Obviously, I am not one that "avoids conflict" . . . or I would be avoiding this subject all together. (smile)
If I were one that "avoids conflict" . . . I would write a Fairytale Blog about our "Big, Happy, Family", and avoid all discussion of the struggles that we face.
Now, it's not that I look for conflict . . . it's not that I enjoy conflict . . . it's certainly not that I seek out conflict. Oh. My. No.
However, I do not run from any and all conflict. I believe that God calls us to live our lives with open and honest communication.
"Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ ..." Ephesians 4:15
"These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace ..." Zechariah 8:16
Now, I am not saying that it is right to say anything and everything that comes to mind. There are certainly times that the Lord calls us to keep our mouths shut . . . to keep our opinions to ourselves.
Directly attacking someone through their blog . . . through Facebook . . . through gossip . . . is NOT what, I believe, God had in mind, even if what you say may be true. But . . . that is a whole other conversation.
Ephesians 4:15 says, "speaking the truth in LOVE".
Zechariah 8:16 says, "make for PEACE".
God calls us to TRUTH . . . spoken in LOVE . . . with the goal to bring PEACE.
Oh my . . . just sitting down to write this has shown me that this conversation could go in MANY directions. I could probably write 5 separate posts about this (and maybe I will).
Another day . . . I may write more about how inappropriate it is to attack someone's life choices through blog comments, even when you believe you are bringing truth.
Another day . . . I may write about how deadly Conflict Avoidance can be to a marriage, and how important it is to be honest and open (even when discussing the Tough Stuff).
Another day . . . I may write about how important Speaking the Truth in Love is to the Parent/Teen relationship.
Today ... however ... I want to go in a whole different direction.
When I sat down to write this post, I was only thinking of the Conflict Avoidance Option when parenting children with challenges.
We've had a couple of difficult days with Little Miss this week. This morning was especially tough.
Whenever we have walked through a RAGE, I am left wondering . . .
"What just happened?"
"What could we have done differently?"
"What is BEST for Little Miss?"
This often leads my mind to the following debate with itself . . .
"We should just avoid conflict with Little Miss."
"If we stop asking her to do anything,
than we can avoid conflict."
"If we don't expect anything of her,
than we can avoid conflict."
"What would happen if we stopped expecting her
to participate in household chores?"
"What would happen if we stopped expecting her
to be kind and respectful, to say "Please" and "Thank you"?"
"What would happen if we just let her live her life as she chooses . . .
. . . go to bed when she chooses.
. . . do her schoolwork, or not.
. . . wear whatever she wants.
. . . eat whatever she wants.
Some adoptive parents have chosen that option (and I am in no way here to pass judgment on them . . . we each must come to our own parenting decisions for each of our families).
Some parents allow their children to be "in charge" of their households (by their actions and attitudes).
Some parents are just plain tired of the power struggles (which I can fully understand, thus my internal debates), so they give in and allow the child to be in control of every situation.
Some parents allow (and actually expect) their children to tear the house apart, excusing the behavior because the child is adopted. (An adoptive couple told Jim and I before we brought our children home, "Your children will tear your house apart. They will break everything in sight. They will break all of your electronics, trash your furniture, destroy your carpets." To them it was just an expected part of brining their children home.)
Some parents were horrified that during our 6 weeks in Ghana, we spent time teaching our new children (ages 6, 9, and 12 at the time) what some of the expectations would be once they came home . . .
. . . you need to knock on a closed bedroom or bathroom door.
. . . this is how to use silverware.
. . . you need to ask permission to do things.
. . . you need to use the bathroom in the house,
and not urinate in the neighbor's garden.
Don't get me wrong.
We DO allow Little Miss to make a LOT of her own decision.
She DOES choose her clothes for school each morning (with some guidelines).
She DOES choose when and where to do her homework.
She DOES choose how to spend her free time at home (with some guidelines).
But ...
we also believe that it is NOT BEST for Little Miss
to be fully in control of her little 10 year old life.
