Stahlke Adoption

"Can You Check on Me?"

Most of our books on parenting talk about the importance of consistency. For children like ours who have experienced such tremendous amounts of change and loss, consistency has even a larger importance than for other children. We work to keep our routine as constant as possible, which luckily also helps Jonathan and me when our lives get challenging.

For children from troubled backgrounds, any kind of change, even good change, brings back the adrenaline flush they experienced in difficult times. This adrenaline flush is physically very unpleasant, and makes the person avoid situations that bring it on. Fortunately, over time, this reaction lessens. We've already seen improvement in the 20 months we've had the children.

The end of the school year is a time of great change for our children. The structure of the school day ends, and the uncertainty of the coming school year is on their minds. Who will be my next teacher? Who will be in my class? Is it really hard in the next grade?

At times like these, they act out a lot and also resist change. For example, the visit to the Sacred Harp event that I wrote about recently actually never happened. My blog described what I thought would happen that day. But when it came time for Jonathan to take the kids to the event, some of them put up such a fuss that he canceled the whole trip. One of the comments was "it's too new."

So to combat these stressful times, we make our routine even more structured. Bedtime is especially that way, pleasantly so. One by one, I tuck the younger ones in their beds. We sing a song together, and I kiss them goodnight, Then the two youngest always ask, "Can you check on me?" Their question is as routine as anything we do during the rest of the day. I always answer "yes" and stop back in their bedrooms at least once to "check on them." I'm not sure that they can fall asleep if I don't.

posted by Stahlkes @ 10:47 PM