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Hi Estella,

What you are describing isn't a disruption. A disruption is when a child moves back into care before the adoption order is granted. What you seem to be describing here is that you and your husband are separating - he is going to live elsewhere while your daughter stays with you. How old is your daughter? When did you adopt her? Where is she currently living - you say she is refusing to come home until "it" is resolved? You say that your husband doesn't totally get how to communicate with her when she is in trauma mode?- what does this mean - is she very violent? Are there lots of meltdowns etc I am sorry for all the questions - but I would be careful about taking such a drastic step - once your husband moves out will he ever be able to come back? Are you going to divorce? Also think carefully about your daughter's needs - does she need more professional help that you can provide her? Would it not be better that she is somewhere that can deal with her needs and still have two parents living together? Parenting an adopted child can be very overwhelming and can put enormous strain on a marriage and adopted children can try and "split" parents - could this be going on her?

I have not been in this position - although my daughter's behaviour is very challenging and puts enormous stain on us as a family so my thoughts are with you. Hopefully someone will be along soon who can give you some better advice.

xx

Hi Windfalls, Thank you for your response and sorry not being more specific. As our daughter has got older I haven't felt comfortable writing about her in a semi-public forum: what if she had a look at the boards one day and read something she recognised? She would say I had no right to share her stuff. So I was keeping it brief. I can say that our daughter is a young adult but not yet ready to live on her own - she is safe at the moment but can't stay where she is indefinitely. My husband and I aren't divorcing, and there is no physical violence at home, but our daughter's behaviour is challenging and my husband who is a good father on many fronts doesn't find it easy to show empathy and can come over as cold to DD. In an ideal world one or the other of them, or both, would have more therapy and get through their differences but neither is prepared to do this - or perhaps they don't feel able to. I do think adoption tests us out, finding the weaknesses in ourselves and our relationships. After all sorts of help we're still stuck. Each feels misunderstood and unvalued by the other. I wish we could get through this but how long do you go on? Our daughter's view is that if her dad doesn't change then she's through with him.

I feel for you. The teenage years can be fraught - I know, I have three - especially from 15 onwards when kids have all sorts of additional pressures to cope with.

I see a couple of issues - has your husband always struggled or is it just since teens? My husband has found the teenage years very difficult- he’s a product of his upbringing and has quite old fashioned ideas about raising teenagers - seen, not heard, not allowed opinions, shouldn’t answer back etc - which just doesn’t work. He clashed terribly with my eldest and they had a dire relationship for a long time. Better now that son is away in Uni. Also have you come across blocked care?

Secondly, your daughter has very successfully split you. Might be deliberate - our kids are very adept at splitting/playing one parent against the other. If you’ve had family therapy maybe this is something you’ve already discussed? As it is, both your daughter and husband are asking you to choose, in effect. How emotionally mature is your daughter? How emotionally mature is your husband?

One other thing. Does your husband have any diagnoses? You don’t have to answer here but just wondering whether he could be depressed or whether there’s something else underlying - lack of empathy etc (or rather an inability to express it appropriately) can be an autistic trait?

No idea why apostrophes are coming up as they are?

Hi Estella,

Very good advice from Donatella. It is an incredibly difficult situation for you and as someone also parenting a challenging teenager, I understand where you are coming from. I have just finished reading Sally Donovan's book on Theraputic parenting - the teenage years, and it has been such an eye opener for me. She says that when you have been dealing with very challenging behaviour for years on end you become traumatised yourself. This results in blocked care, as Donatella says, where you can no longer feel any empathy for your child, you also become very rigid in your views and behaviour and also you end up in a permanent state of fight/flight/ freeze. I have realised that I have become very rigid in my views/behaviour to the point that whatever my asks for I immediately say "No". Sally gives an example of "can I go to my friends house?- No. Can I have a bag of crisps? -No" - and it is just me! Also I have realised that as soon as I feel that my daughter's behaviour is beginning to ramp up into a tantrum/meltdown, I immediately go into fight/flight mode. Your husband has been clearly traumatised by the years of dealing with your daughter's behaviour, as I am sure you have, and it could be that his response to this trauma is to go into freeze mode - where he just completely shuts down and thus becomes "cold". Also, as Donatella says he could also be suffering from depression - very common in parents dealing with this type of behaviour.

I assume that your daughter must be about 16 years old and she sounds very controlling and also seems to fail to see the effect that her behaviour has on others, also an inability to take any responsibility for it - does she have any dx's? This type of behaviour can be due to developmental trauma/attachment but can also be due to ASD.

I think that in answer to your question I would tell your daughter the truth. She already knows what the issues are, I assume that as you have been to family therapy she has been present during it, she is also refusing to come home until her father changes HIS behaviour, and so I would tell her that your husband is moving out of the family home as he needs a break from her behaviour as he can no longer deal with it. I would make it clear to her that this is only temporary and that he will be returning home as I would not want her thinking that she has "won". I would not be inclined to sugar coat it though in order to make her feel better or feel that she is not in any way responsible. I think there comes a point when we should not protect our children from the consequences of their actions - as a young child then yes of course as they are unable to control their behaviour, but as a young adult ? No. She needs to understand and accept the role of her behaviour in this situation. She will be an adult soon and if she treated a boyfriend the way she is treating your husband, her father, do you think her boyfriend will stick around?