We believe it is IMPORTANT for her to learn to be kind and respectful.
We believe it is CRITICAL for her to learn to do chores.
We believe it is IMPERATIVE that she learn to follow directions.
If we allow Little Miss to be fully in charge of her life at age 10 . . .
what will that look like at age 16 . . .
or age 21 . . .
or 35 ???
At some point, Little Miss must realize that she is NOT, ultimately, in charge.
She will need to understand, one day, that the LORD must be in charge.
She will need to realize that her TEACHERS are in charge.
She will need to comprehend the fact that it is necessary
to follow an EMPLOYERS specific directions.
It would be so easy right now . . .
. . . to just give up on our expectations.
. . . to give Little Miss full control of her daily life.
. . . to do anything and everything with the goal
of Conflict Avoidance, at all costs.
But . . .
. . . we do not believe it is best for Little Miss.
(now or for her future)
. . . we do not believe it is best for the rest of the family.
(even though we are all so DONE with the conflicts)
No.
We do not believe the LORD has called us
to make parenting decisions based on what is "easy".
We believe that sometimes we must continue on the most difficult path,
of training up our children in the way they should go,
even though it is a very exhausting path to walk.
What do you think?
What is your parenting style?
Are you a Conflict Avoider?
What have been the benefits and/or the harm done,
by Conflict Avoidance in YOUR home?
If you have a challenging adopted child . . .
(w/ RAD, ODD, PTSD, FASD, etc ...)
. . . how do you pick your battles?
. . . when do you just let the child "be in charge"?
If you have a challenging adopted child . . .
(w/ RAD, ODD, PTSD, FASD, etc ...)
. . . how do you pick your battles?
. . . when do you just let the child "be in charge"?
. . . how do YOU find a balance?
Love your thoughts on this! I wrestle with that with my 4-year-old (and have since he was 1)...and always come out that it is not in his best interest to be allowed to be in charge of this household. But it would be easier sometimes....but I'd rather deal with it now then later...or maybe we'll still be dealing with it later...but I won't be able to say that I should've tried earlier. If that makes any sense at all!
ReplyDeleteWith my older (biological, typical) children who complain about the freedom from responsibility that some of their friends have, I typically tell them that it is my job to have them be responsible and able to make appropriate choices by the time they are adults...it is not my job to indulge them in anything they like. :-)
GREAT thoughts ...
DeleteYes, I'd rather deal with it now than later ... or if we are still dealing with it later at least I'll know it is not because we ignored the problem earlier. Absolutely.
Keep up the good work with training your children to be responsible. Our young adult children have THANKED us for teaching them how to work ... for requiring them to work at home ... for training them on how to take care of household duties, etc... (as they have seen their peers flounder in this area).
It is NOT our job to give our children all that they want. No. It is our responsibility to provide for their NEEDS, but not every selfish desire that they may have.
:) :) :)
I love how you emphasised on speaking openly in truth, but in love as well. That's the hardest part for me, to do it peacefully, and in love, because of all the hurt that conflicts bring, when the other person deliberately does things over and over to hurt your feelings and denies it.
ReplyDeleteI don't have any children, but I think you're doing wonderfully because you are trying to figure out what is the best thing to do, and that shows that you care :)
(((hugs)))
Hi Susan,
DeleteI will definitely be digging deeper into the concept of speaking the truth in LOVE ... with the goal of PEACE ... rather than just speaking truth for the sake of speaking truth (no matter how much you may hurt the other person).
Blessings,
Laurel :)
I never thought of speaking the truth in love, with the goal of peace, now that is something I'll think about! Thank you for sharing :)
DeleteHey there Laurel
ReplyDeleteGlad to come over and put some input into the debate:)
When the kids first came home we wanted to make sure they got all the rules and tried to get everything in line. We learned very quickly that what a child learns in 3 and 5 years of very little training or through trauma takes a very long time to unlearn and retrain.
We learned that a child whose main trigger with everything in life is FEAR in all situations, we had to approach very differently than our older bios.
