My daughter Katie is six-and-a-half years old, and she has never spent more than one night away from both my husband and me, except during the months when she was in foster care as a newborn.
Those early months of separation, once so agonizing to me, have softened and dimmed as the months and years of time together have healed us. Katie has formed a deep, healthy attachment to me, and I to her.
But we are both struggling with our first significant upcoming separation. Andrew and I are celebrating ten years of marriage this year. We have not taken a real trip on our own since adopting Katie six years ago, with the exception of an occasional overnight stay at my in-laws' Michigan home or a one-night jaunt to a local bed-and-breakfast.
Those rare mini-trips lasted less than twenty-four hours, and they required lengthy preparations for Katie's comfort. She needed a Mommy shirt and a Daddy shirt to hold in her sleep. She wanted countless transitional items and reassurances that Mommy always comes back. Even so, Andrew and I often had to pay for our time away. Upon returning, we would find Katie to be disagreeable and angry with us for the next few days.
Part of this is because Katie has bad memories of the few times I have been away from her for several consecutive nights. In 2007, I had three different multiple-night hospital stays: once for pneumonia, once to give birth to Annie Rose, and once for a severe mastitis infection. Andrew stayed home with Katie as much as possible, but she did have to spend at least one night each time with her grandparents. She quickly associated overnight stays at Grandma and Grandpa's house with Mommy being in the hospital.
In the past few years, we have tried to break the negative associations by arranging "just-for-fun" overnight stays with her grandparents when nothing was wrong. Katie refused to go. It is only in very recent months that she has agreed to try these sleepovers (where we leave after dinner and trek the half-mile to our own house and return after breakfast).
The only reason Katie goes along with these twelve-hour separations is because her two-year-old sister, Annie Rose, is eager to spend the night at her grandparents' house, and she pressures Katie into coming too. Annie Rose gleefully shoos us out the door, but Katie is often in tears as we say goodbye and calls me on the phone within an hour.
These past experiences weigh heavily on me as we prepare to leave our
two girls for five nights while we take a tenth anniversary trip to
Puerto Rico. The big trip is at the end of this month, and every day I
feel twinges of anxiety about leaving Katie.
We have made elaborate plans for Katie and Annie Rose while we are
away. Andrew and I will fly with the girls to Tampa, where my parents
live. We are going to spend one night in Tampa with them, so that they
don't feel as if we have dumped them off too quickly. The next
morning, Andrew and I will fly to Puerto Rico. While we are gone, my
parents are taking the girls to Disney World for a special treat. At
the end of the week, we will return, spend another night in Tampa all
together and then fly back to Chicago the next day.
Sounds great, right? When people hear that the girls are going to
Disney World with their grandparents, they laugh and say, "The girls
won't even notice you aren't there." How I would love if that were
true! But I fear that there will be plenty of moments when they are
tired and hungry, worn down and worn out, and they will give my parents
a very hard time.
When Katie and Annie Rose are in contentious moods, every transition is
a nightmare. Of course, this is true of most small children. What
worries me is that during those vulnerable moments, I am always the one
who is most successful at coaxing Katie out of her misery. My husband,
my mother, my mother-in-law -- all have felt the massive force of
Katie's rejection. Annie Rose is a little easier to soothe, although
she too is a mama's girl.
But it is Katie who breaks my heart when I imagine her crying for me
and needing me in the midst of a meltdown. I have probably driven my
mom crazy with unsolicited advice about how to cope with Katie. "Give
her space when she is angry; don't crowd her. Don't talk endlessly to
her; let her be silent until she is ready. Keep snacks on hand and
give her paper and crayons so she can draw her feelings; be sure to
tell her you understand how she feels, no matter what she says" and on
and on.
I feel as if Katie is a complex program and I am the only one who knows
how to decode her. With Annie Rose, it is simpler. When she is upset,
the easiest way to disarm her is to ask her if she needs to stop and
have a snuggle. She can scream much louder than Katie, but she also
recovers more quickly from a breakdown. With Katie, there is a
delicate dance, a push and pull. She wants you; she rejects you. She
says things she doesn't mean, and she feels things she cannot say.
There is no doubt in my mind that Katie's adoption factors largely into
this separation anxiety. After a rough beginning in this world, Katie
views me as her constant. She clings to me for stability, and I try to
meet her emotional needs as fully as possible. She directs her anger
at me, and I can take it. She offers her love up to me, and I
reciprocate it.
