I have not been on this site for 10 years. Since I was a prospective adopter and a bit soon after, but i just got too busy with life.
My daughter is 12 and has been with us for 11 years. Things have never been that different from a birth child, except more of everything. More clingy, more intense, more scared, more bigness, so to speak. We have learnt to pre-empt lots and lots. Pre-empt transitions - nursery, primary school etc. We were very lucky to have a primary school where her class peers didn't change. I think nearly every child who started in her class all went through to year 6. The majority of her class were gorgeous kids with big hearts and they scooped up my daughter making her look kinda normal. Whatever normal looks like. It was a typical class of 30 kids and she had lots of friendship groups that she could dip in and out of. She has made and still has some lovely friends from primary school, although she is not with any of them in her secondary school. Forward a year. She is almost a year into secondary school. It has been the most difficult transition I could imagine but I thought she had survived it. We have gone from hiding in the car to getting out of her own accord and I thought all was well. Then came some friendship issues, followed by tearfulness and distrust at school (teachers and friends), the periphery of school refusal, starting her periods, and now here we are, in a difficult place. She is sad most of the time. She oscillates from 0-10 on the anger scale, mainly when she is asked to do anything that involves going out or going to school. Whatever we do, it is never enough. She believes that she was rejected at birth (she won't listen to her birth story, refuses to engage in it) and believes that we don't want her. She couldn't be further from the truth.
So I would like to ask a question of someone who was once in our position. Someone who might do something different, or someone who would like to go back to the moment their smaller younger teen began these very difficult tween years. What would you say to your old family self? What would you do that might have made a difference? Or better still, what did you do that meant things stayed level. What kept the harmony? What got your through? I have a mental health background and lots of experience of working with families. But when it comes to my own daughter and my huge love for her, I am at a loss. I am currently just trying to find outlets for myself that bolster me for when she comes home from school. But I Wont lie. The thought of the long summer holiday fills me with dread. But then, she won't want to go back to school in September anyway.
