Hello and Welcome to the Mom's and Adoption Blog!

Everyone is welcome here. It is an open format to discuss your feelings without judgment. If you have come to judge or say something unkind to adoptive parents, please leave now (yes, I said everyone was welcome, with one exception, however). Thank you.

Otherwise, thank you so much for coming! I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your comments and feedback. I started this blog to help other adoptive parents not to feel as isolated and alone in their feelings, as I did for so many years. With this blog, I hope to bring together the adoptive community as one. This is so we do not feel so alone and judged as we so many times do; even from ourselves. Please stay, relax and enjoy yourself. If at any time you feel judged, please let me know. Again thank you for coming.

How did you hear about this blog?

Family First

Family First
We love each other!

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Does discipline work?

How do all of you handle discipline with your adopted RAD child(ren)?
Has anything worked to get them to change? I am not talking about the whip, here, but what do you do when these kids push your buttons so much, or do something that is really naughty? I have a difficult time with this. When Isabella does something that is very hurtful to her sisters (physically) or very naughty; for example, purposefully breaking something, lying over and over, not answering us, walking away as we talk to her, hurting her sisters, and much more, what do we do to show her this is not appropriate and she cannot do it anymore, but also not get riled up so she feels like she won because we are upset and are showing it?
Do any of you have suggestions?
The other difficult part, is that her younger sisters, 2, 3 and 5 years-old see that she is disciplined differently, and they pick up on that very quickly. This ends up causing problems between all four of them because it changes their dynamic and hierarchy as it normally would be between four sisters of this age. No one knows who's in charge or what they should be feeling, and it causes a lot of frustration for the younger one's! I feel very bad for them that they have to see us using different techniques with her, as they think she is getting away with something. I have heard other adoptive parents say this as well. The little one's do not have any understanding at their age that it is because she has different circumstances, and she will not respond to normal discipline.
We have tried all of the usual disciplines; time-outs, taking privileges away, taking her favorite "things" away, stopping her from going places, I've made her write sentences like a school would, I've put soap in her mouth on occasion when she's been very mouthy or the "crime" is with her mouth (so that the punishment fits the crime, so to speak), I've given her extra chores to do, hmmm....what else? You name it, we've done it. We've tried spankings, too. My husband and I said we would never spank our kids, but then when we had a child that didn't respond to anything we threw at her, we had to make sure we tried everything. NOTHING has worked! She just turns herself off from whatever it is and takes it. (Which is very common for RAD kids). So now, we've gotten to the point where we've pretty much given up on punishment because it doesn't work. But, then the other kids see that and they think they can do whatever they want!
I've had a lot of adoptive parents tell me, even recently, that when she does do something wrong, come at her lovingly and just tell her that she must have forgotten how we do things, or that's not how our family does things, let's try it again.
But, how do you do that when it is a dozen times per day?
Further, how do you do that with 3 other children watching? That is the big question to me.
Do any of you have any answers?
Have any of you had success with any of this?

No comments:

Post a Comment