Thursday, January 12, 2012

Working our way through a difficult time.

My lack of blogging hasn’t been because nothing is happening around our house, after all since I last posted we have celebrated Christmas with both sides of the family, Santa and Grandfather Frost paid us a visit and a new year has been rung in.

My lack of blogging is because nothing that is very much fun to talk about is going on in our household as of late.

Adoption can be hard.

Adopting older children can be hard.

We have lived through it, especially during the first few months after Parker came home with us. Those were tough times, and during those times I wrote about it. So I figure there are some families out there that may be going through or have gone through what we are now, so why not share.

Parker has hit a rough patch (which is an understatement at times). To those outside of our house, Park couldn’t be much more thoughtful, polite, caring, intelligent, and sweet than he is.  Parker is each of those, but sadly for him and us, we see a different side of him on occasion. Those occasions used to be pretty infrequent, but to our chagrin they have become much more prevalent over the past couple of months.

I don’t feel like getting into everything that is going on with him at this moment, but it would suffice to say that the last couple of months have been downright upsetting, frustrating, scary, unsettling, and confusing.

Way back when we were first experiencing all of our difficulties with Parker we could kind of rationalize what might be causing them, as we couldn’t communicate with him very well since we spoke different languages, he wasn’t used to living an environment like the one we provided for him, he was probably scared, and he probably missed everything that felt comfortable that he left behind in Ethiopia. As his language progressed and he got into school, his behavior improved and his outbursts became less frequent. Things from that point on have never been perfect, but we had gotten to a point where we hoped that any issues we had with him were just those common issues that any parent runs into with a 6, 7, or 8 year old boy.

Those feelings changed recently. Changed to the point where we realized that we can’t address this situation alone and we reached out for professional help. This past Tuesday evening Sara and I headed south to Lexington to meet with a family therapist that came highly recommended to us. It was something we knew we needed to do, but neither of us wanted to have to do (I hope that makes sense). We don’t want to be a position to seek counseling for one of our children, but we know it’s only fair to him, us, and Lleyton and Addy to do so. We needed help and hopefully this therapist will be able to provide that for us.

Over the past couple of months, whether it be during one of his outbursts or during a quiet moment, we have tried many times to gain and understanding regarding what is ailing our big guy and why he feels it’s necessary to react and behave the way he has. We have gotten a few different reasons, some troubling, some of which we doubt, and some of which break our hearts.

We didn’t go into adopting any of our children under the false pretense that is was going to be easy or perfect, but at the same time we didn’t go into any of the adoptions thinking it would be this hard.

We wouldn’t change anything about how we formed our family.

We love Parker.

We love Lleyton.

We love Addy.

That’s not going to change. The fact is that many times when kids grow up in hard places, they deal with difficult things and those things don’t go away when they are welcomed into loving homes. Sometimes they linger and present themselves at the strangest of times. To one extent we are happy that Parker has only acted out around us to this point.  Yet, on the other hand that can make trying to explain what is going on at home more difficult b/c no one else has seen this side of our young man.

So if you’re reading this and have made it this far, that’s the explanation behind the blog absence. But now we’re back and hopefully very soon we can get back on track with fun stories about the kids…like the other day when Lleyton and his sidekick/shadow/best friend/cling-on/biggest fan joined forces and fended off bad guys while dressed in Batman masks.


5 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for your honesty!! We have struggled with our son and decided to get help as well. It was THE BEST thing we've ever done!!! You will find hope, encouragement and new tools. I am so glad you are doing this... for Parker and for you!

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  2. Thanks for sharing. It can be tough, but hopefully your therapist can help you through it!

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  3. I hope you can get some good suggestions from your therapist and that you find some solutions that work for you. We're going through some stuff with our daughter right now and it's hard. Keep trying and good luck!

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  4. I'm glad you are all getting the help you need. I know adoption isn't easy,and I praise you for showing the good and the frustrating!

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  5. We totally get this! Don't get me wrong our little guy is sweet, loving, affectionate, polite, etc. People go on all the time about those qualities but let me tell ya, he can turn it on or off however you want to look at it at home, there are lots of times when he's just with us he's like a totally different kid that he lets others see, including Timmy & I's family. We love him more than words & can't imagine life without him but we have had some pretty difficult times & it's been hard to share with others especially since he only does it at home, thanks for keeping it real!!!!! Will be praying, blessings!!

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