Risa

Yesterday, I took my daughter Risa to her junior kindergarten classroom, and as I left she smiled and waved at me from across the room – “Bye, Mom!” I was pleasantly shocked – for the first time, she did not run across the room, cling to me, ask me to stay, and then make me promise to return “as soon as your errands are done, Mom”. It has taken two short months at school for her to reach this level of comfort, a far shorter period of time than we expected. Luckily, she has a teacher who is calm, caring, and informed – a teacher who has taken our concerns about Risa seriously, who has allowed me to settle Risa into school in a manner that we thought would best suit her. For the first month of school, I attended the classroom virtually all day, every day with Risa. As she became more comfortable with her classmates and the school routine, I very gradually withdrew. Now she is able to happily leave the security of Mommy for the entire school day, trusting that I will be there at the end of the day to bring her home. Risa has come so far since her early days with us …

In August 2001 I returned from China with our third daughter. We were welcomed home by my husband Brad and Risa’s two sisters, whom we had adopted in 1996 and 1999. At the time of her adoption, Risa was 13 months old and as beautiful and spirited as her sisters. However, she was very underweight, and her eyes had a somewhat vacant, detached look. Though she had good eye contact, she resisted face to face encounters, preferring to be held and fed with her back to us. She was rather irritable and difficult to calm. We felt that these little “glitches” would improve with time, once she had adjusted to her new life. After all, she had the good fortune of entering a family with two older siblings who would shower her with attention and stimulation, not to mention two loving and experienced parents. So, we went on with our daily life, fully expecting her to embrace us as we embraced her into our family.

It was a few months later when Brad and I started having conversations about the difficulty Risa seemed to be having in making the expected adjustment. Time had passed, and somehow Risa just hadn’t followed the same path that our first two daughters had. Sure, she was fascinated by her sisters, imitating them all day long, making great gains in motor skills, play skills and in her speech. She smiled and laughed often. She was very independent and could amuse herself for long periods of time. But, something just wasn’t right. For instance, she would come running to Mommy when she fell down and hurt herself, but why didn’t she look to me when she was angry, frustrated, or upset? Why did she turn away, clutching her pink teddy, instead of coming to me for a hug? It seemed she didn’t trust us enough to seek us out as a source of comfort. And why did she fly off the handle at the smallest triggers, completely overreacting to the most mundane of situations?  Later, we recognized her tantrums as the raging behaviour that is so characteristic of children with attachment issues.

As time went on, we saw the emergence of Risa’s seemingly desperate need to control Mommy. This need to control escalated to ridiculous proportions, so that I felt I could not move comfortably within my own house. Risa literally wanted to dictate where I would move, how I would move, what I would do next, and how I should respond to situations. When I read stories to her, she wanted to tell me where to sit on the couch, how to position my legs, and how to hold the book. When we walked down the street together, she wanted to tell me which part of the sidewalk to tread on, how fast to walk, and how far to go. Her desire to control me permeated every moment of our day together, yet she displayed little or none of this need to control her father, her sisters, or other people. Life for Risa and Mommy became one tantrum after another, one control battle after another. Brad and I struggled to come up with new strategies for dealing with her behaviour, as conventional disciplining techniques (ignoring her behaviour and timing her out) just seemed to make things worse. We recognized that she had the potential to be a loving and warm little person, if only we knew how to reach her!  

Somewhere in the midst of these daily struggles, I recalled a workshop that I had attended when I was a working occupational therapist. The subject of the workshop was attachment disorders in children, and I had a vague recollection of some of the things that the presenter had said which reminded me of Risa. I started researching the disorder and my suspicions were confirmed. Risa did indeed seem to be displaying some of the features of attachment disorder. Though we felt sure that she did not have a full-blown disorder, we did think that she had attachment issues. I ordered Deborah Gray’s book Attaching in Adoption. Upon reading it I felt as if the author must have been a fly on the wall in my house as she described Risa’s temperament so thoroughly. There was Risa, in black and white, under the heading Insecure, Ambivalent Attachment with Anxious, Clingy Presentation. This book became our guide and solace as we tried to move towards a more normalized parent-child dynamic. I also consulted with a child psychologist who agreed that Risa was displaying features of mild attachment disorder. The hallmarks of dealing with such a child, he stated, would be to provide her with consistency, lots of physical contact, and unconditional acceptance.

But, how were we to put what we were learning into daily practice? We found that Risa responded to us best if we used baby steps.   For instance,   when Risa was upset but turned away from me to hug her pink teddy, I started by sitting a distance away from her. Gradually, over several weeks, I moved closer; then I sat beside her; then I touched her; then I rubbed her back; then I took her on my lap with her back to me; then I turned her sideways; and then I had her face me. Only then did I offer to hug her, and thankfully, she accepted. Teaching Risa to show affection to her family was also completed slowly. From the beginning she resisted kisses and hugs. As time went on, she agreed to hugs but would back into us to receive them. Over time, I asked her to hug Mommy sideways instead of backwards; then I asked for face to face hugs; then I asked for kisses; then we asked her to go through the same process with Daddy; then with other family members including her grandparents.

I could write a book about the ups and downs of parenting our Risa. Disciplining her and teaching her basic lessons of sharing, kindness and respect for others has brought unique challenges. I look back on the last 3 years and wonder how we managed to cope some days. I look back and realize that we were naïve to expect that she would simply grow out of her difficult behaviours. I am grateful that we had the sense to take her behaviours more seriously, and that we took the time to try to understand the underlying reasons for them.

Today, we can say that Risa is a happy,  loving and affectionate little girl who continues to gain in her trust and security. High anxiety and low frustration tolerance continue to be areas of concern, but with time we feel that these areas will improve. Risa is teaching us so much about being consistent, loving, steadfast parents. Attachment disorders are the “dark side” of adoption, the thing we don’t like to talk about or even acknowledge. I believe that most of the children adopted from China will luckily come to their parents free of these problems, as did our first two daughters. But sometimes, vulnerable children enter our homes who require special care and an extra dose of patience. Maybe we need to share our struggles more often, so that others within the adoption community may benefit from hearing about our mistakes as well as our successes.

Consistency. Physical contact. Unconditional acceptance. Our bedtime ritual includes Opinions and a prayer. After-wards, with hugs and kisses, I say “Goodnight, Risa. I love you.” She often responds with a series of questions. “Mommy, do you love me in the daytime?” “Yes, Risa, I do.” “Do you love me in the nighttime?” “Yes, Risa, I do.” “Do you love me when I’m beside you?” “Yes.” “Do you love me when I’m far away?” “Yes.” “Do you love me at home?” “Yes.” “Do you love me when I’m at school?” “Yes.” “Do you love me when I’m good?” “Yes.” “But do you love me when I scream?” “Yes, Risa, I love you even when you scream.” Then, with a hug and a kiss, Risa says “Goodnight, Mommy. I love you too.”  

Joan