We pulled into the driveway and my kids immediately bailed out of the car with squeals of delight to see friends, all except our newest child who came home at 11 years old. She sat there with a dark angry look on her face. I took a deep breath, then opened my car door and slid out of the car.
I ached to get inside, to study God’s word with other women. To connect. I was SO lonely and so weary. I gathered my books and called back to her “hey, hop out of the car!” and she turned toward me and the look I’d become all to familiar with was on her face and it began… She raged, with threats, and the constant need to control me. I quickly prayed (for about the twentieth time that day) that the Lord would give me patience and wisdom.
She hurled every hurtful, hateful word she could think of at me along with some rocks and other items in her reach, she threatened to run away which meant that I never made it further than about 5 feet from the car that day. I sat down on the gravel driveway fighting hard for this child who refused to be loved and blocking her potential escape to run. I cried; I was beginning to break, and I returned home more lonely than I’d been before we arrived at the study I never got to attend that day.
We’ve done it church!! We have become a culture of adoption. This is an amazing feat! As I look across our sanctuary on Sunday mornings I see family after family touched by adoption and it is beautiful… But sometimes it can also be ugly…
As more and more families answer the call to adoption, they go in with so much hope and expectation to make a difference. But the truth is, there is a dark side of adoption that isn’t openly discussed, the adoptions that destroy families because of deep attachment problems that some of these children have suffered. Those who didn’t have adequate care and love through many years of their life. Those who never knew the safety of a bond with their mother or father, biological or otherwise.
Kids who have survived trauma, abuse and neglect then move into the foster care system where they are automatically set up to for failure; the expectation is that they will return to the abusive parents and sometimes are returned only to be removed again and then put back into care many times. Because of this children learn it isn’t safe to trust adults/caregivers and they learn all sorts of maladaptive ways to handle their fears and anger. Because of these behaviors they are a child from a hard place who is extremely hard to parent and thus are moved from one foster family to another foster family and another and this deepens their intense fear of love and attachment.
The sad truth is, that by the time many of these children are placed with an adoptive family, they have become incredibly damaged; in addition to having dangerous behaviors within the home, they also become master manipulators and know how to work people to elicit the emotional reaction from people that they desire, they do this in order to get their needs met in a negative and maladaptive way.
Our family has been blessed by a a few families who supported us in different ways while we tried and hubby continues to try to break through to a child who refuses to be loved and who is now not capable of loving in return or living in a family setting safely. The sad truth is, she should never have been placed into a family home, especially not one with 6 other children. But we didn’t know that… Not until it was to late. For those considering adoption; Never adopt out of birth order, advice we were given that I desperately wish we had listened to.
All of this to say, it is my heart’s desire to share with you all how incredibly important it is that we continue the chain of responsibility when we the church say we are pro-life, which means we are pro-adoption and that means we should also be adoption supporters!! This is something that is beyond important. Because you see, rescuing these broken children can destroy a family.
However these families might just survive the severe behaviors of children with attachment disorders and other mental health issues if they receive unlimited support from the church that encouraged them to take a part in adoption in the first place. I’m here to tell you some of the ways you can do this. Tangible REAL things that all families in the church need here and there, but those who adopt older children with RAD are going to need ongoing… desperately.
The first thing I did before writing this article was to ask many other mothers who have a child with RAD, those who are broken, and most of us altered beyond recognition. Many of us have had to remove our child from the home because they are so damaged and thus dangerous. Most of these children from hard places have harmed everyone living in the home; both physically and emotionally, we have all been traumatized.
The question I asked: “how did the church hold you up? And… How did the church fail you?”
This is what I heard:
First support and validate the family raising kids from hard places…
The top answer from many was the same: Nobody believed me. Nobody validated the struggle we were in, people quickly forgot the person I was before this child entered our lives and judged my parenting harshly. They only saw a sweet child who just wanted to be “accepted and loved” but what people didn’t see that I was accepting and loving my child. It felt like people constantly thought we were to harsh or to strict, but what those people didn’t know was that those of us parenting kids from hard places are simply trying to protect the other children in church by keeping ours by our side during church gatherings.
