And Zen What

Dear Five's teacher,

Yesterday you sent me an email asking me some very specific questions about Five's sleep patterns (does he wake up, does he sleepwalk, is he restless, etc.). I sent you short answers--it was rush hour traffic in the kitchen at the time--No, No, No, and No. Five sleeps like a rock, sleeps well, it's all good, blah blah blah.

Then, last night, he got up, wandered out to the dining room, and then had trouble getting back to sleep despite the fact that it was 3-something in the holy cow morning.

As he was getting ready this morning, I asked him if you had asked him any questions about sleeping yesterday. It turns out that you asked him all those very leading questions before you checked with me. Now, Five likes to please. It's what he does. So he probably knew you were looking for "yes" answers (he's smart, my Five, and he'd know you weren't asking because you'd run out of chitchat). He tells me he answered "No" to the questions, but I don't think he did. So he came home and had to please you here too.

Color me sleepy and rather alarmed.

You are not an MD. You are not a PhD. You have no training in any of the fields you seem to be frivolously and dangerously dabbling in. My child is not a petrie dish. Do your armchair doctoring on your own time.

For the record: Five is fortunate in that we have excellent medical coverage and one of the most highly regarded pediatricians in our state. Five has received, and continues to receive, all the relevant screening and diagnostics for a child of his age and his status (older, post-institutional, subtractive bilingual, visually impaired, international adoptee); his pediatrician is very well-informed on all such matters.

In addition, I have over a decade of very thorough, very in-depth education on the psychological, physical, emotional and cognitive issues and development of older, post-institutional international adoptees. My parenting is informed daily by the learning and research of many dedicated professionals who have spent years studying these kids.

Furthermore I am in daily, sometimes hourly, contact with scores of smart, savvy, well-educated adoptive moms who are walking the same path my family is. They have BTDT, and are still beinger there and doing it. I get support, advice, warnings, commiseration and information on parenting the kinds of kids we all have (see list above) every minute of every day, and I will never ever be able to express enough gratitude for my online friends.

Now, one issue that comes up often in parenting our kids is that the field of symptoms available to children in general seems, as it were, rather limited. So, for instance, behaviors that would lead one to suspect tendencies toward OCD or ODD or ADD in a child with a "normal" background can actually be perfectly normal for the post-institutional adoptee--part of the many stages of adjustment to a new life and of devising strategies of compensation for what was missed. Often, you will find a 7 year old doing things and acting in ways you would feel is more appropriate for a 3 year old. This would raise red flags for a child living in his birth family, but it might very well be completely normal and in fact an issue for rejoicing in an IA post-institutional child. And when that child is 8, he might be doing things that would be more appropriate for a 5 year old--this is serious cause for rejoicing in an adoptive family because it means excellent (catch-up) progress is being made. And this is not an overnight process. Nor is it over in a year, or two, or even several years. It is a process. A long one.

The overlapping bag of symptoms issue sometimes causes one to miss perfectly ordinary diagnoses, because one focuses too much on all the acronyms (IA, PI, etc). When Two was in grade school, I suspected she had CAPD (I'd read all about it, her symptoms matched the lists, she always passed her hearing tests at school, blah blah blah). So when she went for the obligatory full-on audiological exam (which is always the first thing they do), imagine my shock when it turned out she actually had/has a mild hearing loss. Hearing aids took care of the symptoms I was concerned about. No CAPD—despite its being a more common issue with kids with all her acronyms (older, post-PI, subtractive bilingual, IA).

That little episode taught me a few things, I can tell you.

Anyway, this brings me back to your list of questions about Five's sleep patterns. He sleeps like a rock, doesn't sleep walk or talk, etc etc, as I told you yesterday.

And I'd like to assure you that Five is progressing rapidly and well along the path that his particular background has started him on. Many of his behaviors still resemble symptoms of various and sundry syndromes/acronymic diagnoses and what have you, but they are also, simply, the behaviors of a child coming to terms with not having to control his own environment and be vigilant 24/7, with not having to make sure he's taken care of, fed, and noticed, among the crowds of babies, toddlers, and kids he spent the first years of his life in.

He doesn't have to do that any more. He has a family. He is being taken care of daily. He is safe, warm, fed, and loved. That sounds like good stuff, right? Why would anyone have to struggle to adapt to it?

But taking care of himself and controlling the room is what kept him alive, literally. It can be hard to let go.

He's adjusting very nicely to his home and family, and while I know he is still something of a challenge for his teachers, he's really a lot better at being a "good boy" at school than he was a mere 2.5 years ago.

Bottom line? You want to play shrink, pick on someone your own size. You've made me crazy enough with this stuff--bring it on. I'll play.