Please do not sacrifice everything for your daughter - your marriage and your own mental health, because believe me your daughter will never thank you for making these sacrifices on her behalf. In a couple of years she will leave and no doubt won't give you or your husband a second thought.

Encourage your husband to see his GP and make sure that he still regularly comes around to the house. But if he doesn't want to see you daughter on his own, then don't force him. Again your daughter needs to see the effect her behaviour has and is having on him. Hopefully the time a part will give your husband the breathing space and rest that he needs to start to heal from his own trauma caused by his daughter's trauma. Make sure you also take care of yourself too.

best wishes xxx

don't know where all my paragraphs have gone! - are there some gremlins in the system today??

Mine disappeared too!

Also Estella, don't forget to make it very clear to your daughter that now dad has moved out, two households will now need to be financed and so there will no longer be any money for "luxuries". So when you daughter starts to demand a new phone, or money for clothes, makeup, to see her friends, etc your answer should be "Sorry can't afford that any more as Dad has moved out". Sometimes the only way our children learn is the hard way. xx

Dear Windfalls and Donatella,

You're both absolutely right with what you've shared here - so much is similar to our situation! Our daughter is 18; the last few years have been very challenging for her and for us. Her relationship with her dad was good when she was younger but he's found the full on emotions of a disregulated, oppositional, controlling teenage girl who has been off the rails at times, more than he can manage. He is a mostly rather reserved man emotionally- his upbringing I'd say - and he has felt disempowered and hopeless at times though is more resilient lately I think. AD is certainly splitting us - unconsciously so I can see - and I don't think she has the maturity yet the admit this: her bottom line with us is mainly that she has her issues and it's for us to accommodate them! I'd say she has CPTSD and I have wondered at times about ASD - though no formal diagnosis. We don't think it is good for her to feel she has this kind of power but in thinking of my husband moving out we're trying to be pragmatic: we can't see her without a home for the time being. DH and I have talked some more today and we'll try to see if we can get through this but maybe have a plan B if all else fails. You're right about the money though, windfall, and I'll definitely be mentioning how such a scheme would take every last penny we have and many years of going without too! Maybe that is the sort of thing which might get her to see there are consequences and that no matter what your issues, we all have to live in the real world. It is hard, but you've both made me feel a bit better! Thanks!

Kathryn - if you read what Estella has said, you’ll see that their daughter is 18, not 16. Normal family? What do you mean by normal family? Everyone’s normal is not the same.

Teenagers are difficult. They challenge. Adopted teenagers often more so as there’s more in the mix - I assume your teenagers are adopted do you’ll understand that. I’m a bit shocked actually - given that you thought the child in question was 16 - that you’d be comfortable with them moving out into a bed sit - even supported housing isn’t exactly supporting. My son - relatively straightforward - struggled with his move to Halls for uni at 18 so he would never have coped without an infrastructure around him. And as for my 16 year old ... nope, still needs a huge amount of scaffolding.

I agree that dad moving out may not be ideal but Estella and her husband are trying to find a solution whereby they can continue to parent - albeit from a distance for dad - their very traumatised child.

It’s just not straightforward and adopted children are more complex than the majority of children - I say children deliberately as more often than not their emotional, developmental age doesn’t match their chronological age.

It’s very hard as mum being the piggy in the middle - trying to maintain relationships all round.

Hi Kathryn,

Estella initially said that her daughter was a young adult and I therefore assumed from that she was about 16 years old. Estella then confirmed that her daughter was in fact 18. I think in one sense you are right - this situation would probably never have arisen in a "normal" family, by which I mean Mum and Dad parenting neurotypical children. However, in the world of adoption such families rarely exist - our children tend to be far from neurotypical as a result of developmental trauma/attachment due to treatment in the birth family home mixed with conditions caused by genetics or during pregnancy. Consequently adopted teenagers are not like neurotypical teenagers with the usual bit of teenage angst coupled with a bit of door slamming and the occasional swear word thrown in - which is a phase that they all go through and then come out the other side as lovely well adjusted adults ready to stand on their own two feet. Very rarely happens on "planet adoption" I am afraid. Due to our children's experiences and conditions they can display VERY challenging behaviour which can get worse with age and not better. Sometimes their trauma is so bad that despite the very best efforts from their adoptive parents, they just cannot heal from it and it dominates the rest of their lives resulting in them making very poor choices and decisions. Consequently these children require a huge amount of support around them and cannot "just be chucked out of the family home and left to fend for themselves ".

so I am afraid suggesting a truce between the two, her ignoring him for a week or two and managing to avoid her father and it being a phase that will pass? - just not that simple I am afraid, And the reason why it isn't that simple is because Estella and her husband are not dealing with a securely attached and well adjusted neurotypical child who can they can reason with and who will listen to them.