Also only having older bios at home was very confussing because they were allowed so many priveleges that our littles were not anyways.
We finally decided that we would pick our few rules that would call our 'line in the sand' and if those were crossed we would deal with them as disobedience. We let lots of other things slide with constant reminders of proper behavior.
As time passed we were able to add more to our 'line in the sand'.
I have found that it does take lots more time to get these new rules to stick than I think should be, but that is just the burden we bear in teaching our children to be responsible adults someday.
We do continually change our "plan" when something seems not to be working or we think something might be better.
No we do not think giving the child extra control is a good idea at all. Actually I would say it is harmful. Most kids coming out of trauma have struggled with not being safe, so they want to control to feel safe. Learning to let go and trust is vital to living a life free of FEAR. How can you really give your life to a God who loves you, when you have never trusted anyone you love to care for you?
It is a fine rope we walk teaching love, trust and obedience, but I do believe with all my heart that it is the path laid before me by God to train up these children in they way they should go! And therefore He will give the grace and wisdom , many time though wonderful blogging frinds :), who walk similar paths.
Blessings on your journey my friend!
Thanks, Donna.
DeleteIt's not even really about "rules" being broken . . . it's more about just asking her to do ANYTHING.
I'm assigning household chores to the kids ... and she gets mad at ANY job assigned to her. "You just make me do it because I don't like it."
Mama needs some quiet time upstairs, so I ask the kids to all go play in their rooms, or in the rec. room. "You just make me go to my room because you know I don't like to go to my room." But ... if I ask her to play upstairs it's, "You make me stay upstairs because you know I want to go to my room."
It is asking her to do ANYTHING that brings out the Oppositional Defiance.
We, too, "change our plan when something seems not to be working". Absolutely. And we parent her very differently than we parented our other 11 children. We understand that her needs are different.
Love your thought that "learning to let go and trust is vital to living a life free of fear:. So true. And Little Miss does live her life in fear.
So sad. So hard.
This is a great description of what we've experienced and learned through parenting our three adopted kids. The better attuned we've become to them, the better able we are to handle each situation that arises. At first, everything looked like rage and defiance. But over time, we have learned and they have calmed down.
DeleteTotally with you on this one. I think children need parents to be in charge, whether they like it or not. Growing up without learning respect for authority isn't helpful for anyone!
ReplyDeleteoh my! I could've written this post, only change the age from 10 to 16. ugh.
ReplyDeleteI parent the same way and expect my kids to be kids. I am the parent. Period.
Glad I'm not the only adoptive parent parenting this way. Good to hear from you, Debi.
Delete:) :) :)
I think I'm a conflict avoider... looking forward to these future posts! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteWe read John 16-17 this morning, and discussed just the tip of the iceberg about how the Lord wants his people to have unity. How we show off God's glory when we are as one with Christ and each other. How we don't always do that in our family because of selfish arguments, etc. We need to keep this discussion going at my house!
I look forward to digging deeper into this topic. I'm excited about what the Lord can teach us from His word and from each other.
DeleteSounds like a good discussion taking place at your house. Thanks for sharing.
Laurel :)
You are such a brave woman. When we brought our boys home, they were 5y, 3y and 11 months old and they had no idea about life in a family. They had learned some things in the orgphanage, like how to brush teeth and how to use toilet, but otherwise we had to teach them all new rules. During this time we heard often accusations from friends and family - why don't we let the kids decide what they want their life to be like? Why cannot they choose what to eat and when to eat it (the Dreamer refused to eat anything but sandwiches and potatoes, so getting him eat vegetables and meat was a daily battle)? Why do you expect them to be quiet in church, if they don't feel like it? Why cannot they pick their own clothes? One occasion Leader Of The Pack went shopping with Grandpa, wearing a dirty sweatshirt three sizes too big; my mother just said that the boy chose this outfit and every 5-year-old should be allowed to decide what to wear. Now he is 7 and has just recently started to say if something is not comfortable to wear ...
