Advice to Adoptive Parents
Verbally Expressed by TLP (The Child) - Typed by TLP's Mom
July 2009 (Age 16)
Every kid wants to be saved. It doesn’t matter if the kids are fighting you, they still want to be saved. But they are testing you so they can say, “See… no-one loved me!!!!!” Don’t give up because it takes time for a kid to grow up and appreciate what they have. Time tells- and a kid can’t just tell when they first walk in the door that this is where they want to be. It takes time! It takes time to know the mom. That you can trust the mom to take care of you, and not hurt you. It takes time to know the neighborhood. To know that everyone is friendly. You got to give the kids lots of love and respect and patience and time and smiles and be polite.
The kids do want to be happy. They want to be loved but they’re afraid to be loved because they aren’t used to it. You should stay close to them. They’re stuck on their past and they can’t trust their surroundings or other people because they’re going to think that everyone is out to get them. They’re scared and that’s why they fight. The kids feel like they have to be in charge to stay safe. They want to do it themselves because that is how they are used to doing it- by themselves. Don’t believe them when they threaten you. It’s a big test to see if you’ll still keep them safe if they threaten you. It’s a test to see if you really want to be their family forever. When they pee on things, it’s a test to see if you will beat them when you get real mad. When they break things it’s because they don’t want to accept things from you. They don’t want the gifts that you give them. All they want is to be loved.
I don’t think it’s good to give up because every kid wants to be saved. Some parents think it’s healing when they let the kids go, but inside I think it really hurts them. It’s like if you lose a child and the stuff is gone, it’always going to be with you. The children are always going to be in your heart and you’re going to deal with a different kind of pain from giving up.
Separate the kids, and keep that one kid with the mom all the time, so the other kids will be safe. Have the kid do chores. Not for punishment, but tell the kid that mom needs help and keep the child busy. Everyone is capable of saving people, but you have to put more time into it.
Don’t yell. When my parents yell, it doesn’t hurt me physically but it hurts me on the inside and it feels like my heart is shattering. They’re (the kids) gonna fight. Sometimes I fight even if I know that my parents are right because it hurts to hear the truth.
So don’t give up! A baby bird is supposed to stay in its nest until it can learn how to fly. The baby bird will die if the mother bird throws it out of the nest too soon. It’ll die because there’s nobody there to love it and care about it. The baby bird is so scared and when the mother abandons it, bigger birds and animals come around and hurt it. What if an eagle comes down and tries to clamp its claws on the baby bird? So what is the mother going to do- push the baby out so the eagle can clamp its claws on it, or is the mother bird going to treat her child like it’s her number one choice?
The same goes with a kid.
