story, Diane had pictures of the boys and their mother and even found pictures
of their brother.
It
took no more than a dozen sessions for the boys to be able to tell their own
story and identify all the feelings associated with leaving and moving and
finding a forever family. They became
very familiar with the routine of the room: asking for toys and games before
playing with them; excusing themselves to insert comments into adult
conversations; accepting choices about how to leave the room, all planned
attachment therapy interventions. They were totally obedient and compliant
until they could stand it no longer and needed to take charge. It was the smallest of requests from Mom,
“Shake Mike’s hand and say goodbye.”
Nothing. Andrew looked at Allen
and the test of wills was on.
Allen
looked at Mom and said, “Come on, let’s go.”
“Shake Mike’s hand.” “No”. First Allen and Andrew began begging to go
home. In the moment they did not realize
that the door was unlocked and nothing kept them from walking out of the room,
taking the elevator or stairs down, and walking to the parking lot. Instead, Allen begged his mother to go then
ordered her to get up and leave with them.
Andrew watched and then joined in, looking at me and his parents dead in
the eye and began to tear the room apart.
The twins pulled toys out of the cabinet, dumped puppets out of an
ottoman, tried to overturn a coffee table until the wheels came off. First, Diane then Claire pleaded with their
sons to stop. “All you have to do is
shake Mike’s hand.” “Boys, stop tearing up
the room.” The more the parents
bargained the bigger the show became. “You’re ruining my life!” said Allen. “You don’t love us!” cried Andrew as the boys
writhed on the floor. With an “evil eye”
toward me they moved toward my laptop and shelves as if preparing to do damage
but did not.
Feeling
fairly safe myself and with no pressure to clear the room for another client, I
knew the boys were inviting me into their world and I was seeing what the
parents experienced frequently. My
attention, then, turned not to the twins but to their parents and their
attempts to stop the show. I reassured Diane
and Claire that I was not judging them or the boys and that we had plenty of
time to work through this together. I
encouraged Diane to stop responding to the twins’ cutting remarks and to stay
calm and focus on her smart phone. I
gave Claire a book and told her to relax and at least pretend to read and
ignore what was going on. It is
important here to say I did not suggest the parents leave the room or threaten
consequences in any other way. This is
what happened when the children did not want to leave the car to go into a
store, and it happened when the parents took away electronics to direct the
kids to chores or bed.
Then
over the next 30 minutes the pattern became apparent. When the parents responded in an anxious way
to the boys’ behavior, the tantrum got louder and the mess got bigger. When the parents stayed silent but present,
the boys became quieter, started chatting with each other about other topics,
and then, surprisingly began to work together to clean up the room and put
everything back as it was before. Andrew
told Allen to help him pick up the corner of the coffee table so he could put
the wheels back on. They were working
together showing that their overactive right brains and limbic systems had been
calmed, and their left brain and cognitive functions could work together to
solve their problem. Forty-five minutes after their official appointment had
ended, Andrew came over to me, offered his hand, and said quietly, “See you
next week, Mike.” Allen, however, looked
sideways at his brother as if he were a traitor to their cause but eventually
did the same. I responded, “See you next
week you wonderful boys.”
Here
is what I understand about that situation.
Because of the twins’ experience of neglect very early in their lives,
their subsequent removal from their biological mother, and their placements in
two foster homes before they were six months old, these boys have a high level
of anxiety associated with their primary caregivers, attunement to their
internal states, and fear of abandonment.
This anxiety drives a level of emotional dysregulation when they feel
unsafe in the situation or when their caregivers are anxious. This dysregulation looks like defiance as
they test adults and attempt to take control.
Also, object relations says that an infant does not distinguish
themselves from their caregiver so removal from birth mother at weeks old
leaves a sense of loss of self which can last well into adulthood.
It
would be easy to think these smart boys know what they are doing and intend to
get their way, in this case leaving the room on their own terms without
following the instructions of their parents, refusing to obey. Instead, at our core we seek a sense of
safety essential for survival and for children that safety comes from parents.
When children experience disruption so early in their lives their sense of
safety is shattered and remains shaky even when parents are healthy, loving,
and supported. So, the behavior is a
sign or symptom of anxiety. And the goal
of the parent or adult needs to be to help the child feel safe and regulated by
staying calm, steady, and soothing. When
a parent gives in to their own anxiety by attempting to appease or scold the
child, the parent has lost control of the situation, the child feels it, and
their fear increases. Another thing that
increases with children who have been removed from first parents is their sense
of shame that they are damaged and nobody can tolerate or help them.
