"Is this an adoption thing or a personality thing?"
It actually is a pretty big issue because of what you are seeing is an "adoption thing" and it also carries negative connotations, then you have to deal with that. Well, really we, as parents (and I do mean the collective "we") try to face down all issues we think might be impacting our children negatively but with the adoption spectrum, you have to go about it all in a slightly different way than if it's just a simple "personality thing" or a "stage".
I'll give you a for instance:
Liam still gets very frantic when it comes to food, and he also seems to exhibit his highest emotional times with meal time. We have moved beyond the food hoarding and we are well beyond the "feeding him every two hours like an infant phase" (THANK GOD) but I am still seeing some issues and, as his Mama, I have to sit back and watch and evaluate to see what we are dealing with here.
It goes like this: If I am handing anything out- anything at all that can be ingested, and I hand it to Evelyn first, we see in Liam this absolute panic and manic behavior until he gets his fair share. Now, this only lasts about 5 seconds and if you weren't his parents, I doubt that you would even notice. I have noticed it though and because it seems to be coinciding with some other food or meal time things that I am seeing, it makes me start to wonder.
So we watch and wait to see if this is just "normal", and yes, I know that there is a certain level of "me too! me too!" that is absolutley normal for his age group- or if this is pointing at something that goes a bit deeper.
I read an article or blog entry once titled something like "The F-word of Adoption" and this article talked about how adopted children, particularly Internationally Adopted, post-institutionalized children have food issues and how food is ties directly to trust.
And so we watch.
And adjust where needed.
And we play fair with the kids.
And we love him and squeeze him and try to be what he needs.
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