ReplyDeleteOur boys were so small so the conflicts we had about us being in charge were not as bad. But we did have or share of conflicts about helping out and obeying. Keep up the good work with Little Miss.
I am humbled that you would ask my advice...
ReplyDeleteI am going to work on a response later tonight when the generator gets fired up!
I'm sorry that it's a hard road with little miss right now! We are getting the negative comments on our blog right now too. I don't understand why people have to spend so much time and effort making others feel bad?
ReplyDeleteWith our more difficult children (okay, mostly "child") we took all control away and then slowly built it back up. There have been times where we've had to "re-strip" everything and then start over again. By "all control" I mean that this child had to ask to do everything - from go to the bathroom (don't worry, we always said yes :)) to which book he chose to read. It hasn't been easy, but it's definitely been worth it. Yes, it was about control to some degree ... but mostly it's above trust.... them trusting us. They try to control a situation because they either don't trust (related to a spirit of fear) or they are in rebellion. Both need to be dealt with consistently and firmly ... in order to find freedom :). It's been a lot of hard work and even though we still have a few bad days here/there ... he's a hundred times better than he was! THANK YOU JESUS!!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for popping over and joining in on the discussion. This is definitely the direction we have felt led, but wanted to hear from others who are also parenting this way.
DeleteWe know that our Little Miss has a lot of fear, but also believe she has Oppositional Defiance Disorder, which brings outright rebellion with her wanting control for the sake of having control. This is seen in ...
"Little Miss could you please clean the kitchen."
"I hate to clean the kitchen; you always make me clean the kitchen."
"Oh. Would you rather clean the bathrooms?"
"No. You always make me clean the bathrooms. I hate cleaning the bathrooms."
Oh course ... with 5 other children who also do these chores, it is never Little Miss that ALWAYS has to do any of the chores.
Glad things have gotten better with your challenging child.
I would give two choices (when possible) and leave it at that... no "would you rather" b/c it leaves the door open for rebellion, "NO! (I would not rather!)". "Little Miss, you can clean the bathroom or the kitchen, which one is your choice?".
DeleteThanks. I don't usually offer choices (because there are so many children to rotate chores between). This was more an example of the fact that no matter what chore we assign, she says that she "hates it".
Delete:) :) :)
Offering choice a and choice b is a great way to parent these kids though. It allows them some measure (a small one) of the control they are seeking but within YOUR perameters.
DeleteI'd also recommend more consistency in areas of things that always need to be done such as chores. Our kids have the same chore for 6-12 months. That way they always know what I expect of them and how I expect it to be done.
Loving Your Kids on Purpose would be a great book for you to read (by Danny Silk).
Thanks for the book recommendation.
DeleteWe used to be very consistent with chores and such (charts, schedules, etc...) . . . but when life pretty much fell apart, my consistency went with it. We have been living in Survival Mode for far too long. Thanks for the encouragement to get back on track in this area.
I believe on the whole that children behave if they can. You have a lot of parenting experience and a lovely bunch of children have grown up and are growing up to be caring adults because of you, two dedicated parents. Your Little Miss, though, is something else. She does not behave like your other children. Are you really sure she has the ability to behave in her current situation, with the current support? It is rare that children again and again fail to meet expectations if it is within their ability. I pray that you will find a good neuropsychiatric team to evaluate her and to support you after the evaluation.
ReplyDeleteI have children adopted from Africa. One of them is on the autism spectrum, with hyperactivity and intellligence just above menatal retardation. Of course we must avoid conflict with this 9 year old, because, particularly with AS children , conflict breeds conflict! His chores and obligations are also much lower than his sisters, matched to his low capacity - not theirs. His way of thinking needs a very different approach. I cannot expand much here because it would be too long but his lack of flexibility and not being able to see things from another persons view point is his handicap. People like us, family and teachers, need to respect his handicaps and adjust beacuse he can't.