Now,
most people and parents would not see this situation as a big deal worth
spending an hour and a half to “fix”. They might find it petty to “force” a
child to follow simple directions or even abusive to “make” them shake hands
with an adult. After all there are
bigger and more important struggles to tackle and not enough time in the day to
get everything done with kids. Who wants
to spend another 45 minutes with crying children when you can make it stop so
fast by giving in. The trouble is, this
is about trust, helping children trust their parents, helping parents
demonstrate their reliability so they can develop and maintain influence with a
child in their small choices leading to big decisions. Parents are responsible for behaviors that
attach the child to them in a way that fosters security and healthy development. If left unaddressed this pattern of trauma,
anxiety, scolding, and acquiescing repeats from the smallest tests of will up
to conflicts over chores, homework, media, drugs, friends and whether the
teenager or young adult can follow the rules to safely live at home.
The
question was, did setting and keeping a boundary with quiet, compassionate,
consistency pay off in increased trust in adults as demonstrated by the ability
to go along with their directions and expectations? The next session with Allen and Andrew
proceeded like any other; checking in on their week, deciding on goals for the
session, finishing their adoption story.
When it came time to leave, the boys stopped and considered their
options. Would they say goodbye and get
on with their day or would they stay and test us more? Andrew gave a knowing look to his mother and
me, shrugged his shoulders, shook my hand, and walked out. Allen looked betrayed. He continued to dig in his heals and began to
whine and cry. This time I directed
their grandmother, Claire, to leave with Andrew and wished them a good time
together. Allen stayed staring at his
mother and me wondering what we would do.
He began to cry. Not an angry or
frustrated cry, but a desperate overwhelmed cry with real tears. Mother Diane pulled him onto her lap. The control battle was too much. All of his fears and sadness came to a
head. His mother had the chance to
empathize with him and offer physical comfort and support. After a few minutes,
perhaps 15 not 45, he was ready to say goodbye holding his mother’s hand. The scene has not repeated again although the
boys talk about that day almost every time we see each other.
The
kind of early experiences Allen and Andrew have had leads children to a level
of ongoing anxiety that most children do not have, although on any given day
full of school and sports its presence is not readily apparent. Then even infants, toddlers, and small
children develop some interesting defenses to cope with their invisible but
real fear of abandonment. It takes a lot
of energy to maintain that level of hypervigilance. Also, intelligent children like the twins have
an innate sense if not a full understanding that they are different from other
people. They often attribute this
difference, not to the early experiences of trauma, but to themselves.
Remember, young children are self-centered and egotistical, and they are
supposed to be. That means they do not
see much farther than their small sphere and they attribute events to
themselves. Their sense of being deeply
troubled or in trouble can be overwhelming.
The
job of a parent, to the extent possible, is to be that calm, consistent safe
base from which a traumatized child can receive comfort, validation, and
encouragement in exploring themselves and their world. The job of the therapist, to the extent
possible, is to support the parent and guide the dyad in managing emotions on
the journey to healing and thriving. For
the therapist, it is about developing a relationship of trust with the parent
so they can manage their own anxiety without shame, develop a better
understanding of their child, and practice counterintuitive non-traditional
methods. The purposes are to read the
child’s behavior therapeutically, help the child reduce their anxiety levels
and raise their self-esteem, and improve the child’s attachment to the
parent. This more secure attachment
gives the parent influence with the child in guiding them toward
self-realization and healthier relationships in the future.
Donny
and Henry
Donny
and Henry were eight years old when their mother Joan brought them to me to work
on adoption issues. I worked with Donny
off and on for more than four years. I
worked with Donny and Henry together for a time before Henry started EMDR with
another therapist to address his PTSD. Joan’s
home was the twins’ ninth placement since their removal from their biological
mother at age two and their third adoptive placement including with their
biological sister. The boys had just
moved in when we started working together and they were already displaying the
behaviors of a difficult adjustment; lying, stealing, defiance, and
tantrums.
