Zendette Rotating Header Image

November, 2011:

Good news from school, but still a lot of work ahead

Nov 21st, 2011
by Zendette.
5 comments

After all the warnings we heard from parents of older adoptees about how the school system fails our children, our meeting with K’s school principal, school psychologist, and homeroom teacher almost had me in tears of gratitude.

Last night, another complaint from a parent. K pushed their son because he was staring at her and had apparently done something to hurt her feelings earlier. DH and I worried the issue to death last night, taking comfort in the knowledge that this morning we would finally have our long awaited school meeting to discuss K’s behavior, primarily violence to other children and their belongings.

Of course I’ve already met with the teacher and even the principal to discuss the behavioral issues, but this was the first time we had a team meeting, along with the school psychologist to plan how to use all our resources to help K overcome the behavior that she so hates in herself.

The principal has already proven herself extremely dedicated to helping K. She began the meeting by talking about how K is doing extremely well academically, and she even threw around the work “gifted” at one point, the magic word that every parent longs to hear.

The psychologist was perfect. A former Ukrainian-Russian, she exhibited a keen knowledge of the issues facing children adopted from Ukrainian baby homes. In the space of an hour, the principal helped our “team” define the problem, and then map a plan of action. I was incredibly impressed with the professionalism in creating the plan, while expressing a real warmth and understanding towards K.

K’s teacher also told us that she is rarely disruptive during class anymore and that the crisis times are when her activities are less tightly controlled. In fact, K clearly thrives in a structured environment and loses control given too much freedom.

The current power plan we developed is that during breaks one of the volunteers who apparently inhabit our school will be tasked specifically with keeping tabs on K to ensure that a minor irritation doesn’t flare into a full scale shoving match, or worse. In addition, because K often finishes her schoolwork early, and then has “free” time while the rest of the class toils on, they decided that every day, for a period of 10-15 minutes before a recess break, someone will pull K and 2-3 of the better students out of class to play early. They will engage in a structured game which will also help her with socialization and to move into the break already involved in play with some of the children. The goals are several, both to help with the socialization process that is such a challenge for her, and also to give positive reinforcement, in terms of a “prize” to the children who finish their schoolwork a few minutes early. K will not be pulled each and every time, just on many of the occasions so that it doesn’t look as if this is being done specifically for, or “to”, her. The principal kept reinforcing that almost every step had to focus on positive reinforcement rather than punishment.

In terms of dealing with any violence that does occur, we again reiterated the importance of an immediate response such that it isn’t something that is lost in the fog of the rest of the day.

The meeting left me with an incredible “high”. First, it was amazing to hear everyone praising K. First and foremost for her apparent academic abilities and also for the strong efforts that they can see she’s making to improve. We all seem to be on the same page. Clearly K’s behavior is unacceptable, but all extolled the visible effort she makes on a daily basis to control herself.

Lastly, it was reassuring to hear from the school psychologist that K’s therapist seemed to be on the right track, in her opinion as an educational psychologist, as opposed to clinical. When asked by the principal whether it seemed reasonable that K had been with her therapist for more than a year and still needed such a high level of behavior modulation, the school psychologist adamantly supported K’s therapist, explaining that children who are adopted as toddlers need to work through a very long period of time that they had zero emotional development. She agreed with my explanation that adopted children’s emotional development only begins at the time of adoption, therefore a child adopted at 2 yo who is now 6 yo often only has the emotional development of a 4 yo. This info and the psychologist’s affirmation seemed to deeply impress both K’s teacher and the principal.

In 12 hours we went from being closer to hopeless about ever improving K’s behavior, to feeling proud of what she has accomplished so far and very hopeful about her future with such a supportive school administration. What an emotional roller coaster, this parenting thing is turning out to be!

Nine lives? Our iPad has gone thru two already

Nov 15th, 2011
by Zendette.
1 comment

Let the kids play with the iPad, but be aware that at 3 yrs old, they may find alternative games that put the very existence of the iPad at risk. Matan brought death upon the iPad twice in one week, but like the proverbial cat with 9 lives, the iPad abides.

