Monday, July 23, 2012

July updates

In the last three weeks we've gotten into a nice little routine. The boys have started going to camp at the neighborhood park on Monday and Wednesday mornings. It's a good chance for them to play with other kids and do little craft projects. D has been a little resistant about going, especially on Mondays, but when I pick him up at noon, he always has a big smile and says, "Fuuuun!" His high schooler "teacher" apparently spends hours with him on the monkey bars. A doesn't tell me what he does, but his counselor told me he's made some friends. So camp has been good.

On Tuesday and Thursday mornings we usually bike ride or take the dog in the car and go explore some of the area walking trails. Then the boys have swimming at 11:00, which they LOVE, and on Thursdays they have soccer after swimming. Friday mornings are free so we can do a more involved outing like to the Please Touch Museum, or we can play at home.

Afternoons we usually have some quiet reading time after lunch and then run various errands. I try to get some phonics work in with A. We also go to the library a couple of times a week.

On weekends Daddy is home! The boys love their Daddy time. We've taken them into Center City, to the beach, and to Maryland to visit family and friends and go to an Ethiopian festival. Weekends are also time for yard work and swimming at the Y.

I am really liking our new town. One of the reasons we picked this area was that there is a large Ethiopian community nearby. On Saturdays there is always a group of Oromo people at the pool. There's an Ethiopian boy in our boys' swimming class. We've run into Ethiopians at the supermarket. I commented to A that there are a lot of Ethiopians in the area and he looked puzzled and said, no, there are only a few Ethiopians. I guess it's a matter of perspective. He did agree that there are a lot of Ethiopians at the Ethiopian church.

I've been taking the boys to the Ethiopian church every couple of weeks. They hate it. HATE IT. While it warms my heart to see them rejecting organized religion, I do think it's important to maintain that link to their culture, and if we time it right, we just show up for the singing, which is very pretty. Anyway, it's not the religious aspect of it that they hate so much as the being around so many Ethiopians. I think it's confusing to them, and they might think that West Philly is actually Ethiopia and that we're returning them to Ethiopia. I'm not sure. Last time was a little better in that they actually interacted with a few people. I think it's been helpful to meet the little boy in their swimming class and the families at the pool and to see that they can speak Amharic to Ethiopian people while still doing something fun with us.

In terms of grief and adjustment, I feel that D's behavior has moved into the realm of a normal 4-year-old. A has generally been pretty happy, but his meltdowns have changed. Before he would just go limp and drop to the floor wherever he happened to be standing. Now it's more anger - kicking, pinching, spitting, trying to bite. I don't know if this is progress, but it seems he's taking more control of his feelings, showing that he's mad as hell instead of just taking it lying down (literally). We haven't yet learned to predict these meltdowns, but I'm hoping we'll figure out how to channel the anger in a healthy way. Suggestions from adoptive parents are welcome.

Language is developing very quickly. True, 90% of what D says is, "How many wheels (vehicle name)?" and "(Animal name) dangerous? (Animal name) sharp teeth?" but that's because he never stops talking and he only has so many things he knows how to say. A talks less but has more original sentences. Both have developed their listening comprehension so much that I can speak to them pretty normally in English. Both seem to acquire new grammar structures as they sleep. Early on A woke up suddenly knowing possessive 's, a few weeks ago D woke up knowing the auxiliary verb "do" and today D suddenly figured out Subject-Verb-Object word order.

Overall, I am so, so impressed with our children. I am impressed with how they can take so many new things in stride. In the last week they saw a clothes dryer and a houseboat for the first time, and they were surprised and pleased and then immediately accepted them as part of their world. I could tell them that I have a machine that will change our dog into a cat, and they would believe me. It's pretty incredible how open-minded they are.

18 comments:

  1. How I wish we had a Please Touch museum here! We'd go every day.

    It's breathtaking when you get those glimpses of just how much your children DO trust and believe you, especially when you are working on attachment.

    And thank you for sharing how you are dealing with religion. I dream of adopting again, an older child, and this is one of my concerns.

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    1. The trust blows me away. Any time we drive down a country road, I think, "If it were me, I'd think she was taking me out here to kill me." But they never seem to think that.

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  2. These are great updates. Glad the move has gone well!

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    1. It's gone relatively well. It helped that my husband reminded me that last time we moved it took me a while to feel settled, so I know that feeling unsettled is normal.

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  3. It is so nice to see progress...
    About hitting/kicking/spitting (freaking hate the spitting, by the way) the thing that worked best for us was to take away the feeling of control given by hitting. When H would hit I would grab her hand and gently hold it to the spot where she hit me for about 30 seconds. It made her made as hell, because she was using her hitting as a way to gain control and when I put her hand back and held it there it showed her that she could not control me that way. We did the same for biting... when she bit me I would just hold her head gently to the same spot and she would yell at me... but she also didn't bite me again for a long time. While we were standing there I told her that I knew that she was kind and didn't really want to hurt me so I would show her how she could touch me there without hurting. The hard and important part is to be very calm and gentle about it, because the point is not to frighten, just make it so that act is not one which gives them control. This is hard with big, strong kids. But, before we started doing this we found that when she would hit we would back away and she'd just follow us around acting threatening. After we started doing this consistantly it was about a month and a half before all striking out ceased... The spitting we just ignored, and once it no longer evoked any kind of a reaction it slowly went away. Maybe not for everyone, but what worked for us for sure.