The hard, hard work we are doing has changed from being more focused on our son and his difficult behavior to the even harder work sometimes :) of changing our own hearts, expectations and increasing our patience. Truly refining!
Ross Greene is an author I recommend whilst you wait for an evaluation.
Praying for you
Mommy & psychologist in Sweden
Hi Maria,
DeleteThanks for your input. I do, however, have to disagree with your first statement that "children behave if they can". There are children who adamantly CHOOSE to disobey, and CHOOSE to live in rebellion (we've had some biological children who have also made poor CHOICES over the years, when they are absolutely capable of choosing to behave.)
Our Little Miss (unlike your child with autism) is fully capable of complying with our expectations. She is intellectually quite bright. She makes the CHOICE at school to behave beautifully. It is only at home that she chooses to disobey.
We definitely know and understand that Rachel does have issues that we need to be aware of. We do parent her quite differently than her siblings. Our expectations of her are far different than those of her same-age brother. However ... we do not believe that it is best to allow her to control every minute of her life, just because she WANTS to ... just because she doesn't WANT anyone else to have any control over her.
Oh yes ... we have done MUCH hard work over the past 4 years of changing our own hearts and expectations, and of increasing our patience. God has worked, and is continuing to work in the lives of each and every one of us in our family.
Thanks again for all of your input. I appreciate all that you have shared.
Laurel
Our Wild Child is very confrontational with us (her parents). She also behaves in school for her teachers but comes home and blows up at us. She is now at a residential school for the Deaf and she has started to project these behaviors onto the dorm staff there. She will behave for her teachers at school but will be very "disrespectful and argumentative" with the dorm staff. The main staff member has been informing me about these behaviors for a few weeks now and asking that we "talk" with Wild Child about them (thinking these are new behaviors). I just had a long conversation with the staff last night letting her know that Wild Child has ALWAYS behaved like this toward us, but that this is the first time she really has been treating others outside our family like this. I just assume it is b/c the staff is now her caregivers while she is at school during the week and this is how she treats her "caregivers".
ReplyDeleteAnyways, she too has the ability to behave when she chooses. Mostly that is in public including at school. Not at home with us. As far as parenting styles, that is a loaded questions. We have changed styles many times trying to find something that works since she first came home in '07. We have gone from trying to parent her the same as our bio son to taking everything away and having complete control and slowly giving her choices and control in some areas back. By the time she started residential school a couple months ago, she could handle having hard toys in her room w/o breaking anything. She used to break everything and could not be trusted with anything hard in her room b/c she would throw them and break her ceiling light. But she has improved to the point where she has not been violent and not broken/shattered anything for quite a while now.
I have read books about therapeutic parenting and gone to seminars about it. I always get the feeling that therapeutic parenting is more like letting the child have control of EVERYTHING and get away with EVERYTHING. However, I have tried that too, not to that extent but for a while we were allowing her to not brush her teeth if she felt like not brushing her teeth (always a huge issue with her) and not take a bath if she chooses not to take a bath. But after a huge dental bill and buying a kids Sonicare toothbrush that she shares w/ her brother (different heads of course) she now is told to brush her teeth again. Though we don't stand over her and make sure she is actually doing it. So I don't know how to explain our parenting style, except that we have tried almost everything and still feeling like we will never get it right with our daughter! RAD is a very hard disorder to deal with and you can't love it away and you can't punish it out of them, it's just a hard, isolating, and lonely journey. That's why we all need blogs! To lift each other up!
Right there with you. :)
DeleteI can so relate to how you said, "Parenting style? ... we have tried almost everything and still feel like we will never get it right with our daughter."
I hope this residential school works well for your daughter.
Laurel
Each of our three children has RAD, PTSD, mood, and other disorders. I am definitely not a conflict avoider. Most of the people we know think we are unreasonably strict with our children. But as someone else mentioned, fear (terror, really) is what drives most of our children's acting-out behavior. The firm and clear boundaries help our kids feel safer. They don't "like" having those boundaries, but they only feel safe when they are in place. When they don't feel safe, they are unable to act better. It looks like one huge defiance-fest. It's not.
