The last week or so with Hannah has been horrid. She has exhibited behaviors we have never seen before and has cranked up some behaviors that hadn’t been around for a while.

For several months Hannah has been a fun kid to be around so her behaviors took me a little bit by surprise. When they continued for several days I knew something was bothering her, but she wasn’t ready to talk about it.

Unfortunately, we are all too familiar with this issue since this is how Sammy chose to deal with emotional issues. It is not uncommon in foster and adopted kids to deal with big emotional issues this way, or emotions that they can’t figure out.

Most of us learned how to label our emotions as we were growing up. Most of our kids did not have that happen for them, and the things that they experienced are so much bigger than “normal” kid issues that they aren’t addressed in some of the things that kids learn about in school.

I had pushed Hannah several times to talk about what she was feeling, but she refused. The only thing she would tell me is that she was missing her previous family and the death of our dog made her think of them because they lost a dog too, but not while she was living there. I knew she wanted a visit but health issues have put plans for a visit on hold for now.

This also coincided with the visit by the adoption worker on Tuesday. Sammy reacted horribly to workers coming to our house, even after he was adopted. When the workers came out monthly to see Kory and Mackenzie, he was sure they were going to take him away from us. His behavior reflected his fear. He figured if they were going to take him away he might as well “go out with a bang” and came up with the worst behaviors he could think of.

This morning things finally came to a head. Hannah’s horrible behaviors continued and I told her she was staying home from school if she couldn’t act nice. This is about the worst punishment I can give her since she likes school so much, but it worked. She went up to her room and screamed at the top of her lungs for over thirty minutes. She finally came down and was ready to talk.

It turns out that Hannah had convinced herself that once the adoption was final, we weren’t going to allow her to see her previous family anymore, and her brothers and sisters would no longer be her brothers and sisters. We have never conveyed that to her, and in fact, we have said the opposite. We are very open to continuing her relationship with her “other family” as she calls them.

Once she got these feelings and fears out, she began to act like my sweet girl again. I have a feeling we’re going to have a few more episodes like this ahead of us before we finalize, and possibly after for a little while. I’m not looking forward to them. I am tired from having dealt with Sammy’s behaviors for so long and we have gotten used to have a relatively easy time with Hannah. I don’t relish going into the depths of emotion again, but I know I will. This is how our kids deal with emotions.

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