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Nice thread! Here's a topic I have not seen very much on here. It's another one of those things no one wants to talk about, maybe because everyone will think their child hopeless. So thank goodness for this conversation!
I find this fascinating because our 12 almost 13 year old son has these rages on less frequent occurences now than when he was first adopted. When they come on he gets these dark circles under his eyes, and it almost seems like he is morphing into a different personality. I have always tried to ignore or avoid the rages through all means necessary, with the thought that anything more than that would reinforce all of that negativity. However on his last rage, which again was over something minor, after the ignoring and distracting for an hour didn't work I "gave in" with the cuddling. He really seemed to relax and the whole episode wrapped up in a matter of minutes after that. The RIGHT answer may never be found, but I would rather have him feel secure and loved if that is what cuddling provides.
I should give some more history on our guy so you can get the picture. My significant other and his now ex-wife took the little guy in as a foster child knowing he was most likely going up for adoption. In fact his birth mother was visiting weekly, and they just thought they would essentially be adopting both of them. Shortly there after the birth mom disappeared, no more visits, calls or anything. She did send a letter, but the little guy never knew about it. Fast forward to a couple of years later when he is formally adopted and then a couple more till his noe adoptive mother leaves my significant other. So now the little guy is going back and forth between the two homes with his older adoptive sister, and he is having a hard time bonding with his adoptive mother. Rages were frequent during this time.
About 4 years ago I met my significant other and we have been together ever since. The kids and I hit it off immediately after meeting. They continued to go back and forth between our home and their adoptive mother, one week on onw week off joint custody. In that time the little guy and I were bonding extremely well. Friends and family of my sig, other were raving about how different the kids seemed now. So we continued joint custody until recently. In December his adoptive mother and him had an incident of major proportions. She sent him to our house like she had done many times before following a rage. From that incident onthings were not the dame. He always cried and begged us not to send him back there every other Friday. Those Thursday evenings and Friday morning were tough. Then over Memorial Day weekend he just plain refused to go back to her house. He has been with us ever since, and I must say he has been a joy minus the last couple of rages. Now his adoptive mother is saying she is signing papers to give my sig. other full custody of the little guy. So long story short, you can all see what might be going on within our son. Why is life so crazy for these kids?
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