Henry
was the first twin born weighing not quite four pounds with Donny right behind
him at five and a half pounds. The size
difference has been evident throughout their lives, Henry is the smaller
brother. They lived with their biological mother for almost two years with
their three older siblings until child welfare services intervened on behalf of
their older sister. After staying in
foster care for two years, the twins were actually placed with the older sister
for adoption. It was during that more
than two year period they were exposed to domestic violence and physical abuse
along with their sister’s two younger children who were also removed. The boys reported leaving the house as small
children to get away from what was going on inside. By the time they got to Joan’s house they
were most concerned about what they would eat, how much they could play, and
where their stuff would go. They had
very little tolerance for a new parent’s rules and reminders to do their
homework, clean up after themselves, or go to bed on time.
In
fact, Henry had the most difficulty going to sleep. He would hide, stall, and scream. One day Henry
came into the therapy room with his head hanging in shame. His mother followed with an exasperated look
on her face. Joan was raised by a loving mother and critical father, so being
challenged by angry little boys was triggering to her. Despite this, she was well educated, well
trained, well supported, and committed to keeping these boys in the
family. She also had the help of her
mother who lived nearby and attended therapy with them. I asked Henry, “You look upset, what’s
up?” With enough time to feel
comfortable in the setting he said quietly, “I kicked a hole in the closet
door.” His mother shook her head, “We
had a difficult night.” She understood bedtime was difficult because of the
domestic violence he experienced in his sister’s home. They had already tried
different strategies to help Henry sooth at night including his mother staying
in his room until he fell asleep. She
neither judged nor shamed but just asked for help.
I handed
Henry the telephone and the yellow pages, the big book. I suggested he could probably fix his problem
with a simple call and that his mother and I would be nearby to help him. Then we listened and watched. Henry found the number for Home Depot. He called and asked for the right
department. He asked about ordering a
new closet door. At one point, he turned
to his mother behind him and asked if they needed someone to install the
door. His mother told him they had a
family handyman. He finished ordering
the door, said thank you, and hung up the phone. Now this nine-year-old struggled with school
and homework, was easily irritated and quick to temper, and often shut down
when faced with his mistakes. The same
boy spoke clearly, politely, and professionally. He calmly conducted business in an adult-like
way. I then asked him how much the door
would cost. “One hundred twenty
dollars,” he said. “How many weeks of allowance
is that?” Henry took pencil to paper and
figured out 20 weeks. His mother and I
did not need to do anything except praise his performance. He solved his own problem. The next week the handyman had installed and
painted the new door. This time Henry
walked into the room standing tall with a smile on his face. The bedtime tantrums decreased and the closet
door was safe because it belonged to him.
Parents
often talk about the damage their adopted and traumatized children have done:
holes punched in the walls; pantries emptied of snacks; parents, siblings, and
pets kicked, punched, and pushed. It can
be difficult to make the connection between this kind of aggression and the
child’s underlying sense of safety. Trauma
like removal from biological parents, early neglect, and exposure to domestic
violence leaves children feeling desperate, overwhelmed, trapped. In these environments it is difficult for the
child’s brain and body to develop the ability to regulate themselves. Aggression is the extreme expression of fear
and dysregulation. It also comes with a
deep sense of shame that feeds more aggression.
To deal with both, it is important to help the child regulate by
providing close support from the parent and to facilitate the child’s problem
solving skills. Many parents are able to
do the first, but have difficulty following through with the second. It might be easier to ignore the damage, fix
it ourselves, or worse, use it as a cudgel to remind the child of their
mistakes, thus increasing their sense of shame.
It takes more time and more work to hold the child accountable and teach
them how to fix the damage. But the payoff for doing so is longer lasting than
a simple scolding or fixing problems for them.
The key here is not to try to do the two things at the same time.
Traditional parenting and
behavioral therapy hold that the problem needs to be addressed right away to be
effective. But this approach backfires
with children who have experienced trauma and need help regulating themselves;
the thinking brain turns off and the emotional brain is firing. First, we must take the time to put out the
fire, to calm the child, to help them regulate their bodies and emotions. This often looks like the last thing a parent
wants or is capable of doing when the child has done damage or made a scene,
moving in calmly and soothing the child with voice and touch. A parent says, “You mean the kid just threw a
shoe and broke a mirror and I’m supposed to go up and hug them and tell them
everything’s going to be OK?” Yes,
exactly, and that may be enough to solve the problem once the mess is cleaned
up.
