I have been a fan and a reader for some time. I loved the threads of grace that I glimpsed
in your writing and I felt a kinship with you in that I am also raising home-grown
kids as well as adopted kids. Your Facebook post
today and the subsequent “hero stories” you requested from your readers and then
applauded in your own replies really has me questioning that kinship.
You started your post with an amusing anecdote about a difficult
day with your son and the ensuing battle of wills. But it then deteriorated into a celebration
of parenting stories that featured manipulation, abandonment (albeit temporary)
and shame. It concluded with a call for
other similar stories. Many of your readers obliged. Tales of more shame, rejection and
humiliation under the guise of natural consequences followed. And you commended them. Repeatedly.
First of all, I am completely aware that sometimes it is
good, even necessary, to find the humor in hard circumstances. However, laughing at and hailing destructive
discipline "techniques" as positive is completely different and, in
my humble opinion, is what you and a large majority of your readers did.
There is also a difference between “natural consequences”
and consequences that a parent imposes to “teach a lesson”. I believe that in your post and the resulting
comments that difference was ignored. A
fellow adoptive parent once said, “A natural consequence is a consequence
imposed by nature, like burning your finger when you touch a hot stove. No
person decides that your finger ought to be burned to teach you a lesson. The
laws of nature ensure that your finger gets burned, whether you need to learn
that lesson or not.” (Mark Vatsaas) If you need to “come up with” a “natural
consequence”, it is NOT one.
What concerned me most, as an adoptive mom, was that these
methods of shame and repudiation have been scientifically proven to be
detrimental and ineffective for kids with backgrounds of trauma. To champion them can quite literally be
dangerous for these kids and threaten to emotionally, psychologically and
neurodevelopmentally destroy them. A
survey of current neuroscientific studies validates this information. The best resources for connecting with and
disciplining (which can be defined as an activity, exercise, or a regimen that
develops or improves a skill) kids from hard places can be found in the
writings of Dr. Karyn Purvis from Texas Christian University’s Institute of
Child Development and Dr. Dan Siegel (clinical professor of psychiatry at the
UCLA School of Medicine).
I do not have perfect children. I struggle with parenting them everyday. Before I knew the scientific data regarding
trauma and its effects on the brain I parented the same way your readers were encouraging
and lauding. Sometimes I still
struggle. Parenting is not an easy job
and parenting a child with trauma is even harder and messier. But I am daily encouraged by the progress I
have seen in my children when I connect first and correct last. When I look behind the behavior and find the
need. When I go through the natural
consequence with them as opposed to
delving out my own created consequence.
I encourage you and other adoptive and foster parents to
attend an Empowered to Connect conference (usually sponsored by Show Hope and
Focus on the Family). You will be
emboldened by the hope that can be found in connected parenting techniques.
