Stahlke Adoption

An Aside, Continued

More from Deborah Gray, in Attaching in Adoption (pp. 128-31):

When children have been traumatized, they are afraid almost all the time. This is an important concept to grasp. Fear is the reason that parents need to go back to the basics when dealing with their traumatized children. Forming attachment and strengthening attachment come first in working with frightened children. Children learn through attachment work that parents are connected, that they will protect, and that they will comfort.

The nightmare most common and the worry most prevalent in traumatized children is that they will be taken from their parents. This theme is recurrent. Parents must demonstrate [specific] ways that this can be prevented . . . .

In child welfare cases, the [child's] removal from the home was usually frightening. Many children are waiting for the same events to occur again . . . . Some parents are reluctant to make strong, predictive statements of safety. If children ask if the house is safe at night, their parents respond with, "Probably, but you never know in this day and age." This is not helpful. Instead, say, "Yes!" If parents are perceived as weak, then children have to remain hyper-vigilant.

When kids whose brains have been wired for survival and danger enter safe [adoptive] homes, they continue looking for the dangerous elements. Their triggers, or reminders of danger, are essential for parents to know. Parents who do some detective work note that, like the children [at the kindergarten family picnic], their children may be afraid of men in flannel shirts, or who have beards, or who wear glasses. If parents know the reminders, they can desensitize thier children, help them form a strategy of avoidance, promise to stay between the frightening person and their child, or take other reasonable approaches.
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For the Stahlke kids, some triggers have been obvious. During our first week together in Chicago, I tried to restrain one of the children physically (when they were still small enough that such an action was even possible). After one such interaction, I decided never to try that again. Another child is extremely frightened of thunderstorms. Physical discipline of almost any type can melt down the entire family.

At other times, Jonathan and I scratch our heads to figure out the triggers. It is often obvious from a child's behavior that something has reminded them of difficult events in their past, but the current situation that sparked the trigger is not always clear to us. To a one, the children can't remember or don't want to discuss the events in Ukraine that cause them emotional pain now.

I learned from the excerpt above about triggers in our younger children. When their behavior took a nosedive in the weeks before Easter, it was clear to us that the main source of the problem was rebellion by an older sibling. "If parents are perceived as weak, then children have to remain hyper-vigilant . . . ." The younger children thought that their older sibling was out of control, and that we could no longer protect them. That caused some major regression in their behavior that is only now starting to level out several weeks later.

posted by Stahlkes @ 7:03 PM