Just Thinking

This afternoon I have been trying to figure something out because I am the sort of person who tries to figure things out and then fix them if I can. What I was thinking is this, how is it that you have a kid who has obvious FAS so she is impulsive, has memory loss issues, is extremely concrete, and all of the rest that goes along with FAS. She is actually a really great kid to parent for just over two years, even with these issues to deal with every day. We did not have a rage/meltdown issue, we had a kid who really was living up to her full potentual and then BAM everything goes completely nuts, it seems over night that kid is gone and we are left with a rotten banana.

Yes you could say that puberty went over like a lead balloon and that would be putting things politely, but all girls do not do this.

You might chalk it up to being a teenager, but this kid will not even be thirteen until July.

You might think that we changed the way we parent, but that is not it. We have been parenting this way for twenty-four years with adopted kids, birth kids, and foster kids. We have not changed things much here because what we have been doing seems to be working for the most part. Of course we have made some mistakes along the way, everyone does. Society generally finds our kids to be respectful, responsible, caring, hard working, honest, and just all around good kids.

If it is not any of those things is it simply that this kid finally, after two years got comfortable enough in our family that she could express her anger all be it at the wrong people, If this is the situation I sure wish she would just spend the next weeks yelling at us,(hey we can find some ear plugs) and get it over with so she can go back to being the sweetheart that is there somewhere.

Maybe it is all of this put together. I do know that the combination of FAS and attachment issues is VERY difficult to deal with. Trying to get some very abstract ideas through to someone who is so concrete that she literally acts just like Amelia Bedelia in the silly little kid books. No kidding if you told her she needed to "turn over a leaf in her life" she would actually go outside, find a leaf and turn it over. That is just how concrete she is.

I know that the "experts" have not figured this out yet, but maybe parents who know more about attachment issues then I do might have it figured out. I have done a fair amount of research on the subject, but when I was in college majoring in psychology and social work we really did not get into this area to much. I hope today somebody is trying to get a handle on this.