ReplyDeleteYes, my kids, like any kids, have their moments of out-right rebellion. And when that's what's happening, rewards and consequences work. The rest of the time, rewards and consequences have virtually no effect on our kids' behavior or choices.
My kids inhabit the no-man's-land between the terror of trusting someone only to be hurt or abandoned again and the terror of the reality that they can't actually take care of themselves. Adding more fear in the form of chastisement or punitive consequences does not make that better. Logical and natural consequences have their place as teachers of cause and effect, but in terms of behavior modification, they don't help us with the stuff that comes from our kids' already overwhelming fear.
Our kids are intelligent. They know right from wrong. Anyone looking in from the outside would think that they are perfectly capable of behaving appropriately--they do most of the time they are away from home, where there is no scary intimacy with family involved. But being at home brings them face-to-face with the fact that they are in that no-man's-land of fear and their anxiety starts leaking out all over the place in really BAD behavior.
Does that mean that they get away with that stuff? Not hardly! They have chores. They school at home, so they have schoolwork. We have expectations of their behavior towards us and each other. They get away with very little.
They want my energy at all times, but they don't feel comfortable getting it in the ways a typical child would. A big, fast hit of negative energy is as good or better to them than a nice, prolonged dose of positive energy because it doesn't trigger their fear of intimacy--of being taken in, of trusting only to be abandoned or hurt--again. So the trick (and the therapeutic parenting part) is keeping the responsibility ball in their court while keeping the parental power in my pocket. I reframe the conflict so that I keep my power and they get their needs met. I tell my kids that it's obvious from their behavior that they are worried or scared about something and they need to let me know what it is so that I can help them come up with a plan. If they don't tell and don't stop, then I tell them that I'm going to have to assume that they are doing the behavior on purpose and will have to give consequences. If it's disrespect, they get consequences every time anyway, but I'm still looking for what's underneath, since the reality is that the consequences aren't going to change anything and resolving the anxiety is the only thing that is going to get things back under control.
So I don't avoid conflict, but I try to maintain parental power by being the one forcing the real issue (as opposed to the overt behavior problem) and insisting that it be resolved. Hard to explain in a blog comment. The list of things we've tried and eventually given up on is huge, but between parenting therapeutically (which, in our case, doesn't involve letting our children control everything), therapy, and wraparound services, our kids are thriving and taking big steps towards healing. Granted, we started out pretty low and our kids ranged from age four to age nine when they came to live with us, so what looks to us like progress may look to others like a life they wouldn't want, but this is what God gave us and He keeps giving us the grace to go on.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you . . . for sharing your heart, your life, your parenting.
DeleteSo.Well.Said.
This is exactly the type of discussion that I was hoping to engage in. Those of us who are walking this challenging walk can learn so very much from each other.
Hoping your weekend is BLESSED!!!
Laurel :)
Parenting wounded children is not possible without conflict. Our kids work hard to recreate the environment they grew up in, whether in utero and after birth. Their need for control overwhelms all other needs. My prayer is somehow we are teaching ours that conflict CAN be worked through and is a healthy part of life. But we're on year 12 and it has taken every one of those years to get to this place. You can NOT let your kids just do their own thing. You just try and try and pray and prayer, repeat and repeat. It just is our life. But when you stand before God you can know you have done all you are humanly capable of regardless of the outcome in their lives. I fully believe our kids that aren't attached cannot heal without knowing their absolute need for God. For some of ours it may not be until they become an adult that they are able to fully comprehend the struggle. I have no pat answers. Just walking the journey with you. You are a blessing. Stay transparent. It is desperately needed.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Marty!
DeleteAlways love to hear from you. Sometimes I think, "But they have been home FOUR YEARS." and I am reminded that yours have been home MUCH longer, and it is STILL a challenge.
I do THANK JESUS that He has given me "sisters" to walk this journey with. You are a BLESSING from Him.
Laurel :)