Jennie and I talk after every session about what the kids have shared so I was a little baffled when all the kids were afraid to share anything with me in the room. Each of them had to go through the process of telling me the stuff about what had happened to them, and some of the bad things they had done, so that they could hear me say that I still loved them.

It is so wild to me that they would think that I didn’t know those things about them, but there was real value in them telling me so I could assure them that I still loved them, despite their baggage and behaviors. The longer I am an adoptive dad, the more I understand just how many parallels there are to God’s adoption of me. Love, forgiveness, and confession make a lot more sense seeing them from a Dad’s perspective.

One thing she said really stuck out to me.  She said, “Sometimes it’s so easy to focus so much on the labels that we forget that these are just kids underneath all of those issues.”  So true.  So many times, we look at our children through the filters of Reactive Attachment Disorder, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, Autism, Bi-Polar, etc, that we forget that underneath it all there’s a child.  Granted…..a hurting, scared, angry child, but a child nonetheless.

I am praying God to give me His perspective on my kids this week.  One of those perspectives, I’m sure, has to be…this is a child.  A precious child whom God loves.  Underneath all of the anger, hurt, and awful, mean, ugly behaviors….there’s a kid down there.  Wanting, but not knowing how, to get out and play.  Too scared to.  Too traumatized.  But wanting to.

So often we forget that.  And, I think that because the behaviors usually don’t match up with the age, we assume that they are just working hard to be manipulative.  Many times, when I talk with moms of very young children, the similarities of behaviors and thought processes will be uncanny.  Because of the abuse and neglect, most of our kids emotionally are very young.  While it’s hard to remember, I’m trying to picture a little three year old sitting there in the car, asking me a question he already knows the answer to simply because he did not get his way earlier.  Not easy to do in the heat of the moment, but sometimes it helps shape my response.

The moms who do well with wounded children have developed ways of thinking that don’t follow the norm.  They see beyond what presents itself to the deeper reality.  They see beyond the annoying behaviors, to the red flags begging for help.  They have learned not to take the bizarre behaviors personally, and know that the better they do at their job the more those behaviors may come out for a while.  I want to be that mom.  I know I’m not there yet.  I keep letting myself get to this place of exhaustion, getting completely annoyed with the ongoing jabs and purposeful behavior.  I find myself in need of new perspective.  Don’t we all!?

During one of the sessions, my son looked up at me and told me, “You hate me….you just don’t want to deal with me.”  My response?  ”Really?  You think I’d drive 2 1/2 hours away, go through this long of a therapy session with you, and drive back if I didn’t love you or want to deal with you?  Trust me…this is the last thing I’d be doing if I didn’t love you!”  The therapist also reminded him that he was sitting in my lap at the moment of this declaration.

I have found that this faulty way of thinking permeates everything wounded kids do.  They come into your home thinking that they are not loved.  Their past has taught them this very well.  No matter what you do, they are trying to prove that this is the case, simply because it’s what they already believe.  And they work hard to prove that you don’t love them.

I have had a child look at me, ask me a question for which they knew the answer would be “no,” and then, once they get that expected answer, walk off dejected.  You can almost hear in their demeanor…”See.  I knew she didn’t love me.”  (They also do this when they’re just mad at you for breathing and they want to find some legitimate thing to be mad at you for…I tell my kids that they are welcome to be mad at me for no reason.  They don’t even have to work that hard to come up with a one!  Just be mad!)

Sometimes, when I am helping my children deal with this whole anger/you-hate-me issue, part of me is thinking, “Are you serious?  Really?”  Children with RAD have so much rage and anger that they pretty much get mad at anything and everything.  And everything you do is reason for them to believe that you do not love them.  You went for a walk = You hate me and now I’m angry with you.  You went out for coffee with a friend = You hate me and now I’m angry with you.  You answered the phone = You hate me and now I’m angry with you.  You made me do a chore = (you guessed it) You hate me and now I’m angry with you.  I find that it almost becomes comical at times the types of things that these children become angry with.  I’ve discovered that pretty much any and everything I do makes my children mad.  I’m evidently really good at it.  It’s a talent I never knew I had before having children in my home with Reactive Attachment Disorder.

This used to bother me so much.  No matter what I did, my children got angry and assumed that I didn’t love them.  And I used to get frustrated with the daily need for the question, “Ok…so what are you mad about?  Use your words!”  Now I just figure that I WILL be making my children mad throughout the day.  And, no matter what, they WILL assume I don’t love them.  I might as well just go about my day and have fun, knowing that they are going to be angry and hurt no matter what.  I can’t control what they get angry and hurt about.  They came to me that way.  All I can do is love them anyway.  And sometimes now I even decide that I might as well even make their anger fun for me.  (It’s sick, I know.  But, when you’re dealing with it day in and day out, you find sick and twisted ways of coping.)

On this particular day, when my child told me that he thought I hated him, I said, “You know what?  That makes me really angry!  If I have company over, you think I hate you.  When I get ready in the morning instead of pay non-stop attention to you…you think I hate you.  I do ANYTHING and you think I hate you.  You have made it completely impossible for me to love you according to your standards.  You have this huge list of things that I must do in order for you to feel loved, and no one would be able to live up to your standards.   And, quite honestly it’s only because you want to keep my love at a distance.  It’s not fair.”

I don’t know if any of my words got through.  But they needed to be said.  I DO love my children – very much.  Quite honestly, if I didn’t I would have left them on the doorstep of some unsuspecting person – or along the highway on the way to therapy – a long time ago.  Just the fact that they are still in my house and are still living is a huge monument to my love for them.  Not to mention the healthy meals I prepare for them, the countless hours I spend trying to find programs to help them heal, the fun activities I plan for them.  One day, I pray that my love will be able to seep into their hearts.  One day.

I knew that something was amuck when the hallway of our new house began to smell like urine.  Hmmm…..

I confronted the child closest to that part of the hallway, who had also been known to pee in his garbage can and on the carpet in our previous house (we were living in a rental, so we had to have the carpets cleaned frequently in that house – not fun!).  Denying anything was wrong, he insisted that he was NOT peeing in his bedroom this time.  I told him that I didn’t believe him, but I remained in denial for a while longer.  That smell will go away if I just ignore it, right?!

Yesterday, I told the therapist about the strange odor emanating from his room.  During his therapy session, she confronted him about what was going on there.  He finally admitted to having multiple bottles and containers filled with urine under his bed.  Yuck!  I tried to remain composed, but part of me was a little grossed out, to be honest (not to mention when I actually SAW the 8 container pee shrine under the bed!).

When wounded children aren’t talking about their anger, many times they begin to “pee” their anger out.  It’s a way of getting those icky feelings out of them….not the healthiest way, but a way, nonetheless.  Some of them pee on their carpet; some down the register in their room (a particularly smelly option); some in the family’s laundry basket full of towels.  All for the same reasons….to get their anger out.  (I have also heard of kiddos peeing in different places in the house simply to try to make mom’s job harder, but this is still a method of getting their rage at mom out.)

Our therapist is amazing at dealing with this issue.  She asked my son if he wanted a real pee shrine in his room.  He looked at her like she was crazy.  She continued, “If you really like pee that much and want to keep it around you, let’s forget this under-the-bed kind of thing.  You need to have it on top of your dresser!”  He told her that he wasn’t interested, and she informed him that if he wanted to have a pee shrine on top of his dresser (a container he’d have to pee in every day for a while and keep on top of his dresser), that he’d let us know through his actions.  And when we got home….guess who was cleaning out his room and getting rid of the containers full of pee.  Yah!  No more pee shrine!   The hallway smells WAY better!  :)  I LOVE our therapist!!