However, second, is
following through with the parenting and discipline intervention but only when
you have a thinking brain turned on to receive the lessen. Then the parent can build the child’s
problem-solving skills to clean up the mess, repair the damage, replace what is
broken, and make amends with those who have been injured. To be effective, it requires separating the
two parts of parenting; first the therapeutic joining then the discipline or
teaching. It also requires separating
those two parenting interventions by time, waiting for the thinking brain to
come back online, waiting hours or days.
The teaching discipline needs to be logically connected to the mistake,
not cancelling the child’s soccer games because she broke the computer but
developing a plan to repair or replace the computer. Almost no situation except immediate danger
needs to be addressed right away, and most situations are best addressed later
when cooler heads prevail. If we want to
teach a child a lesson, we need to have their thinking brain engaged and it
cannot be when they are emotionally dysregulated and triggered.
There
was another event early in the therapy experience that would have long term
impact for Donny and Henry. With county
child welfare workers still involved, Julie had a connection to the twin’s
teenage siblings. The siblings were
seeking contact with the brothers they had not seen in five years. The teenage sister and brother were not old
enough to take care of the twins to prevent their placement in foster care at
two or ten. The siblings were willing to
meet Joan, Donny and Henry in the therapy room.
To the first session they brought gifts; photographs of Donny and Henry
as infants, photographs that had been hanging on their grandmother’s wall,
photographs Donny and Henry and their mother had never seen. They each stared at the tiny faces of
themselves, beautiful babies, before the events that would change their lives
forever. The moment was not only moving
for their mother and me, but overwhelming to their brother and sister who were
shaken by the loss they suffered in separation from their little brothers. This connection, however, thanks to Joan,
resulted in the siblings joining the family on a cruise and staying in contact
with their brothers through the rest of their growing up years.
This is the way a caring
adoptive parent can help heal one of the deepest wounds of adoption, loss of
identity and family culture. Some feel
that keeping adopted children connected to their biological families is
confusing and even dangerous. For some
it is a source of fear, fear of losing a child they waited so long to
have. Particularly for parents who have
suffered infertility, miscarriage, still birth, or child death, keeping in
touch with biological family feels threatening to the relationship they have
formed with their adopted child like having an ex-spouse in the picture. They have worked so hard and waited so long
to have a child that bringing the biological family into the picture is a
painful reminder that their child did not start with them. Without acknowledging the denial, they mark
the beginning of their family life at the day of placement or adoption day
instead of the child’s birthday. The
biological, birth, and cultural history gets buried in all the adoption
paperwork perhaps to be shared with the child when they are an adult or when
they ask.
Further, they fear the
child will show traits and behaviors of which they do not approve from the
biological family and their influence.
In working with more than a hundred pairs of biological parents, I have
only met two who because of serious mental illness or ongoing criminal behavior
were too dangerous to have direct contact.
Most biological parents who have lost their children to adoption have
struggled with their own trauma and mental illness, feel deep guilt and shame that
they were unable to parent their children, and are wholly appreciative and
supportive of the adoptive parent.
Rather, it makes parenting an adoptive child easier when an adoptive
family includes biological relatives in their family tree or forest. Connecting with biological relatives is the
best way to address all adoptive issues from trauma, grief and loss to culture
and identity. It does take extra effort,
like managing multigenerational or stepparent families. Biological families are the child’s extended
family and there is no competition for love or authority or legal rights. The adoptive parents’ role and influence with
the child actually grows stronger when they incorporate the biological family
into the child’s life. This contact can
come along a continuum of safety from written and telephone contact to
celebrations of birthdays and holidays up to shared vacations and routine meals
and family gatherings.
Annie
Annie
was born to a mother addicted to crystal methamphetamine. Her mother had lost other children to child
welfare services. So, when she gave birth to Annie, she did not stay at the
hospital long enough to take her home.
Annie went immediately into foster care and was placed in the home of Celia
for the first year and a half of her life.
Annie’s father is an undocumented immigrant. He and his mother wanted to care for Annie,
but he was deported before he got a chance to participate in services and so
the agency did not place Annie in his care.
Instead, Angelica was adopted by Jessica and David and I met her when
she was four years old. By that time she
was still sleeping in the same room with her parents, was anxious and
argumentative with her parents, and controlling and jealous with other children
at school.
