Brain Paths....who knew?

After the responses on my last post, James and I did a lot of talking.

We've been so frustrated.

You would think after almost 3.5 years that Alex would be getting it? We were feeling exhausted. We seem to spend all our time discussing or working with Alex. He monopolized us. Be it math homework, reminders to brush his teeth, wear his retainer, do the basics or reprimands for the many, many things he just can't seem to remember like sitting in front of a screen before homework or jobs, doing a crappy, half finished chore, or forging ahead without instruction and making things worse - like attempting to repair his bike.

We were just exasperated! 

Really.

When is he going to "get it"?

And when are we going to have some semblance of "normal"?

After an enlightening response (see earlier post) and a lot of talking back and forth James and I had a "light bulb" go off so to speak and we did a lot of piecing together Alex's past and his opportunities for learning and growing in comparison to our biological children.

When our biological kids were little - although we are far from perfect parents - they were surrounded in safety and love. Their main concern was to have fun and learn and they usually did both at the same time. They were learning numbers and colors in a fun loving pre-school, watching PBS cuddled up in blankets on mom's bed eating goldfish crackers, held on my lap while we read stories over and over and always asking questions. "Why can't I...? Why does...? What if..."

They were learning how to make friends and be a friend with the supervision of loving parents (be it us or their friends parents) that oversaw them in their play and stopped and explained why certain behaviors were not okay and showed them how to be kind, share, and say sorry. 

When our bio kids got hurt or sick - there was someone there to kiss it better, bandage it up, take them to the doctors,  buy their medicine, hold their fevered bodies, rock them, and hold their Sprite with the bendy straw up to their mouth.

If they were grumpy, or tired or just "going through a phase" we still loved them - we didn't always like them - but we always loved them and we would give time out's, put them down for naps or just tolerate them until they figured out their "phase". 

We went on vacations, had holidays, went camping and celebrated milestones.

We potty trained, taught them to tie shoes, write their name, read, add, subtract, multiplication tables.

They played on soccer teams, went to dance class, tried karate, took swimming lessons, played basketball, performed in plays, attended scouts - and we were there cheering and coaching on the sidelines. Carpooling and providing treats, buying bigger cleats, ballet shoes and new basketballs.

They were safe.
They were loved.

And all they had to focus on was learning. Not only scholastic stuff but social skills, emotional skills, coping skills, friendship skills, communication skills and the list goes on.

 "When you initially learn something the pathway or connection is weak. The more frequently you think a particular thought the stronger the pathway becomes, forming an automatic habit of thinking. We call this brain training."*

We didn't know it but we were "brain training" our kids from an early age. 

 Our bio kids never went hungry, never worried about where they would sleep, if they would be warm, when they'd eat again, if they would get beat up by bigger kids or a drunk parent. We didn't force them to shoplift or let them sleep at random places where we may or may not be.

Alex did.

His first eleven years were spent consumed with surviving because truthfully his home life before the orphanage was just as traumatic if not worse than the orphanage. (Maybe worse  because he was with the one person that was suppose to have unconditional love for him and take care of him and she didn't. His birth mother.) Survival must have consumed his thinking once his father died at age four. (From what we can gather, birth dad was kind and protected Alex from a not so kind birth mother.) 

Instead of imagination play, learning colors and numbers, play dates, preschool classes, and snuggling up on a mama's lap to read books his life consisted of worrying about surviving.  What will he eat? Who will feed him? Where will he sleep? Will she be drunk? Will he get hit?  

He had very little "brain training" of the basics. There was not time for that. He just needed to focus on surviving. 

Then when he transitioned to the orphanage where he had multiple caregivers that didn't always care. If he got hurt or sick he was hauled off to a hospital for weeks on end. He had to worry about  how he'd protect his six year old self from the older boys in the orphanage? Follow the rules to exactness in order to be fed, clothed and bathed. Washed his assigned outfit in a sink while he wore the other one, sleep in a room full of little boys with the same need for survival that coped by rocking back and forth and sucking their thumbs and fingers. Many were not toilet trained.

This was his life until we adopted him when he was almost eleven years old.

And you would think all was well....right? 

Now he has a loving home with regular meals, a private room, a brother and sisters, opportunities he'd never had, parents that love him, look out for him and want what's best for him. 

