Just Giving Them the Love You Don't

Can you not see, that with your good intentions, you are actually hurting our children?!

Finally!!!!

We have been asking certain family members for more than three years that IF they choose to have contact with our estranged adult adoptees...

PLEASE learn about Reactive Attachment Disorder!

PLEASE learn how to best be supportive of adoptive families as a whole!

PLEASE learn about triangulation that is symptomatic of RAD... and don't allow yourself to be triangulated! 

We never forbade family to see or talk to our children.  We have only asked for a consistent message of  "Your parents love you, YOU NEED TO TALK TO THEM NOT ME about what's going on between you."

Somewhere along the line the easily triangulated ones with the "rescuer" gene would fluctuate between,

"Let's all smile pretty and pretend nothing happened!"

and

 "Don't worry, just because your parents suck, IIIII still love you!  You'll ALWAYS have MY love!"

and

"I have to hear both sides of the situation before I can make a proper judgement about what's going on between you and your parents." 

It seems like last night FINALLY one couple of the most painful perpetuate-ers of strife in our family seemed to "get" how their "good intentioned" meddling has continued to hurt us and our family over the last three years. 

This is huge!!!!

We are grateful for progress. 

We are grateful for family and friends who support our adoptees' return to mental health by supporting our family as a whole. 

We continue to pray for the rest. 

Let's Call Them "Kids" 'till They're Thirty!

Soapbox Alert.  This is one of the "soapboxes" I dust off from time to time stand up and rattle on about. 

I'm not a fan of granting "adult-children" all the privileges and none of the responsibilities of adulthood. 

"Florida 627.6562 allows for dependent children up to 25, who live with their parent or are a student, and up to 30 years old, who are also unmarried and have no dependent child of their own, to remain on their parents' insurance." 

I'm concerned about laws like this that keep pushing out the "age of maturity." 

Yes, it's optional... now... but how long until it's mandated that parents become obligated by governmental laws to financially support extended adolescence?

When our 18 and 21 year old RADs were attacking us as "young adults" we were eager to find out FL laws regarding our responsibilities toward our "adult children."  I was grateful to find out over-18, unless court ordered (usually through divorce) we were not obligated to financially support their foolishness.  Other states currently require parents to support their "children" up until age 21!  

I keep hearing "brain experts" say they've used technology to examine the brains of 18-21 year-olds and have found them to be immature and "incapable" of making mature adult decisions.  No wonder!  Our bodies were created in such a way that unused parts atrophy!  That goes for brain cells too!  If  all the little "Jacob"s and little "Sophia"s born last year are not enabled/encouraged/expected by the world surrounding them to begin "doing for themselves" until age thirty... how well prepared will they be when age 30 actually hits?

I can't help but wonder if our "Let's put a video game in their hands and call them 'children' till they're 30" culture has stunted brain development of our young people. 

I KNOW with our early traumatized youth... there is more to their capabilities than what our culture expects of them... but this whole "Congratulations, you have all the rights and none of the responsibilities of an adult" world of insanity is not helping. 

I'm just saying!  

Interesting International news on related topics
http://www.loweringthebar.net/2011/04/man-who-sued-parents-gets-30-days-to-move-out.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/08/02/us-italy-mother-idUSL0288587220070802