HELP!!! Tantrums

[irishgreengables]

Hi there,

We adopted 2 children who came home from Haiti last Tuesday. Our daughter is 39 months and our son is 22 months. Our daughter cleary learned how to manipluate situations while in Haiti -- particularly through tantrums. She is not getting her needs met and so mixing up her needs and her wants. If she does not get what she wants immediately, she throws a huge tantrum. This would not be so tough were it not for the fact that I have 2 children and cannot spend every moment of every day holding one through tantrums -- which is what would happen if I did this.

Any suggestions. We co-sleep BTW, so that helps some sleeping situations -- although not all. Many nights, she tests us. She will throw things or hit her brother instead of lyng down.

I also speak Creole so language is not a huge barrier.

Your thoughts?

[T. Elena]

Hi there,

I am not an expert on this matter by any stretch, but I wanted to ask you if you've read _Toddler Adoption: The Weaver's Craft_. It does talk a lot about situations like this. I read it recently and thought it an excellent book -- might be hard for you to find time to read *anything*, but I'm sure you'd be glad you did, if you haven't already. It's the "standard" book on toddler adoption, and it is very child-positive and attachment-friendly.

I guess the standard advice for dealing with children adopted as toddlers and who are dealing with grief and trauma is to hang in there, keep using attachment-friendly parenting techniques, provide predictable routine (as similar as possible to their old routines), and take care of yourself. But I bet you already know all that!

Personally, I wouldn't hestitate to get some professional support to get you through this rocky period, if you can afford it.

My thoughts are with you and your children!

BTW, one of the techniques mentioned in the Toddler Adoption book and also Attaching in Adoption (by Deborah Gray, another excellent book) is using "Time In" instead of "Time Out." The idea is that if the kid is doing something unacceptable you take the child elsewhere -- somewhere safe, calming, and just *be* with you in order to cool down. The "experts" definitely recommend against "time out" with kids adopted after a few months of age, and certainly any child having difficulty with attachment and intimacy.

[irishgreengables]

oops...my 3rd sentence should have read... "she is NOW getting her needs met..."

Thanks for the response. I have read both books, but so long ago. Will need to re-visit them.

Peace,
Paula

[wemberly]

Paula!!!

I just wanted to extend my heartfelt congratulations--two, two, wonderful two!!.

About the tantrums, you know all of the information about the big transition, and the stress involved. I think the more flexible you can be in these first few weeks, the easier it will be for dd to feel in control of her life. Remember too that she probably hasn't had the opportunity to voice her opinion very often, tantrums have been the easiest way to communicate emotion (and the most likely way to be attended to) and it's going to take awhile for dd to feel comfortable enough to verbalize first, scream never. Try to give dd a safe get-away-from-it-all kind of space--maybe a play tent with a beanbag chair, some loveys, and a few books. Encourage her to use the space whenever she feels angry, or overwhelmed. You might aslo want to come up with a code word together--something really silly "purple chicken" or whatever and encourage her to use it to tell you when she's feeling overwrought. You can use it too, to suggest that maybe she's headed that way.

Good Luck mama. Treasure these lovely early days.

paige, adoptive mama to Elliott

[geekmom]

Try not to think of it as "manipulating". Kids really don't manipulate, they just do what they know how to and have to do to get their needs met. Needs go deeper than food and shelter, it's also emotional safety and attachment. I've had 15 foster children and it takes weeks to settle everyone into a bare amount of comfort and then about a year to really connect and learn how to really behave around each other.

My advice is to just take some deep breaths and not worry about the tantrums or any other behaviors for at least a month. AFter that there will be enough routine for you to decide what the issues are. Right now the children's biggest needs will probably be emotional safety. Plus, if you're saying that they're getting their needs met now, does that mean they were previously not met? Taht's not something that goes away particularly quickly. I have 3 kids that were not fed or taken care of for the beginnings of tehir lives and even years later it still affects them.

Good luck. Adopting toddlers is quite an exciting adventure.

[irishgreengables]

I thought The Weavers Craft was a great book, but the advice given assumed that your child could communicate in your language. WHile I know Creole, I do not know it well enough to reason with a child, as the book suggests. So it really isn't helpful to me right now.

The hard part abput the tantrums is that I have 2 toddlers so when one is tantrumming, I either have to leave the other to tend to the one, or tend to both...which has proven impossible.

How do I do it with 2?

[geekmom]

I have 2 toddlers and the best thing I can suggest is to try to bring the non-tantrumming toddler into the room where the tantrumming toddler is and hang out with both of them there. You don't have to hold a child all the way through the tantrum. It's good if you're just in the room with her. Maybe sit on the floor with the children and let them do what they're going to do, tantrum or sit on your lap. You won't get much else done, but at least you'll be with the kids in the beginning.

Often my kids just scream and tantrum when they are first moved to my house. Also, I helped friends drive home their new Romanian adopted children 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 from the airport and the kids screamed the whole way home. It's so heart breaking to listen to, but just sit on the floor and sing or talk and just let them know you're there. Let yourself feel their pain and even cry along with them if you feel it. As hard as it seems, it will end in a while. Good luck.

[wemberly]

I just wanted to know how things are going for all of you. Please drop an update when you can!

[irishgreengables]

Thanks for asking Wem. Actually, we hit a major turning point at about 2 weeks, when the tantrumming slowed a great deal. I think at that point we could tell when she needed to be held and when she needed to be let go. At about 3 weeks, she had a serious panic attack, where she held onto me for dear life, screaming if I would try and release my grip at all. It just came on -- out of nowhere. So DH got her into pj's whole she held onto me and then she laid on my chest all noight. The next day, she did not have a single tantrum and since then, the tantrums have been more along the lines of what normal 3 year olds have. It is as if she processed everything in that panic atack.

I have to say that I think that co-sleeping is hte best thing we could have done. Even if we have had a tough day, falling asleep with the 4 of us together is always a very loving, gentle, soft time...and they are always so happy to wake up with us right there. I can only imagine that this would have taken so much longer to resolve without co-sleeping.

Thanks agian for asking.

Peace,
Paula