Maintain Control in Parenting

Some of our older adopted children come to us with very strong wills. They may be defiant, or manipulative. They may try and surround themselves with chaos and turmoil. They may be too scared to let a grown up be in charge of their life. These demanding behaviors can be caused by neglect, where they feel that even bad attention was better than none. Or by dysfunctional surroundings, meaning that chaos feels normal. Or, by various behavioral and emotional issues i.e. ODD (oppositional defiant disorder), RAD (reactive attachment disorder), bipolar, anxiety, and more.

One of the challenging roles of parents is to stay out of the "ick," to remain detached from our kids controlling behaviors. As one therapist said, "Every time they suck us in (we get mad, or yell, or show our annoyance), they get a zing." Stay out of your kids poor behaviors. Try and show them that their choices impact them, but everyone else's life goes on.

Here are some tips to try. Some are words and phrases to use, some are actions. Mix them up. Keep your child on his or her toes so that they can't anticipate your response. Try these:

All of the phrases and actions must be done without sarcasm (sometimes hard to do), and with love and empathy. Often, one of the most loving things we can do for our children is to teach them that we are in charge of the emotional tone in the family, not them.