Kids love to test you. There is so much information out there about how kids age and how they test their boundaries at each stage of development. They want to see what they can get away with, how you will react, or just plain want to see what will happen.
Kids who have experienced trauma, like mine, want to test you. They want to prove or disprove their belief that nobody will ever love them. That nobody cares for them. That it is okay to behave the way they do because nobody wants them and they never will.
My kids test this all the time. My oldest is just about a daily happening. My youngest is cyclical with months between each bout of uncertainty. Let me tell you, you will never win these tests. They will poke, prod and stab your insecurities and push your buttons until you snap. They have a lot of experience at this. And no matter what your response is, you will reinforce their ideas.
If you react poorly, by yelling or lashing out at them, then clearly you do not care about them. They will tell everyone who listens that if you cared that you would be patient and calm at all times. That you would not react to their simple provocations. Some adults will even agree with them!
If you are non-reactive, then you simply do not care about them. You are ignoring their plight and dismissive of their feelings. Some adults will also agree with this!
If you do everything the therapist tells you to do, then they will forget about that experience. They will ignore it because it does not fit their self-fulfilling prophecy of being unlovable. Some adults will still take their side in front of them, but will agree with you when out of ear shot of the child.
You are set up to fail these tests. They are not interested in being proved wrong. All they are looking for is validation of their feelings of loss and rejection. My kids experienced a decade of abuse and constant loss. They have only experienced six full years of consistency and acceptance. These new experiences still feel foreign to them as they are filled with a jumble of confusing assumptions. The biggest confusion for them is how we could possibly love them when their birth parents left them. The people who were supposed to love them left them alone in the world.
There will never be a right answer to this lifelong problem of theirs. It will be a journey they will have to take alone. The only thing you can do is show them through your words and actions that you love them and will be there for them through it all. They are going to make you absolutely miserable to push you to fail in your endeavor. They want to prove that you will leave them too.
Keep calm and carry on.
Mother of Trauma 
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