Hello Again from the Mother of Many Teens

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, there was a blogger named Jen who at least attempted to post something regularly.

and then she had six teenagers. and then seven. and then eight.
and she didn't blog for those 3 years...
and then she got back down to 7 again and this blog is being reborn.  

For real, people!  When did this happen?  Just yesterday I had 10 children ages 12 and under!  OK, it was actually 5 years ago, but the time has just slipped away so quickly.

 Not saying' that the little kid stage was a walk in the park or anything, but the whole "I have a junior high youth group living in my house, riding in my van, constantly talking to me every. single. minute. of. the. day. thing" has been a parenting world I was slightly unprepared for and honestly, didn't super love.

Please don't hate me if you love the junior high years.  Here are my very sincere kudos to you!  But, for serious... I'd rather parent a passel of toddlers before having FOUR junior high boys again at the same time.   Oh yes, and our oldest daughters were jr. high and early high school age at that time as well.

Much to my delight and surprise, it seems that after they survive this madness known as "11-14 year olds," it is possible for them to emerge from this brain hibernation time as quite pleasant and fun teenagers!

One totally awesome thing about having 10 children is that by the time the fifth or sixth child hits a certain stage or age, our parenting skills (or lack thereof, ahem...) have been seriously rocked and refined, our responses slowed and softened, our ability to be shocked, awed, or offended is pretty much non-existent.  Well, maybe we're still working on that whole"not being offended" thing, but we are learning!

learning that nothing is so bad you can't survive it,
learning to breathe and rest in Christ,
learning to give grace to both them and us,
learning how to live with Truth, trust, and thanksgiving.

So here we are today:

For our 17, 15, and two 14 1/2 year olds, praying they will forgive and forget all of our great parenting fails and be able to remember the love and commitment and "re-overs" we had together.

Hoping my two 13 year old boys and two 11 year old girls - Yep you heard that right:  we still have four junior higher's in the house, in the van, constantly talking and talking and talking - where was I? Oh yes...  hoping that we can give them more grace, listen more, stress out less about things that will pass, and maybe even enjoy these years a bit (even IF their brains are hibernating for a while).

Thinking that by the time our 7 and 8 year olds hit this stage, I'll feel like it just like I do about the toddler stage:  bring it on!

And, beginning to believe that I might, quite possibly, be able to find the emotional and mental space to begin writing again.

Stay tuned and subscribe so you don't miss some fun stuff (like my first radio interview and a review and giveaway of my friend's new adoption book) later this week!

How to Help an Adoptive Family

Um... Can I just say that adopting is hard?  Yes.  It is good but it is really really hard!  It is even harder when you adopt multiple older children and they all have attachment issues, trauma, and other struggles.  Put that together with the challenges of just learning to love each other and be a family, and you've got a recipe for one burned out mama!
Ever wonder how you could help? Lisa Qualls has some great suggestions today! I know from personal experience that our friends and family doing these things had a huge impact on us making it through those really hard few years!Eight Ways to Help a Struggling Family

Instead of Halloween, Can we Have Prayer Please?

I know.  I promised part 2 of Halloween Revisited.  I am working on it and I will post it soon. 

However, more than a few major things are happening right now and we would just like to ask you to come alongside us and join in prayer asking the Lord for wisdom, guidance, peace, and that He would move on our behalf.  We are trusting Him and are finding a great amount of rest and peace amidst a whole lot of seeming chaos (but we KNOW He is in control!). 

Finding Joy here:



"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, with prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." 

and

"But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.”  We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.  That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. 

 

For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 

 

So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, 

we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. 

For the things we see now will soon be gone, but 

the things we cannot see will last forever."

Thank you for your prayers! 

Halloween Re-visited

This is a re-post from last year with a promise to actually post part 2 tomorrow.   And, can I just say that you simply MUST read on if you have had your children home for less than 2 years!

The children and I have been asked many times over the past week what we were doing for Halloween and what they were going to "be" for Halloween.  How we have approached Halloween has changed a lot over the years for a number of reasons which I will expand on tomorrow.  

If you are reading this blog and you have recently adopted children (within the past 2 years), 

I will give you this little tip that may save you a little sanity:  whatever you usually do on Halloween, SKIP the sugar-laden, high sensory-overload Halloween-fest or Harvest Party at least for this year.

  It is O.K. 

Your children will not die if they don't get to go trick-or-treating.  Nor will they die if they don't go get their faces painted while inhaling huge amounts of sugar and popcorn just before winning a game of "Jesus Jack-O-Lanterns" and then bringing home a small goldfish which will most certainly die the next day. . . 

If you have NO idea why I am saying to SKIP it this year, you have probably just very recently arrived home and you really should believe me when I say that the last thing your new child needs is this high level of stress mixed in with the very real spiritual battle that is raging for his or her heart and is often intensified on this night.  

