it begins again

As soon as the kids find themselves back at school, all the school day drama starts finding its way back home. The oldest has something she is bottling up, which will most likely be unleashed over the weekend. The youngest had her first breakdown of the year last night.

My kids’ first go to response to any unhappy feelings at school is to switch schools. It is something they had done a lot before settling in with us. Now they have known the same kids for several years and are learning that kids do not forget things. My kids have a habit of oversharing and “trauma dumping” to new friends. They are not used to having long term relationships, so they think if this friendship does not work out, “I can move on to a new set of people at a new location”. Reality has been a bitter pill for them to swallow.

The biggest thing they do not understand about growing up is that kids are primarily the same no matter where you are. School is always going to be hard. Fitting in with your peers is difficult for everyone. My kids have extra difficulties: being adopted, autism, adhd, trauma, neglect, varieties of abuse history, and just simply never having experienced what time can add or take away from their life. They have never made long lasting relationships before. They never had the opportunity to have long term goals, activities, nor consequences. This is all new uncharted territory for my teenagers.

Their therapists tell us that the kids want us to empathize with them, but they react very badly to the empathy. They want us to change things. They want to move. They want to switch schools. They want us to buy friends for them. The list goes on. Things I am not going to do because there is only one way they will learn about being prepared for the future. They need to try and create long lasting relationships. They need work towards a goal over a long period of time and see the results. They need to see that consequences for bad behavior do not disappear without a commit to change. My partner and I try to empathize with them. We share our stories of pain and discomfort at their age and we really try to emphasize that things will get better. I know things are not like they were when we were kids but the feelings are the same.

The semester ends at the end of the month. I hope they can pass their classes, so we can move on from this term. They need to see change happen, but I cannot make that happen for them. I have given them the supports they need and I offer them all the assistance I can. In the end, they have to make the choice to do the work. Both socially and academically. Once they take that first step, things will get better.