Bad Behavior

Here is a snippet from my personal blog about the angry and crazy behavior of adopted children:


We were told transitions are really hard for adopted children. She has so much sadness and it leaks out every two weeks or so. The training and information I gleaned before adopting our daughter explains something that makes so much sense.

• If a child is acting crazy, then they are afraid.
• If a child is acting angry, then they are sad.

That’s it. It is not really about the actual behavior, just about the fear or sadness. The behavior is just behavior, not to be seen as bad. So, the point is to deal with the fear or sadness. We let our daughter cry and be angry and let her know it is okay and good for her because all that sadness has to go somewhere in order for her heal. Without the healing from the grief, she will never be able to attach properly.  

I have been empathetically wired to take on people’s emotions easily and extreme sadness doesn’t bother me and hardly phases me. I sometimes cry a bit along with our daughter because of it, which I guess is good because the aim of raising a child “from a hard place” is to connect with them. If parents are constantly correcting their child’s crazy and angry behavior, then connection isn’t happening. It’s really hard when you have something to do or somewhere to be, but somehow my husband and I have been able to get creative and figure out solutions that are connecting, which calms our daughter down and eventually, we can get on with whatever it was we were aiming to do. I am so glad we made the hard choices we did in order to have me stay home with her-I do not know how people with full time jobs and younger children do this!!

I have an appointment scheduled with an Occupational Therapist who can help locate the developmental “gaps” in our child’s wiring and work with her to regrow them. After telling her our story, the OT told me, “You have your work cut out for you.” The developmental psychologist who put on the seminar I attended in the fall heard the story and said, “I sure wouldn’t want to be in your shoes! She will have profound sadness.” What is it with these people?! Ever heard of encouragement?? I guess that’s why I don’t find our situation that hard. I am expecting the absolute worst case scenario, such as killing the family pet, setting fires or threatening parents with butcher knives, so anything better than that is just grand as far as I’m concerned!