Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Hello, and welcome to Weekend Wisdom, a podcast from creatingafamily .org.
Once a week, we answer your questions about adoption, foster care, or kinship care,
relative caregiving, and if you have any questions about any of those areas of life,
we would love to talk to you, so send a question in to info @creatingafamily .org
and we'll get you in the queue. We use expert advice, personal experiences,
and our huge body of content on the website to craft an answer, and hopefully all
of our answers are strengthening families and listeners out there. I am Tracy
Whitney. I am the new host of both this podcast, Weekend Wisdom, and our regular
weekly, Our Long Podcast. You can find any one of the two podcasts on any one of
the big platforms where we catch all of our favorite podcasts and we hope that you
would like subscribe or follow whichever your podcast platform asks you to do so
that you can keep up with new content that we give you every week. Today we're
going to talk about parenting a child whose parents addiction leaves impacts for the
child and then for the family who adopts or fosters that child. These impacts can
be challenging to manage in everyday life, and our anonymous listener in Louisiana
asked this particular question. "Hello, I have resentment against my soon -to -be
-adopted child's mother, who is an addict. I get frustrated with his disrespect and
his disobedience, and the bitterness and resentment towards her arises up. He respects
my husband way more than me and I'm trying so hard not to let it show or to take
it out on him. Please, I need help. So, anonymous listener, we are so grateful that
you were brave enough to reach out and ask for help. We understand why this feels
horrible and overwhelming and challenging to negotiate. And I hope that we can kind
of put together some ideas today that will help you navigate this very challenging
scenario. So you don't mention whether or not this child has known trauma or known
prenatal exposure to alcohol or drugs, but you do say that his birth mom is
currently addicted. So I think it's pretty safe to assume moving forward in this
conversation that there has been some level of trauma, neglect, and /or prenatal
exposure that are leaving impacts for this child to manage and to negotiate. It's
easy to feel frustrated and angry about a birth parent's choices that impact a
child. Vulnerable children are often made vulnerable by the choices of the adults
around them. And so I empathize with your anger and your frustration and your
bitterness and resentment. And I'm hoping that I can help you reframe some of that
a little bit today to give you some tools to manage your relationship with this
child, your soon to be adopted son and help you create more peace and more empathy
and understanding in your home as the two of you work through this relationship
together. I think it's really important to start by taking a step back and talking
to yourself about what you do know about your son. You know, first of all, that he
is not able to be raised by his birth mother. So there's some element of loss in
his history. You know that it's likely that he was not able to be raised by her
because of her addiction. And So that substance use created some challenging impacts
in the moment for them because they were then separated and then later for him as
he's growing and developing. It stands to reason that if there was active addiction
going on in the home that resulted in him needing to leave, that there may have
been active addiction going on while she was pregnant with him. So again, that
likelihood of prenatal substance exposure is a pretty strong likelihood,
I would think. I don't think it's too large of a leap to make. So then let's also
consider what we know about the common impacts of trauma, loss,
prenatal exposure, those kinds of things. You don't say how old he is right now,
but in general, kids who have experienced prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol will
often experience things like sensory issues. They either get overstimulated or they're
under responsive to stimuli. They have difficulty with changes. They have difficulty
moving from one activity to the next. They have difficulty with new experiences.
They often exhibit an insecure or anxious attachment. They struggle to learn from
their mistakes. They have a hard time predicting or understanding cause and effect.
There's some attention differences or attention struggles that they may have. They
tend to be pretty impulsive, again, because they don't understand cause and effect,
and they can have pretty poor social or communication skills. They may have
difficulty maintaining relationships or making friends. And so these are some of the
kind of broad brushstroke impacts that we see in toddlers through school -aged
children who have had a history of prenatal substance exposure. And you'll notice on
that list that in some way, each of those impacts can be perceived as disrespect or
disobedience or defiance if we're not seeing them through that lens of prenatal
substance exposure. And let me be clear here, when I say trauma,
neglect, abuse, and prenatal substance exposure, I understand that there's differences
between all of them, but I also understand that prenatal substance exposure is its
own kind of trauma, prebirth trauma, and then the impacts that it leaves later can
be traumatic for the child as well. So, if we can look at your son's behaviors and
attitudes and perceived disrespect or disobedience instead, through the lens of what
he might have experienced prior to coming to your home, through the lens of possible
exposure to drugs or alcohol, we can leave then some room for different explanations
for his behaviors. So what might feel like disrespect could actually be an anxiety
that he's feeling internally about whether or not you're gonna care for him
unconditionally, whether you're gonna be able to love him no matter what he throws
at you and that you're gonna welcome him whether he struggles or not.