But what about his lack of "brain training" and now let's add a new language to his life. 

And now instead of survival  - his first year of life with us - he is focused on learning a new language. He doesn't understand our humor, our sayings, idioms, expressions. Are we laughing at him? What is it we're asking him to do? And as he learns one language he loses the other. Meanwhile he gets farther and farther behind in his peers in every way and he was behind with to start. 

And now after 3.5 years he can communicate - except he's lacking communication skills - but he's socially, emotionally and scholastically years and years behind his peers. Add to the mix, this new mom and dad who have worked so hard to get him here and to this point are utterly exhausted and losing patience daily.

That's where we were when I wrote that post a few days ago. 

We were spent.

And we didn't have the insight and compassion for his past. We knew nothing about "brain training" (and we still know very little). We just knew we had given him so much, and worked so hard and yet, he seemed to be making little progress. 

Let's talk about brain training for a little bit.

And keep in mind this is all new to me and I have a lot to learn but...

You know how when you first learn to ride a bike? And it's super scary but then you figure out how to balance and pedal and steer and you finally get it?  Eventually you are able to get on your bike and ride without thinking. You're operating on automatic. A strong brain pathway has been created as though new brain software has been uploaded and is seamlessly operating in your mind.

Your brain works the same way in forming how you think about yourself. As a child your thoughts about yourself are formed from the messages you’ve heard and believed from important and influential people in your life.These beliefs are what we call your dominant thought pattern. They operate on automatic, like a habit, and are the thoughts that trigger, consciously or unconsciously your feelings and reactions to the circumstances of your life.*

 

 That explains so much.

We were expecting 3.5 years (2.5 really when you consider it took at least a year to be able to basically communicate in English) to make up for years and years of neglect, trauma, and unlearned social, emotional, and scholastic skills. And that we could undo all his bad brain training simply by loving him and providing him a safe environment?

What were we thinking? 

So,  now we're regrouping.

As we sat everyone down to talk to them about this (Alex and siblings) we felt it was important that everyone know this isn't Alex's fault. That we love him and we're going to love him through this. We're going to be patient and let him learn the things he missed - even if that is uncomfortable for us and for him. 

That we're going to work on retraining his brain's pathways to remember the basics. Like brushing his teeth, wearing his retainer, adding, subtracting.

We're not experts.

We don't have all the answers but we have love. And we're going to pray for patience and for Alex to find success in small things so he can move on to bigger things. 

And he may never find a hobby or an interest or stick with anything for long because he's still learning what he likes, who he is and what he wants.
We are also doing away with electronics. Besides family screen time (movies/tv together as a family) Alex will have no screens.  Zero. Zip. No smart phones, tablets, video games, iTouches, computer games.  Another parent with Ukraine imports had this to say:
 It is my experience that the electronics are horrible for these children, even more so than our other children. These children have been wired to be numb, and it seems that the games just put them back in that zone. I know it seems radical, but I have gotten rid of our games and introduced our children to books. They HATED it.......at first. Now two are avid readers and our younger one is picking up. I have heard too many mothers say of their natural children, "I lost him to electronics." It's not worth it. Sure it was a fight for me when I threw it in the trash, but it sure has saved the daily fights over those wasted hours. This is my own opinion, but I sure think living in reality ALL the time helps these children overcome their earlier upbringing.

He's not going to like it.
It's going to be HARD!
For all of us.
But that's our plan and we're sticking to it.
And we're not going to throw our hands up in the air in exasperation. 

Nope.

We might want to but we're not going to.

We're going to go over his times tables again and again.

Remind him again and again to brush and wear his retainer.

And all the other many things he can't seem to remember because there is not a pathway developed. 

And we're going to do it with a sweet voice and a kind heart.

And retrain those brain paths to be more dominate than the ones he came with. 

We also know that despite his physical age his emotional age is sometimes like a four year old little boy and when no one is around we  I can sometimes talk this 5' 4", 14 year old boy to let his mama hold him and rock him and tickle his face and make up for those moments he missed. 

Yep. 

That's what we're going to do. 

*Blue italicized parts taken from  

http://www.self-esteem-experts.com/how-the-brain-works.html