The Nitty-Gritty Truth About Trauma Parenting

(The following is based on my own experiences as well as many conversations I’ve had with adoptive parents. This is not meant to guilt anyone, merely to offer a perspective with the hope of spreading a little understanding)

Parenting a child with a trauma history is hard. Incredibly hard. But unless you are in the inner circle of the parents, you likely have NO IDEA just how difficult our days can be, though that’s no fault of yours. We tend to not talk about the extent of our difficulties–for many reasons.

1. We love our children– a lot–but their trauma behaviors can be hard to the point of being outrageous. If we were to tell you all that goes on in our days, we truly feel you won’t believe us.
2. Also, because we love our children so much, we want to protect their reputation, and sharing the nitty-gritty details may very well taint your opinion of them–and of us. So, we stay quiet and give somewhat evasive answers to your questions about how things are going. “Oh, we have our ups and downs”, we’ll say. Or, “fine, for the most part, but we have some rough patches”. Sometimes, we’ll even smile and say “great!” and you’ll believe us. Not that we’re trying to be dishonest– sometimes things are great, although those can be mere moments of greatness in the midst of weeks of hard. But we hold on to the littlest of “great” moments like the lifeline they are. These little victories are what keep us going.
3. Because trauma history often impacts adopted and foster children the most, sometimes parents don’t share how difficult things are for fear others will never want to adopt– and we know how great that need is. If you hear the worst parts, we fear you may never give adoption a chance. And we know, that even though raising a child with trauma is hard– it’s also so worth it. But unless you’re living it, you don’t know how worth it it is to experience those great moments…even with all the hard stuff that comes along with it!

But the truth of it is, sometimes, we desperately need you to know we are struggling.

So we share. We risk the judgment. We risk exposing the brokenness at the expense of our children’s and our own reputations. If we’re completely honest with you, we may share things that you can not even conceive of happening in your homes. You might hear things that involve rage, spitting, biting, kicking, hitting, destruction, and horrifying words.  And then we sense your discomfort or disbelief. Sometimes, adoptive parents sense that you think it’s your own darn fault for choosing adoption in the first place. You might be wondering how we could love a child that acts that way. Sometimes, we wonder that too. But we do. We do love them. So the guilt sets in. Why did I say anything?! Why couldn’t I have just kept my mouth shut?

We will beat ourselves up for burdening you and making you uncomfortable.

We will mentally berate ourselves for exposing our children when we know it’s really the traumatic experiences causing them to behave so outrageously and not who they are, but will you be able to keep this in mind now that you’ve heard some of our reality?

Will you?

Now that you know a little bit of our nitty-gritty reality, will you love on us and our kiddos even if it’s uncomfortable? Will you be a safe ear and a tender shoulder even if you don’t really understand?

It would mean the world to us.

♥ Lindsey

Here are some suggestions on how you can support those with children from hard places:

7 Ways the Church Can Support Adoptive and Foster Families