What might feel like disobedience could be a strong sensory aversion to a shirt that
you've chosen for him or the sandwich that you've put in front of him. What might
feel like favoring your husband could be an insecure attachment or some difficulty
with social skills and he maybe relates better to your husband than he does to you
and he doesn't know how to navigate that. It could be that it is a social skills
issue and not, you know, favoring your husband as much as it is challenge within
himself to relate differently to you than he does to your husband. So the point of
kind of all of those what ifs is that when we reframe our children's behaviors as
an expression of something else that's going on inside of them Rather than something
that they're doing to us, it can spur us towards, first of all,
compassion, but it can also spur us to examine what else they might need to
succeed, or at least to improve some behaviors. And I'm not saying that this
reframing is easy. Believe me, it's challenging, and I get that. It takes lots and
lots of practice and I'm still practicing. I've got two children by adoption and I'm
still practicing these skills so you're not alone. But there are three things that I
think might help you change your filter when you look at your son. The first would
be to take a beat. Just take a pause when the behaviors are happening and you're
feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Stop. Take a deep breath. Whether you're muttering a
little mantra to yourself like he can't, not he won't, or behavior is an expression
of a need. You can count to 10, take a deep breath, find a way to slow your
roll, stop yourself and kind of put that new lens on and view this moment that
you're having with your son through a different filter. The second thing that you
can do is to invite him to pause. You can invite him to take some deep breaths,
offer him a glass of cold ice water, something that will kind of reset his system
and reset his brain for a new path forward. And this will take some practice.
He may not be open or willing to try it at first, but gentle, slow offerings every
time it happens will start to rewire his brain and teach him how to put that
filter on himself and think about how to connect with what's going on internally so
that he can change the behavior externally. So you're inviting him to pause, you're
taking some deep breaths, you're getting him a glass of ice water, you're going to
participate with him in re -regulating whatever behaviors are going on,
you're going to create some sort of calming actions between the two of you so that
he can choose to see that you are with him, that you want to see him succeed,
and that you want to help him regulate. And if he doesn't get it the first few
times, again, this is a slow, repetitive, consistent process. So first you're pausing
yourself, then you're pausing him. Another thing that you can do is to be very
gracious and generous with the second chance mentality. So give lots of do -overs,
give lots of apologies on your side, hey buddy, I didn't handle that very well, can
we try that again? Offer him opportunities to try it again, offer lots of
forgiveness, and be honest when you try a regulation strategy that's not working,
say, okay, let's try something else because this is not working. If you can make
yourself humble in that way, make yourself approachable and accessible in that way,
and demonstrate that you're giving yourself second chances and that you're willing to
give him lots of second chances, you're communicating to him that you believe that
you can get through this together, and that it's a you and him against the problem
versus you against him. And that's kind of the stance that you wanna take is,
I'm with you in this, I can do this, you can do this, and we're gonna do this
together. And getting him on your team and demonstrating to him that you're on his
team against the problem is really kind of the goal to this being gracious and
generous. So just to recap real quick, number one, you can try to pause yourself.
Number two, you can try to pause him. And number three, you can demonstrate
graciousness and second chances by offering them to him frequently and then
demonstrating that you offer them to yourself frequently also. When you and your son
are not in the heat of a challenging moment, Then you should consider how to
educate yourself about prenatal substance exposure, about parenting children with
challenging behaviors, about collaborative parenting strategies that will empower him to
own his behavior and make profitable and productive changes. We'll list resources for
those things in the show notes. And then, depending on his age and his verbal
abilities, you can start teaching him the language that he needs to express what's
going on inside of him. When we help our kids label their feelings, it gives them
an understanding of their internal state, and it builds their confidence to handle it
the next time big feelings come up. And underneath all of this, let's try and
remember that big Children's are often very scary for our kids, no matter their age.
