After 14 years of parenting special needs children, I have finally been convinced to change my approach to parenting. I am unfortunately a bit on the stubborn side, or I would have changed sooner. Certainly my adopted children with special needs, specifically those fetal alcohol effect, would have appreciated it if I had changed sooner. Because I had already been parenting for 11 years when we began to foster children and adopt I thought I knew how to parent. My techniques worked well with children who had not been subjected to early trauma, drugs, or alcohol.

I am one of the most consistent parents I know. When our first sibling group arrived, I was compelled to be even more consistent. Because family members had lied to them so many times, they were very untrusting. I followed through on everything to earn their trust. I routinely used the same discipline for infractions, thinking that eventually they would get it.

They never did. It took raising some of these children to adulthood to understand that. The younger ones get to benefit from those lessons. I still think it is ok to instruct a child regularly on the difference between right and wrong. However, consequences do not work with our fetal alcohol affected children. I have concluded that the consequences just cause hard feeling between parent and child. The consequences cause a breakdown in the fragile bond that we are trying to create with traumatized children.

Now I will tell my daughter that she lied or stole. I tell her that it is wrong to do that and it harms relationships and then I drop it. In the past, I would have sent her to her room or given her an extra job. She has been here almost 11 years and has not changed her behavior at all from those consequences.

We go to Sunday school every week and our children attend AWANA. At AWANA, they memorize verses. I usually ask her if she understands what the verse means. She is beginning to get it. I read the following verse before bed and the next day I shared it with her. I am reminded, that it took me 14 years to change. Therefore, I can be encouraged for my daughters to change.

1 John 3:7-10 (NIV) Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. 9No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

We have watched our 25-year-old daughter mature into a wonderful, loving, hardworking mother. We certainly had our concerns when she arrived into our family as a teenager, and left at 18.

Related blogs:
Sneaking and Lying in the Adoptive Home Because of Fetal Alcohol

Ignore Sneaking Because of Fetal Alcohol Effect

Alternatives to Discipline for Sneaking Because of Fetal Alcohol

Photo Credit Julia Fuller 2007