More tomorrow on our family's personal Halloween journey, but here's something to think about:

"Instead of hating evil, Americans toy with it. We toy with holidays like Halloween that were conceived in evil and that promote the “cute-ification” of evil, whether that evil takes the form of witchcraft, sorcery, ghoulishness, or some other form of malevolent imagery paraded before our children. We laugh at the very things that the Lord describes as “abominations,” and we find ourselves obsessively fascinated by, and attracted to, all things dark.

Yet we do not fear the Lord. . . "

                                                     - Doug Philipps (read the rest of the article here)

Q and A Adoption: Bringing Home an Older Child

Q:  Those of you who have brought home a child at the age of 12 and up, what would be some of your suggestions for how to foster connection? (A question from Parenting with Connection FB group)

A:  This is going to sound crazy especially to anyone who hasn't tried to create connection with children from hard places and/or older children from hard places, but honestly, my best advice is that you've got to bring them home and circle the wagons for a LONG time which IMHO looks like severely limiting peer relationships and other adult relationships until you are very well connected. 

With our oldest, this meant her being home with us 24/7. No public school, no friends outside of our family (acquaintances at church, yes), no other significant adults, no ipods, phones, computers, social media for a LONG LONG time. 

The hard thing with older kiddos is that you are trying to tie "heart strings" with them at an age where most healthy children are beginning to cut a few heart strings (rightly so - when they have many heart strings attached, it is OK to start to cut a few here and there as they begin their transition to adulthood). BUT, your new child won't have ANY heart strings to cut and they will be looking for anyone anywhere to give them what they think they want rather than to attach to you because they are SCARED that you (who are saying you will always be there and will love them, etc) are going to be just like the other adults in their lives who have let them down and they don't want to risk it again, so they are going to do all they can to ignore you, push you away and find it elsewhere. 

You've got to create a space where you are really the only option. So, circle those wagons. Stay home together (don't worry about academics that first year home!), play with them, do pre-schoolish type things with them and let them just BE a child in your family - don't worry, they'll mature out of it once they have had that need met. 

Also, spend time at night talking with them and cuddling with them as much as you can or at least rubbing their back or sitting near them (even if they resist). Say "Yes" as much as possible. Offer treats like m &m's while you look at them with kind eyes (sugar is a great "yes, you are ok." ). 

Limit media (I'd say to ZERO unless it is a special family event). Limit outside activities especially those that are peer oriented like school, youth group, sleepovers, etc (again, I'd say to ZERO pretty much for the first year or two). BUT in place of all that, put yourself - relationship, caring, loving interactions. Firm boundaries but lots of relational connection. 

AND, don't be easily offended. Oh MY, can pre-teens easily offend their parents and this is magnified in hurt children. Just let it go and don't be offended. It isn't personal. And even if it is, it won't help anything to respond to the offense in a way that communicates frustration. 

So, that's the HARD path that is a LOT harder than just going the way of the culture and hoping for the best. BUT, we've seen it help our older adopted children really become attached and healed and NOW, they are able to cut some heart strings and move out from us and start to transition to adulthood because we've got lots of strings attached and their hearts are settled and they are healthy.

Don't lose heart.  This is hard and takes time.  Your child will not instantly trust you and know that everything will be fine.  YOU understand that you are a "good" parent, but your new child does not.  Even when they can mentally assent to that (maybe a year from now), they still will have an emotional brain response that tells them otherwise.  It will take a lot of time to grow this relationship!

AND, by the way, NO ONE will understand why you are doing this.  All of your friends with healthy young teens will think you are crazy.  So will the grandparents.  People at church will probably be offended that your child isn't in the youth group.  You've just got to not care what they think, try to educate them by gracious explanation, and then do the hard work anyways.  Don't worry.  You'll be so busy trying to connect with your teen, you won't have time to worry about what anyone thinks anyways!  

What about you?  Any thoughts on older child connection?  I'd love to hear your ideas!  

The Grace of Refinement

“God will take you where you would not have chosen to go

in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. 

The Bible calls this grace.“

–Paul David Tripp

Yes, Yes, Yes!  Grace.  I've been given so much!  So much of what I would NEVER have chosen and yet it has been God's refining fire in my life and has led to so much more than I could have EVER asked or imagined.  

Pondering these other thoughts from (one of my favorite pastors) Paul David Tripp:

Sometimes we are crying out, “Where is the grace of God?” …but we are already getting it!

We need the grace of refinement, rather than the grace of relief. 

Uncomfortable grace. 

Often this side of eternity the grace of God comes to us in uncomfortable forms – exactly the grace that we need. 

Don’t name the difficulties as a sign of his inattention and unfaithfulness,

they are actually a sign of a seal of his redemptive love.  

His redemptive love.  Yes!   When I name it rightly, I am able to give thanks for the grace rather than to complain about the pain.  

Want to give thanks with me today?

What's your Standard?

‎"The standard of the world, and the standard of the Lord Jesus, 

are indeed widely different.

They are more than different. 

They are flatly contradictory one to the other."

~ J.C. Ryle