I
started with the family as I always have, interviewing the parents about their
attachment styles and preparing them to participate in the therapy with their
daughter. With Annie and her parents we
read books about adoption and emotions, played games and with puppets to
practice expressing feelings, and explored her own journey to adoption. As I always do I started drawing pictures, a
“placement map”, of the places Annie had lived, from the hospital to her
adoptive home. But each time I started
drawing her placement map, Annie would come close, grab the paper from the
table, rip it up, and say, “We’re not talking about that.” To be sure we continued working on rights and
privileges and discipline, highlighting her strengths and fears, but the moment
I went for the paper and colored pencils, Annie would push them away.
It
got to the point that she would give me the “evil eye” as soon as she came
through the door, fold her arms in front of her, and go sit behind the sofa
refusing to participate. I continued the
conversations with Jessica and David. Talking
about the child instead of at the child can sometimes keep the child from going
into defense mode and allow them to take in information indirectly without
being overwhelmed by it. Annie’s hypervigilance
meant she was listening to the conversation from behind the couch. She was participating in therapy in the only
way she could feel safe. I directed my
question to her parents, “Why do you think the biological mother left the baby
at the hospital and never came back?”
From behind the couch, the little voice whispered, “I think the baby
cried too much.” Her parents’ eyebrows
rose. My jaw dropped. No wonder she did not want to talk about it.
Similarly, I once had a 67-year-old woman who had confirmed her adoption after
her parents died say, “It makes me wonder what was wrong with me.” As with most
adopted people, particularly children, Annie blamed herself for her mother
abandoning her. No wonder she was so
defiant when her parents corrected her and controlling with peers.
Annie
had opened the door to her inner world and our work had just begun. We accepted, normalized, and validated her
feelings, “I’m damaged goods.” We can
agree with the feeling and not the fact.
We used her considerable four-year-old intelligence to explore other
points of view, other perspectives, other children’s experiences. We role played her situation, putting her in
charge of the play. I played her
birthmother so that she, and her parents on her behalf, could ask the questions
she needed answered. We could not change
the story. We would not have all the
answers. In fact, between sessions she would often have break downs and blow
ups related to the heavy emotions. But
she and her parents also had moments of understanding and connection when she
shared her confusion and sadness and accepted her parents’ nurturing care. She corrected the thought that is was her
fault, however the deep sense of loss and shame would occasionally come back
especially when she made a mistake or suffered failure.
What we did not do is give up because it was
too difficult to talk about; because she was not willing to do it; or because
the story would make her sad. Her first
foster mother refused to talk about Annie’s removal and adoption because she
thought she could not handle it or did not need to know. Other parents say their children never ask,
never think about it. That is denial. Most parents do not want to do this work
because they cannot handle it themselves.
They need to know that going on this difficult journey with their child
will bring them closer, make them more trusted, give them influence with their
child. What children don’t know, they
make up. What they make up is worse than
the trust. And what they make up that is
worse than the trust is their fault. Annie’s
parents learned they could not leave her to suffer in silence holding on to this
mistaken image of herself. They could hold
her strong emotions and lead her through it.
In time, Annie would tell her own story and she put the responsibility
in the right place, squarely on her biological mother who had used drugs and
walked away. She began accepting her
parents’ direction and guidance, and she began to let other children be in
charge on the playground. She did have
friends over to put on a talent show at her house, for which she was the
director. Sometime later she began to
decorate her new room and sleep in her own bed.
Whether
from abandonment or multiple placements, children can develop a form of
relational Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in which forming new relationships
and trusting adults brings heightened anxiety with all the associated symptoms;
avoidance, hypervigilance, flight, fight, freeze, appease. Just like treating traditional PTSD, for
example if someone is afraid of the water because of an incident, the plan
includes establishing calming techniques, developing skills like emotional
regulation or, from the example, learning to swim, and approaching and facing
the triggering material a little at a time until it can be tolerated and
mastered. For water, learning to breath
and swim, then touching, walking, wading, paddling, and finally swimming. For Relational PTSD in a child, using the
parent as a safe base and emotional grounding, developing an emotional
vocabulary and regulation skills, and reviewing the trauma history until the
child can understand and tell their own story without shame. This requires revisiting the trauma history
again and again through the years as brain development allows the child to
understand in successively more sophisticated ways.