Katie's anger can be sudden and intense. I worry that she will feel
rage at my mom simply because my mom is there when I am absent. I have
cautioned my mom not to take anything Katie says or does personally.
The hardest part for Andrew and me about Katie's anger is watching her
suffer guilt and remorse when the anger subsides. She berates herself
and calls herself bad, which is far worse than having her direct her
anger at us. I reassure her over and over again that it is okay to
feel mad or sad or whatever negative emotions she has just
experienced. Time has shown that with reassurance and acceptance from
us, Katie always pulls out of her downward spirals. We are experienced
at navigating her moods, and we have learned how to minimize the
duration and intensity of her meltdowns.
Leaving her with anyone else for five days, even my own parents, feels
really scary to me. I want the girls to have fun. I want my parents
to have fun. But mostly, I want them all to know that there will be
good moments and bad moments, and that the ups and downs are okay.
I keep telling Katie, "You can feel more than one thing at once. You
can be on a ride at Disney World having a great time, and at the same
time you can be sad that I am not there, and it is okay to tell your
grandparents that you are happy and sad at the same time."
With this concept in mind, the best way to manage Katie's separation
anxiety is to prepare her for an experience that is neither black nor
white. She will have moments during the day where she is crabby or
tired, but it does not mean that the whole day is ruined.
This separation anxiety goes both ways. I realize that I will not
enjoy my vacation if I obsess over how the girls are doing every minute
of the day. Part of me is worried that I will miss the girls so much
that I won't appreciate the beauty of being able to sleep in or sit on
the beach with a book.
So I tell myself the same thing I am telling Katie: it is okay to
enjoy a leisurely fancy dinner with Andrew and also to miss the girls
at the same time. It is okay to indulge in two hours of quiet reading
and also yearn to build a sandcastle with the kids. It is okay, all
these feelings are okay, and we will all be okay.
The girls will come home with special new memories, and so will we. My
parents will get precious time with their granddaughters, and my girls
will bask in the undivided attention and love of their grandparents.
And, maybe, just maybe, we will be ready to do it again in ten years.
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Filed under: adoption, anger management, attachment in adoption, separation anxiety
"Leaving her with anyone else for five days, even my own parents, feels really scary to me."
Follow your heart!
I am 65. My children are all in their 30's To this day one of my biggest regrets is leaving my son with his grandparents in Fla who took him to Disnet etc. I thought I was doing this child a big favor. In hindsight I realized he has too young - 4 - and scared to death; my parents unable to deal, etc.
I KNOW how much you want this vacation anniversary. I relly do!
I raised tHREE kids wit not one overnight without them for ten years!!
But...will you really enjoy it? It doesn't sound like it...Unless you are just looking to be patted on your back for being such a sensitive, caring mom and assured not to worry. I don't think so. I think you'll spend your vacation worried and it won't be enjoyable.
Plan a family vacation instead and enjoy some special time after the girls are asleep each night!
It doesn't seem like it now, but life is long, you'll have other anniversaries. Childhood IS finite - it doesn't last forever. You have child with special needs and you knew that when you adopted from foster care.
I also suggest some child counseling.
They didn't adopt from foster care, they adopted Katie and then she was taken from them and put in foster care. Also, I don't remember Carrie ever saying that Katie was a 'special needs child.'
I'm wondering if too much attention is being placed on Katie's separation anxiety. Imagine what life would be like for Katie as an adult. Everyone has anxiety. Is her anxiety being catered to? I know what it feels like to look back and feel guilt for not doing or doing something differently in regards to my son. I wouldn't want you to have to experience that, but unfortunately, we can't look into the future to see which would traumatize our child more. "She clings to me for stability, and I try to meet her emotional needs as fully as possible. She directs her anger at me, and I can take it." This statement bothers me. It sounds like you are catering to a temper tantrum when she doesn't get her own way. Maybe I'm way off base with that statement. It's easy to make a judgment when I'm not the person experiencing it. I would definitely recommend consulting a counselor about the way her seperation anxiety is handled, but it sounds like maybe it is being exacerbated. I hope only the best for your family, so I hope this helps. I think sometimes it's a good idea to have someone outside of the situation (a counselor) to evaluate it.