Feeling out of control, feeling overwhelmed, feeling confused, those are not feelings
that our kids handle easily, especially if they've not had lots of practice in
healthy ways to handle those easily. So the next time that he feels scared or angry
or out of control, you know, you can just come alongside of him and say, "Hey, you
sound really angry right now. Can I help you calm down so that we can talk about
it?" It might be a pretty significant shift for you to move from frustration and
resentment to supporting and connecting, but I think that if you can kind of adopt
this idea of changing your lens, you know, putting your different glasses on to help
him. If you're viewing him as a child who's having a hard time, rather than a
child who's giving you a hard time, you'll gain some skills in not taking it
personally when he does have a hard time. If you are struggling with disrespect,
maybe verbal challenges or verbal outbursts, you can draw a line and say,
"Hey, you know, that does not feel very kind or respectful. So right now, let's not
say anything else. Let's just calm down until we can talk about this in kinder and
more respectful ways. It also means working hard not to take it personally when you
see him favoring your husband more than he does you. I get it.
It's really hard not to take it personally when our kids are melting down or acting
out or blowing us off. Just make sure that you acknowledge it and you cope with
it. Find a good therapist, find a counselor, somebody who you trust to help you
work through and ask you some hard questions and help you find the answers that you
need to process this struggle. And then no matter how small,
tiny increments of progress that you're making, make sure you acknowledge that. Say
it out loud. Say, wow, I handled this much better today than I did yesterday. Say
it in front of your kids. Say, hey, I'm so proud of myself. I handled your
frustration with me much more kindly today than I did yesterday and I'm proud of
myself. But then also make sure to pull something out of that interchange that
you're proud of him for. Say, hey, you know, buddy, you calmed down really quickly
and got a hold of your escalating emotions. And I really appreciate that you tried
so hard to do that. If you're both making progress and both of you are learning
how to call out that progress, you're building bonds and connections between you of
respect and admiration, which can go a long way towards helping you the next time
something big blows up. I'm not saying that any of these tips are going to stop
the blow -ups. I'm saying that you can make progress towards reducing the blow -ups
and making them less painful and making them less extreme a little bit at a time.
So make sure that you're given all the kudos and high fives that you need to
yourself but also that your sun needs from you. I finally want to encourage you to
engage in and model for him what healthy repair between you can look like.
So when something goes wrong, there's a big blowup or a meltdown, no matter how you
handle it in the process of the meltdown or the blowup, make sure you go back
later by saying something like, "Whoa, buddy, That must have felt so scary when you
were screaming and shouting at me. I'm really sorry that you felt all those big
emotions and didn't know what to do. And I'm sorry that I yelled at you when it
was happening. That was scary for both of us. I'm working on how to do it better.
And I see that you're working on how to do it better too. I love you and I want
you to feel safe with me. And I want you to know that no matter how big or scary
things are, I'm with you, and I'll always be with you. And you can kind of wrap
things up by asking, like, do you feel ready to give me a hug? Or can I give you
a hug? Do you need some more time? Make sure that you're just doing kind of those
touch points of repair between you so that things don't get left open ended.
That feels sometimes just as scary to our kids when things are left open ended. But
hang in there. I know it's really hard work when your kids are melting down, when
you're feeling angry and frustrated and resentful towards them for impacts that they
really had no control over. And I think kind of switching your lens from he's
giving me a hard time to he's having a hard time from he won't to he can't will
give you kind of a new way to look at him, empathize with him, come alongside of
him, and heal the stuff that's going on inside of him, but also heal the
relationship between you. So hang in there. I know it's hard, and I hope that you
will consider checking out our Facebook group where you can get even more support.
It's facebook .com
a family. And listeners, if you found today's episode helpful, please leave us a
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thank you for your time and have a great day.
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