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Hi. It sounds like your daughter has had a very tough time and given her past very negative experiences of men it’s going to take a long time and a lot of work for her to learn to trust your husband. That could take years. There’s no easy or quick fix. She’s terrified and this is her way of showing it

It’ll be hard - your son is still very young so it must be hard for him to understand. How big a part did he play in the assessment process? Does he have any understanding - in an age appropriate way - of the trauma your daughter/his sister has experienced?

Sws need to be putting in robust support to make this work - the last thing they’ll want is for you to disrupt the placement so quickly. Theraplay might help to build the bonds. Are they aware that you’re all struggling?

My children were all babies when they came home - eldest was just 12 months old - but it still took an awfully long time for them to trust me. It’s a long haul I’m afraid

Thanks for the reply :)

I think what's quite hard is that she is fine with other men. She was happily chatting to a man at the supermarket today, they were just nattering away. I realize that its probably because my hubby is her father figure and therefore one of the closest to her. I guess I just needed to vent and share - thanks for replying to me it means a lot.

Our birth son is quite mature for his age and we have explained things in quite a clear way for him. Our SW also did some work with him during transitions.

Luckily, our local authority runs a bi-weekly theraplay session which my hubby will be taking her to (if she wont go with him then i'll obviously go with them both). They are also going to arrange for someone to step in and kind of review how she and hubby are interacting together to see if we can find anything we can improve on there.

Its probably too early to request it but I can't help but think she needs to go back under CAMHS which I know is going to take a lifetime to arrange. Unsure if we can just take her private...

We always knew she was going to have some emotional needs, its just the reality of what that actually looks like is so hard on her and us.

What strikes me from your reply is her chatting to other men … and how inappropriate that is in reality. There could be any number of reasons for it but it really isn’t appropriate for a 3 year old to talk to people she doesn’t know, or people she doesn’t know well.

My daughter used to do similar at that age and we assumed it was an attachmenty thing or because in general they tended to be more middle aged men, like her foster father. With the benefit of hindsight and a diagnosis it was far more likely to be her poor understanding of social hierarchies, not grasping the adult/child hierarchy and mimicry. She’d copy social interactions. She was dx ASD at 7 and has a PDA profile so it’s fairly typical behaviour.

I don’t know what Camhs is like in your area but they have very long waiting lists here and, frankly, even when you get to see them they’re often about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

Push, and push hard. Early intervention and support is so important.

Hi there, I’ve never posted here before but had to reply when I saw your post. We adopted a 3.5 year old 3 years ago - and our birth child was 9 when our AD came home. Your post was our lives at that point in time! Our AD had been in foster care since birth, with the same foster family so no obvious reason why she would have such a strong reaction to my husband - but she did. It was awful to live with - for everyone in our home. Tbh, we didn’t get a huge amount of support from social services to help us deal with it. You sound like you’re doing all you can - staying calm, trying to get them to spend small amounts of time together with you there and without (if she can tolerate it). We also had the inappropriateness with strangers - men, women, children, didn’t seem to matter who (still doesn’t sometimes tbh)!! Our birth child was very mature for her age and did seem to cope, but we had an awful lot of parent guilt as to what we’d done to our family. All I can say is, it did gradually improve with time. And now 3 years on my AD actually prefers my husband a lot of the time!! I think 3 is a difficult age for moving children - our AD is very bright in some ways, but her understanding of what was happening to her was very limited - and so she was terrified. She has attachment issues which very much centre around power and control - and her acceptance of me and rejection of my husband was, I think, down to this. Power and control continue to be issues in our home to this day. If you get time (in between the madness!!) read up on therapeutic parenting - it does help. I really hope you manage to work through this - and each of you manage to come to terms with this new version of your family. It’s a long, long road. But you will get there. Take care of yourself…

My children were older at placement, but one of my daughters very much prefered me. It took her half a year to draw a picture of our family in which my husband actually featured (as a tiny background figure). It took her even longer to hug him or ride on his shoulders. We could see that she wanted to, but she was just too scared.

We did "special time" every day (for a description of how to do it, see "The Incredible Years" by Webster/Stratton). It is a timed, 10 minute one-on-one playtime per day. So one of you would do it with your daughter, the other with your son, and after 10 minutes you swap. It helped us a lot.

It was often painful for my husband when my daughter told him she preferred me (she did so often). It is important to remember that it is not personal, but the result of the trauma she suffered. My husband was unbelievably patient with my daughter and it has paid off - he is now her favourite person ever. She wraps him around her little finger, and she knows she can!

If your daughter talks to strangers easily, I would also look out for a potentially anxious attachment style.

Hi J, K & Em

Congratulations on becoming a new family and I'm glad you posted.

I do have experience to share and hopefully it will give you hope. We are a two-mum (LGBT) family and we experienced a similar dynamic with our older daughter in the first few years and at times of stress. She had a need to reject me strongly and try to make my partner reject me at times (or so it felt).

I would strongly advise getting a package of appropriate theraputic support in place now - and I mean this to support you as parents to build bonds and cope with the dynamic. DDP for example or Theraplay.

"Splitting" of parents is a common reaction to attachment trauma. The poor little one's attachments are very, very confused in this situation. Even without the experience of having witnessed domestic violence, it is common for children to react by seeking attachment from one parent/rejecting another or by acting like a "pushmepullyou" - seeking attachment from a parent, then getting wobbly and pushing it away again.

My older daughter is now 13 and she and I have a strong and fierce bond, and a loving one I should add. I now see that she tested me to my limits to make sure I was not going to disappear and identifies strongly with me as a model of the woman she's growing into, so I'm the one she rebels against when she's doing age-appropriate rebellion.

The key I would say is that ALL of you need support at this precarious time, developing new relationships. You as parents need that support so you can be resilient because it does hurt and being the adult demonstrating consistent care and love to a child who is rejecting you is hard.

This is a really useful resource to read: https://ddpnetwork.org/about-ddp/

ps We are doing the 10 minute "special time" with my younger daughter too at the moment. For different reasons, but yes, I highly recommend it - thanks for that suggestion @chestnuttree

ps. Another simple tip is that, when little one shows rejecting or apparently "cruel" behaviour towards one parent, the other parent models being kind towards that parent and comforting them, rather than telling the child off for doing it. The parents also make opportunities for the "rejected" one to model their caring behaviour towards the favoured parent or others in the household - the family pet, other children, grandparents etc.

So if the child is not ready to accept care from that parent yet, they are observing that daddy makes mummy cups of tea and she really loves them and gives him a hug to say thank you. I'd go so far as modelling things you might want to do with the child - e.g. dad gently brushes mum's hair for her and she shows that this is a lovely experience.