Stress

I know we've been giving everyone the impression that we are having a very difficult time but the reality is that we are simply going through phases of regulation and dysregulation. Meaning, that we have added stress in our lives and because of it our ability to adapt to it as a family unit is creating new learning opportunities for all of us. B. Bryan Post [http://www.postinstitute.com] says that there are only two primary emotions, fear and love. His stress model, says that all behavior arises from a state of stress. Stress leads to either fear or love. A fear reaction will cause a child to become angry, agitated or worse. Dasha is a scared child because she has been traumatized throughout her life. Amber is also scared because of all the new things happening. Both of them need extra amounts of love to help them reregulate themselves and to deal with the stress being caused by our new family dynamics.

Friends of ours [The Durovnick's] who have been working in the foster care system for years came up this weekend to give us a hand and to sorta evaluate our family dynamics. We all came to the conclusion that Dasha is no where near the troubled child that she could be given her situation. She will be fine and so will Amber. We just need to work through all of this and learn how to parent two children who each have different needs.

We're up for the challenge, have a great support group and loving family members.

I'd encourage all adoptive parents to check out some of Byran's stuff. It's revolutionary in its approach to parenting children with challenging behaviors.