Jewell
Jewell
spent her first six years with her mother, Nickie. Her mother did not identify her father, but
Nakala was raised by her mother and her mother’s partner, Kelly. Jewell was old enough to remember and
describe her time with her mother including dresses and toys and birthday
parties. But she also recalled being hit
when she misbehaved and locked in her room.
At one point, Jewell’s mother sent her to a child therapist to get her
to behave. In therapy, Jewell revealed
the emotional and physical abuse she had experienced. Since the therapist was a mandated reporter,
child welfare workers were soon knocking on the door. Instead of accepting parenting classes or
other services, Nickie and Kelly drove Jewell to the children’s shelter and
dropped her off telling her they would return for her. They never did.
Jewell
was placed for adoption quickly because her mother refused reunification services. She had only one placement, the home of Latrece
and Robert with their two teenage sons.
At first she enjoyed the attention of being youngest and the only little
girl in the home. Then she began to miss
her mother terribly and some of the treats her mother used to give her to make
her mind. Jewell began to sneak around
the house at night, get into the cabinets and refrigerator and eat up the chips
and cookies. Then, when confronted with
the evidence she would lie about her behavior.
Otherwise, Jewell did great in school, made many friends, and enjoyed
playing sports. Toward middle school Jewell
began to seek out other attention by going on line. By the time I met her, all electronics
including school tablets were off limits, but she still found ways to borrow
other devices to post pictures of herself in clothes that were not the school
uniform.
Latrece
and Robert were trained parents and they had the time to give Jewell. The adoption was finalized quickly but the
pain of abandonment was just beginning to surface. As we explored adoption in general and her
story specifically, Jewell went along with the program. As her attention-seeking behaviors became
more serious, she accepted the consequences and limits her parents set. It was helpful that her mother is a
technology company executive and knew her way around the parental controls on
telephones, laptops, tablets, and social media apps. But there was nothing they could do about the
most painful part of their daughter’s story, she had been abandoned. To their credit they stayed in touch with Nickie
and Kelly. They knew that Nickie was
going back to school to become…a therapist . . . and that Kelly missed Jewell.
Jewell
desperately wanted contact with her biological mother. As time went on, she accepted that she would
be growing up with Latrece and Robert.
But she held out a dream that she could have a big birthday party and
invite her mother to attend. On line, Nickie
was polite to her parents and wished Jewell well. At one point, with success in school, with
friends, and the basketball team fueling her self-confidence, Jewell decided
she would write 10 questions to her biological mother starting with why she
dropped her off at the shelter and never came back. Latrece intercepted Nakosha’s answers just as
our next therapy session was starting.
Did Jewell want to see the answers?
Should Latrece share them? How
would Jewell react? Could we help
her? After months of working together we
had a sense of comfort in the room.
These questions were central to Jewell’s journey to healing and would
determine whether future contact was possible.
As
she had from the start Nickie blamed Jewell; for misbehaving and causing
problems at school; for telling the therapist and bringing child welfare
workers to her door; for making her and Kelly’s life so difficult. Her mother wrote her that when Jewell was
ready to apologize they could talk.
Silence. Then, this nearly teenage girl, who up to this point had so
fiercely hidden her feelings and put on a happy face and pretended to like her
life, began to weep. There was nothing
to say. Robert wanted to make it better
but I directed him to squeeze in to the loveseat next to his daughter and his
wife. Nickie collapsed into their
shoulders and she cried. Silence. There was nothing to say, nothing to do,
except hold the space for this powerful expression of grief. We did nothing else the rest of the
session.
Many people
might ask, “Why do you want to make a child cry? Why does an adopted child need to talk about
this stuff?” The answer is because they
are thinking about it and acting it out most of the time, alone. The feelings come out in the strangest ways,
from eating to sleeping to toileting troubles.
The thoughts are coming out in all kinds of disruptive behaviors from
simple defiance to destruction. Crying is
a healthy expression of emotion, right?
Can crying not be cathartic? Likely the most important skill an adopted
parent can have or learn is managing grief and loss. We run the funeral home. You cannot get to adoption except through
loss; the child loses their first parents, the biological parent loses their
child, the adoptive parents lose their ideal child. We have to know how to navigate through this
swamp of sadness by creating space and rituals to mourn. And sometimes you have to prime the pump by
reading books, watching movies, playing music or showing and telling the child
the truth. It is like lancing a boil,
massaging the sore spot, releasing the pain in order to allow healing.