First, Matan still enjoys throwing things. These days he usually manages to throw things in the house, rather than out the window which is where we were last year. He still throws the occasional dishtowel out the window just to watch it flutter in the breeze, but it has been a long time since we had to deal with wooden blocks hurled from our fifth floor living room.

But the iPad must have been too much of a temptation. Either that, or Matan just got annoyed with what he was playing, and tossed the offending machine from the nearest window. We searched and searched, and after a day or two, discovered that the Force must have been with the iPad. Matan threw it out the window where we hang laundry. There is a wide ledge under the window to catch any falling laundry, and we discovered the iPad sitting, unharmed, a few feet below the window.

Fast forward 2 days later. Matan is again playing with the iPad, after a harsh admonishment that it is never to be thrown anywhere again. This time the application was a game that involved fish swimming across the screen. Matan loves watching fish and really wanted to release them from their iPad prison. Out of pure compassion, Matan gently placed the iPad in the bathtub then turned on the water and began to create a fishpond in the tub. I caught him before the iPad was completely submerged, but clearly it had reached clinical death. Although fully charged, the monitor had gone black.

DH was upset as was K, who spends a lot of time playing math puzzles and other games on the iPad. We began looking into buying a new one. Meanwhile, we shelved the dead one, hoping against hope that it might dry out and still work. An Internet search turned up stories of wet iPads resurrected after a drying out period.

And lo! Two weeks later I plugged it into the charger and turned it on. First only the apple appeared on a black screen, but moments later it lurched back to life and our home was once again filled with joy and the sound of two children fighting over who’s turn it is to use the iPad.

What idiot said childhood is the best time of our lives?

Nov 3rd, 2011
by Zendette.
5 comments

K is doing really well academically during her first semester of first grade. She reads, writes and does simple addition. She usually completes all her homework in her after school program so that she’s free to engage in other activities, usually sports, once she gets home. She’s doing well in both her tennis, 2x week, and her gymnastics, just once a week. This leaves her 2 weekdays when she can meet with friends or do something else. All good stuff that any parent would envy. The problem is friends. She has few due to her strong attachment and then aversion to any child she becomes close with. It’s cyclical with her.

We continue to get complaints that she pushes, hits and, most often, engages in annoying touching or destruction of others’ workbooks. One day she stood up in the middle of class and began going around the room kissing students. It proved to be very annoying to several students, and disruptive to the whole class. She has used kisses with me in the past to confirm love, but also at times she will aggressively kiss me or Matan. She seems to want to use an act that is supposed to be positive, in order to elicit a negative reaction. I’m not sure why, but I think it’s related to her grasping at, then pushing away friends. I believe aversion is partly due to wanting to test how much they really love her, just as she does with her parents. Testing a parent’s love seems to be a common behavior pattern with adopted children. Although most children test their parents to some extent, children adopted as toddlers tend to constantly test boundaries, hence the need for very clear ones.

I have posted in the past about K’s oppositional behavior. Wikipedia describes oppositional Defiant Disorder, or ODD behavior as, ” Children and adolescents with this disorder often annoy others on purpose, blame others for their mistakes, and are easily annoyed.” They also note that,”Common features of Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) include excessive, often persistent anger, frequent temper tantrums or angry outbursts, and disregard for authority.”

While it is true that she has improved and is much less aggressive. I get the sense that she’s spending less time with other children for two reasons. First, she has few friends who want to meet with her after school hours and second, I believe she really doesn’t want to engage in behavior that will anger or disappoint us, or that will make children dislike her so she sometimes just goes off on her own to escape what we sometimes feel is the inevitable.

On the bright side, we have found the parents and the school to be much more willing to work with us than now. We even had a family field trip for her whole class last Saturday which was a lot of fun (See thumnail) But I saw K sitting on her own quite a bit. She did play with her friends, but she also seemed to want to play with DH and Matan. It was an interesting dynamic to see how much she preferred to be with friends vs. family. When they were hiking and playing, she was with friends. But during free times, and some of the games, she preferred to sit alone or hang out with family. Interestingly, she has such a strong attachment to the nuclear family that she has a hard time viewing even her grandparents as “real” family.