Armpit Kid

Taking a page from Cindy's parenting style, Mary is going to be my "armpit kid" until further notice. Her manipulative behaviors, which send certain members of our family right over the edge of sanity, have increased to the point that she just cannot leave my side. Hopefully while she is staked to me, she will pick up on some more appropriate ways of interacting with her family. I dearly hope so. Three of our older kids are on strict orders to use "the silent treatment" as described in The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald. This means they must act as though Mary is not on the same planet as they, let alone in the same household and family. They cannot speak to her, or even look at her and she is under orders to behave likewise. She has gotten on their nerves that much.

I am having an increasingly difficult time reaching my little girl. I truly don't think she does anything that isn't in some way manipulative. Her emotions and actions rarely if ever seem genuine, and are consistently inappropriate. I know she has never learned any "normal" socialization and coping skills, or at least very few. She did what she needed to do to get her baby/toddler needs met. Obviously she is going to need lots and lots of time to heal from her past. We are all going to need to do the things that love does, and ignore these ridiculous, naughty, rude, and just plain wierd behaviors.

It is all much easier said than done for sure. Just when we seem to making progress, Mary will sense it, and in what I am sure is an effort to protect herself from further heartbreak and abuse, she will step up her efforts at getting us to dislike her. She may not truly like people to be mad at her, but I believe she is more comfortable with that as it is a familiar situation. She is afraid deep inside of what might happen if she were to let down her guard and let anyone in. It did not bring very good results to do that in the past.
Besides having a serious attachment disorder, Mary is also a victim of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. She has the very distinguishing facial features of this disorder, notice she has no philtrum, very thin upper lip, short upturned nose, etc. (See some good info on FASD here at Kari's blog ). This is making it even more challenging for us to figure out what is going on. I am a complete novice in both the RAD and the FASD areas, as is the rest of my family. We are trying to educate ourselves, though, and get the help we all need. We are in the process of getting in home therapy services for Mary as well as a psych eval. We are hopeful these things will shed some light. Also on the table is the Deephaven Attachment Clinic
which our adoption worker thinks may be a good thing for us...
We continue to pray.
I know God has a plan for Mary, as He does for all my kids. I am praying we can be open to His leading and not so totally frustrated with this mind boggling behavior that we mess it all up... I also pray that dealing with all of Mary's issues doesn't blind me to what one or more of the other kids needs. I could so identify with another adoptive mom blogger who said there are lots of times she is tired and doesn't feel like doing it anymore. But she went on to say that she does go on, by God's grace, because her kids need her to. That is exactly how I have felt on more than one occassion. Besides I really love all my kids so much and I truly do want to help them be all that God has in mind for them to be.
11 Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. 12 I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. 13 For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths of the grave. Psalm 86