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    1. I like the idea, but I don't think it would work with A because he is too big and strong. There is no way I could gently hold his hand anywhere. I've been sitting behind him and wrapping my arms and legs around him. I've thought about joining in with him and punching the couch to see if I can model a more appropriate target, but I don't know if that would scare him.

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    2. We have done holding like that too... sometimes it worked, but I have also noticed that for a while I think she was hitting so that we would hold her hands down because it made her feel secure. There is some research that suggests that using hitting anything as a coping mechanism is damaging, because it normalizes the corralation between big feelings and hitting stuff... and there isn't always something appropriate to hit around. I am a counselor for people with some complex mental health issues, and here we talk a lot about replacement behaviors. Since all behavior has a reason, it is important to acknowledge that our kids are getting something out of what they are doing, whether it is attention, tention reduction, feeling of control, etc. Once you identify the need being fulfilled you can figure out something else that is equally gratifying but less destructive to fill that need. For example, if it is the physical act of hitting that feels good, we have some people we have taught to stomp their feet. Not awesome, but better than hitting people and fulfilling basically the same desire... if that makes sense...

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    3. We also realized that the boys would sometimes misbehave so that we would hold them. Now when they start to go down that road, I ask them if they want me to hold them and tell them they can do that any time they want, they don't need to misbehave. I've also offered them screaming time, and that's worked too, to just "get it out." Today deep breathing worked with the little one.
      I can see how hitting as a coping mechanism is not good, even with an appropriate target.

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  4. I love this update. Sounds like you are falling into a nice routine. It is great that you have lots of (relatively speaking) Ethiopians in your community. Wish I could say the same. It really sucks when church is the only option for interaction. A feels the same way about church, except if they are serving way after the service!

    I know you have a lot more experience with the language acquisition than I do, but I am also fascinated at how he just seems to "wake up" with a new development. Similar to D, our A also asks about animals a lot. His question is usually "(animal name) eat me?"

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    1. How interesting that they're both concerned with dangerous animals. A tells us that the only dangerous animals in Burji are snakes. My favorite question is, "Rainbow tiger dangerous?" I always hem and haw with that one.

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  5. Wonderful update; your comment about the heart warming rejection of organized religion had me laughing out loud! =) It sounds like your boys are doing great and you are a terrific parent!--the right balance of structure, downtime, new experiences...

    that's interesting about your son's shift in tantrumming. Perhaps it's b/c he's feeling more secure in his place in the family...that he can now truly explore his grief,anger,sadness and you'll still be his mommy? As for how to respond (I love kate's idea by the way!). We use a lot of the Karen Purvis language, "There are no hurts in the family." "You must have some big hurts/mads/sads inside, can you tell me what happened?" Sometimes kids are too far gone for any kind of talking so we'd just stay close. If he was coming at us wiht the kicks and hits we'd deflect, move away, and at times just hold. B/c we have anohter child inthe house sometimes we'd say, "you are not being safe, you need to stay here in your room until you can be safe." (when he's stay in his room...!). Of course you want to prevent/distract from the escalation if possible. And we ALWAYS after a meltdown/poor behavior said sorry w/ eye contact and saying specifically what he was sorry for. then we'd "fix" it.--go back and recreate the trigger event and handle it in a better way.

    As for predicting the meltdowns look back a few days (how busy, how disruptive were they? has he been sleeping well?). We've noticed a spike in anxiety with our son recently which we are attributing to many big changes going on: we're moving, he's going to kindergarten (leaving his preschool friends) AND we're nearing 1 year home. Many people have mentioned behavioral changes around trauma anniversaries...

    Such a long response, sorry!

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    1. I love the idea of recreating the trigger event and handling it better. We'll try that.

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  6. my son has also shifted in the limp/fall mode to kicking and biting. He just over 4....so i am not sure what causes the shift- maybe they have more confidence in doing big motions/trying to hurt/trying to take control...so i see that as a step into some new direction.
    I love quickly language develops. The more abstract system of learning letter is posing a big challenge for our boy- but he knows spoken English so well. How are the phonics lessons going?

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    1. Do you feel the shift from going limp to hitting is progress toward resolving some feelings? Or just a new direction? I've been trying to figure that out.

      I include our 4-year-old in the phonics lessons sometimes, but just so he doesn't feel left out. He's not ready for lessons yet. Sometimes I just use him as a "student" for our 6-year-old. Just from listening to me work with his brother, he's picked up some beginning letter sounds.

      Our 6-year-old already knew the names of letters when he came to us, so it wasn't a huge leap to letter sounds. I'm not pushing it much, I think the spoken English is much more important now.

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  7. Wow, they are growing and learning so much! It sounds like your routine is relaxed but structured, and they are enjoying their time with you. Are you homeschooling in the fall? I'm glad things are going well.

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    1. Thank you!
      We had thought about homeschooling, but we think A is ready for school. We can always take him out if it doesn't work out. D will be staying home with me.

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  8. I just wanted to say that this is one of my favorite blogs. We don't know when we'll be able to, but we plan to adopt siblings and don't have a religious affiliation, so I read with great interest. I'm so glad connection and healing is going on.

    This is one of the only agnostic adoption blogs I've encountered in three years; I have so many questions, but I don't want to put them in the comments.

    Peace to your family,
    Molly

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    1. Hello and thanks! Please feel free to email me at yiothetisi@yahoo.com

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