Is He "Adjusted"? What I Want You to Know

I think Daniel is a pretty awesome kid, for many reasons:

• In the last year, he has gone from not talking at all to saying tons of words & sentences. and he can be understood, a lot of the time, even by people who don't know him well.
• He's extremely athletically coordinated - he jumps, swims, kicks, throws, etc, with great accuracy & skill for a two year old
• He's compassionate - loves babies and wants to help with them; he likes to help someone if they're hurt
• He can sing his ABCs, count to ten (and working on thru to twenty), can identify most letters in capital & lowercase, can count objects, and mostly knows his colors.

Yes, I'm a proud mama and boasting a bit on my baby, but there's a bigger reason I'm telling you all of this. You see, to most people's casual observation, he's a typical (and extremely cute!) two and a half year old. However, what you don't know is that there is more to the story.

Anyone who has adopted probably understands and has plenty of their own stories to share about the hard things of adopting "hurt children". There is tons of literature out there, along with plenty of blogs, that tell of the difficulties and give advice along the way. Unfortunately, the general public tends to be completely oblivious of the issues that go on when they aren't observing.

So, what do I want you to know?

1. A "hurt child" can be defined as a child who has experienced trauma or abandonment in his life. There's a much larger definition out there, but that's enough for now. And while God is a healer of hearts and the One who knits families together, he generally (from what I've read) heals the hearts of hurt children over a long period of time. It takes time, and lots of it, to rebuild the trust boundaries that have been broken in little hearts, even if their only "hurt" was abandonment at birth. There's a lot of research on this - even children still in the womb can feel the rejection from their birth mothers if they are unwanted.
2. My Daniel is a "hurt" child. Abandoned at birth and having changed homes and primary caregivers multiple times, and living in an institutional setting (as great as Gentle Hands is) greatly affected his first 19 months of life. Living with me for the past eleven months does not erase that history or the hurt that comes with is. 
3. While a lot of behavior issues we have are general two year old things, there is more to it than that. One BIG issue is sleep. Or perhaps I should say, lack thereof. For the past 328 nights that Daniel has been in my house, I have had perhaps ten nights when he has slept through the night or only woke up once. For the remaining 318, he has woken up multiple times (3-20 times, sometimes more), and the majority of them involve me needing to get up and calm him down. While some are just a "here's a kiss, now go lay down" types, many involve Daniel waking up in terror and needing to be reassured of my presence. Now, I realize that there are many kids who don't sleep through the night every night, but generally by age 2 1/2, most parents can count on at least a few nights of sleep a week. So am I sleep-deprived and sometimes (ok, often) a bit crabby because of it? Definitely.
4. Separation anxiety is another big issue. If you had have been abandoned multiple times in your life, you might be a bit oversensitive to mom leaving too! So when, for most of this first year, I've been reluctant to leave him with people he doesn't know super well, I've gotten flack for it. When I am concerned about the number of hours & minutes that I spend away from him, I've been called overprotective. People keep telling me that I need "me" time, and that I should get away for a few hours - and I have, but its not without keeping an eye on my watch and being concerned. I'm sorry, but since I A) missed out on the first half of his life and the build up of trust that biological families create automatically and B) need to make sure he understands that I will always come back, I am definitely concerned about this issue. We've made great strides in this, and Daniel's range of babysitters has expanded over the year, but its still a big deal for both of us.
5. I am so incredibly blessed when I read the list of "attached" behaviors and recognize how many Daniel demonstrates. He and I bonded quickly, which makes this road so much easier to travel. However, there are still behaviors on the "not attached" list which surface. While everyone thinks its cute that he will walk off holding hands with a store attendant - yeah, that's one of those things that he shouldn't be doing. When he's incredibly charming to strangers? Yup, that's another one. I know it doesn't make a lot of sense that this is a problem - people think he's just cute and friendly - but his willingness to trust any Filipina probably comes from having multiple caregivers for many months of his life and could ultimately be rather dangerous.

 I know this post is rather long and heavy, but its something that has really been weighing on my heart lately. I have some great friends around me and afar who have been great encouragers for the past 11 months, but there have been others who have had really quite the opposite effect. And since very few in my community (here or stateside) have been involved in adoption, there is just a general lack of knowledge about the issues. So instead of blaming people for what they don't know, I thought I'd write a post explaning some of what I've learned and some things we are struggling with.

Thanks for reading and taking the time to try to understand a little bit of my side of the story.