My love for our adopted son runs very deep. Our children are now 15, 15, and the other one 13 next month. When you experience repetitive loss having children, it changes motherhood. We lost five pregnancies at different stages and it absolutely still shapes how I parent and am currently parenting teens. Not all in a good way, there are definitely the up and down sides of that trauma. For this season of life and my encouragement today, the up side helps with clarity and focus. The strong desire to mother and care keeps you checked in, it overrides your exhaustion and you stay in the game. With biological children, this is a life you prayed for and literally shed blood and tears for. With adoption, it’s a very similar fight to not only go through the process of adopting, but to then fight to get that child’s life back, which for us is going on 8 years. Adopted or not, mothers rise high and quickly from whatever hole we are in when our child cries out at any age, it’s how we are made. A mother that has had loss just is listening a little more intensely, maybe responding half a second quicker, battling it a little more intensely…. because we were already in fight or flight mode to begin with. Unrest and fear started this process and even though it doesn’t have its full power anymore, it quickly rears it’s head when startled. I have seen my own trauma in fight or flight raising a child that developed in it, or lets be honest and say no one develops or thrives in that state. You never get over it. Don’t spend your life trying to. But, you can absolutely experience peace and wholeness through it not being a decision maker in your life. It’s season is over, remind yourself of that. It doesn’t get to have any more power than it already did. You can do the work of prayer, counseling, medication, community, and all the parenting hat tricks, but you will never erase from someone the scars that seared their minds and hearts. You can speak truth and have practical ways you handle every situation and a talk track that gets you back, but there will never be a place in life where you say, “All that was fine. I’m good now.” If you are able to say that, you have not experienced life changing trauma. I personally think everyone has some type of an experience to a degree, haven’t met someone trauma free yet.
We are raising a child from it and all I can speak from is where I have walked with him and where I am at personally. I will tell you Zach and I both have a pretty high threshold for what will rattle each of us on the daily. I think sometimes people from trauma are almost calm because when you see other people freaking out about whatever, you roll your eyes. I said I wouldn’t list examples and I’m not gonna do it, but perspective is a funny thing. We have many ongoing emergency room visits, crises, and whatever… they have a tendency to upset the people around us more than they even actually bother us! I have learned to delay and deliver information in accordance to that. Your thermometer will climb at different speeds if you are from trauma, but remember that other peoples don’t.
Everyone warned us that when you have an adopted special needs child that is from trauma and then they hit puberty…. Beware. We are almost on the other side of it at 15 with him right now. The hormones and lack of appropriate development can be a literal train wreck. Here’s how I would respond, the train has already wrecked. And you have already been on the scene. Remove that anticipation. The difference is now you knew what it sounded like and how to suit up. It’s the beautiful part about raising any child, they aren’t born a teenager. A million factors affect each child’s development and trust me, some have nothing to do with adoption or special needs.
Our son has been a true picture of healing and I have to remind myself to celebrate that, literally his life was changed forever. I consider it a huge, and overwhelming at times, calling from God that I would be the best mom for Zach. But, they will fall. And so will you. It is difficult to have set backs when pushing the ball up hill is so hard. The setbacks feel greater and farther, it feels that way, but I promise its not. It is just another hurdle and they will cross it. And so will you. We have had big and scary situations with a child that now towers me, and I have seen grace win. Maybe not in the moment, but the seeds you have sown will reap and that truth you have spoken will not come back void. Hold the flag, do not drop it. Be open to being outside the box with what your kid needs in the moment. When you get out of the moment, put them back on the tracks and push forward. Do not pivot, force the next step forward and the rest will follow.
With some hard hurdles crossed and now him having a lot of communication, teenagers and hormones create an impulsivity that you sometimes can’t control in the moment. If not physical, they can be verbally impulsive. With any child and especially those who didn’t develop correctly with trauma, physical behavior for us subsided when communication spiked. It’s known that the ability to communicate well leads to frustration that can turn physical when they cannot express themselves accurately. Get those ears perked up and have a plan…. Again, those from trauma were already subconsciously listening and ready for it. Zach said the other day after a consequence was delivered, “I don’t want to be in this family, I’m going to live with the grandparents.” To which I responded, “They already raised their kids, no dice. You are stuck here.” I’m sure that gracious response to him yielded the next statement out of his mouth, which was, “Then take me back to the orphanage.” And we all know how that ended so I quickly let him know, “Too bad mom helped get that place shut down so there is no more orphanage, bud. You are our family forever and this is how it is.”
There was something transformational that God did in my heart after hearing those words that stung. Also, be very careful you don’t take teenage angst and hormones personal. See it as they are comfortable, safe, free enough to express themselves and quickly move to restoration. Many kids think it or stuff it anyway, they just aren’t saying it to your face. No one is getting punished forever, although I think I could last pretty long. When we give our lives to Christ, we are His. Our old self has died and He literally gives us a new Spirit that lives in us and if we allow, transforms our minds and hearts. For me personally, that power is in my every day. I would have mentally lost it by now. He renews and transforms and I can’t explain it. It is just what He does. New mercies and new mornings. It gives me the peace of not being offended and taken down by a child and knowing this very true and one thing because of who I am in Him…. God put his one statement on my heart about Zach and it is this,
He doesn’t have to choose us, as long as he knows he is chosen. Remind your child of that and walk away. The is the power of love. I hope that truth sews deep in his heart because the beauty of being adopted is that you were chosen twice. Once by God, and the second by me.
Don’t withhold your love, speak it louder. Don’t not act when it is in your power to act and do good. When he sees that I am recovered, he sees it is safe for him to recover. Don’t act fine, we aren’t fine. I show my tears and respond that words hurt just as much as physical actions do. With special needs, you do this once. Then you do it a million more times. We have seen he grows, gets it, and gets better. Which is the time that it will stick? We don’t know, but we know it will.
That is not powerful parenting, but parents who have a powerful God. Amen and amen.