Second is meals…
This one is an ongoing thing, yes even years into the adoption. There are no words for how completely and utterly worn out the parents become battling day in and day out trying to break through and love a child with an attachment disorder. I lost the ability to cook while we fought hard, I know that sounds crazy but it’s true, I became so traumatized that I lived in a world of brain fog, I could NOT do much more than stand in the kitchen completely confused and unsure of what to do while our dinner sat there and burned right in front of me; so… surprise a family every once in a while with a healthy meal, chances are mom is so burnt out that her family has been eating frozen pizza a LOT.
Third is contact,
Raising a child from a hard place the child with RAD; it isolates a family. This is hard, but Christians… it is vital! This was probably the second response. I know that this is one I struggle hard with. In the beginning we thought that if we just cocooned our family it would help her adjust to us and we hoped that just maybe she would bond with us; so we took time away from fellowship, with friends and family alike. As time went by, she worked to maintain that and she continued to demand it with behaviors. (like the story above)
Then as our family suffered trauma after trauma because how damaged she had become, we felt the need to protect others from her. I developed severe PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and became incredibly depressed with severe anxiety that resulted from all the trauma we were suffering. I was breaking, and the more I broke, the harder it got to seek out any outside contact. By the end of her time in our home I had been completely silenced. I felt cut off from the outside world save a few precious friends who refused to stop checking in on us. So even if a family appears to be okay from the outside, don’t assume they are and don’t let them go without knowing you are willing to jump in and walk the hard, painful broken road with them.
Don’t forget dad or the other children in the home either. It may be even harder for the father to reach out and ask for support, so don’t make him do it. Check in with him, listen to him, encourage him and stand beside him. If you don’t know how to help support the other children in the home, ask!! It’s not just the mom who becomes traumatized, it’s the entire family.
Also, keep in mind that even after removing a dangerous child from the home, the family is still hurting and broken, they are still in need of contact and support in order to work through all the trauma and grief they are experiencing. They are hurting and need to know that they aren’t out there all alone in it. We all need our church to hold us up and bandage our wounds.
Fourth is acceptance,
Some of us who went into an adoption with big dreams; have been forced into the corner by the behaviors that are to dangerous for all of the members of the family. Sometimes loving the child looks like what we never imagined it would look like. Sometimes the most loving thing the family can do is to place their child outside of the home because they are unsafe. The parents may have to parent in a way that just looks bizarre to you from the outside, please work to understand and accept that sometimes these are the most loving things that we can do for these hurting kid. Ask the family about it in a nonjudgemental way, most of us would love for someone to accept us just as we are, broken and in need of someone to be willing to hear our story and then don’t run, instead find a way to be a part of it. You have you have no idea how far having our story heard and accepted goes to begin healing the pain we are in.
Fifth and last of all,
Childcare! This was the biggest blessing of all for us, one family took it upon themselves to take her once a week over night to give us a bit of breathing room. (they had no younger children in their home) The constant strain that raising an attachment disordered child places on a family can destroy relationships, marriage and the bonds with other kids… Even just the parent’s own mental health. Even just a few hours can give the family a few minutes to breathe!
This is such a complex subject, that I could write for ages and still not cover all the ways a family who has adopted a child from a hard place needs support. But I hope this at least gives a glimpse into the needs of adoptive families raising kids from hard places.
Sadly, the foster care system is FULL of children with attachment disorders, I personally know quite a few families who have adopted and fight hard to help their children heal from what has been done to them. Our family’s experience is not an isolated event.
Perhaps you don’t know a family who is raising a child with RAD. There is good news; this type of support can be applied to any child who may have an “invisible” diagnosis. Children who have difficult behaviors be it resulting from ADHD or Autism, perhaps severe anxiety, or a developmental disorder or any number of reasons. This same list can be applied to any family that has differently abled children.
We as Christians must confront ourselves and realize that we are all the same in the Lord’s eyes, precious and dearly loved no matter how difficult our behaviors. We have all got to stop being terrified to step into the hard places because those places are where the Lord meets us and grows us to be more like Him. Surrendering to the hard brings glory to God and is an act of worship; this of course… Is the entire purpose of this life!
