Treated like a teen

I never know whether or not to treat Bear like a teenage boy, since developmentally he’s sooo much younger. Treating Kitty like her developmental age works for her. She feels safer and loved with more structure and attention.

People wouldn’t tell a 6 year old, you have a right to watch a PG-13 movie or be able to wander the mall or park by yourself, but developmentally delayed teens get told, “You’re parents are sooo mean!” “You should run away.” “That’s not fair.”

People don’t give Kitty as much of a hard time about this. Maybe because it’s obvious she really can’t handle teenage life, or because she’s female, or because most of her friends also have mega issues so probably have similar restrictions, or maybe because she ignores it or lets it go because she knows she can't really handle it… I don’t know. Kitty seems no less content than any other kid her developmental age. I remember wanting to be a teenager at this age too. Just like other kids this age though, I didn't really expect to get it. I'd probably have been terrified.

I think one reason Bear acts the way he does is because he’s caught in between. He is scared… all… the… time. Because of his looks though he’s being treated like an adult (well at least an older teen) even by us, his family. He’s looked like an adult since he was chronologically 11 or 12 (he's only 12 in the picture at the top - he was already 5'9" and 200+lbs). He’s not given the luxury of acting like his developmental age. He’s constantly being put in situations he can’t handle.

Everyone wants to treat Bear as though he's about to walk out of the house and live as an adult. He never got a chance to be a kid. Biomom called him her "Little Man." Kids with traumatic histories usually don't learn by example or from role models. As Katharine Leslie put it, it's like we're dropping them into a play in which they're the star, but they don't know their lines or what's going on. With our neurotypical kids, they watch others and figure things out. With kids of trauma, they don't have that ability.

I keep hearing, he's going to be out of the house soon, he's got to know how to take care of himself. I keep replying, we've only got a couple of years left to let him act like a kid. He needs to crawl before he can run. I think he needs to be kept safe and protected, like we would a younger child. Forcing him to grow up faster is NOT WORKING ANYWAY! But instead I come across as an overprotective control freak.

I admit I'm overprotective. Unlike Hubby who grew up in the rural Midwest, I grew up in big cities. I worry about everything for my kids - drugs, alcohol, pedophiles, murderers.... My mom was over protective. We weren't allowed to say cr*p or d*rn or even g*h (substitute word for God). My parents didn't drink (Mom was a teetotaler, Dad was supposedly an alcoholic) so I was told that if I drank I might become an alcoholic too. I rebelled a little, and when I went off to college I cussed a lot. I didn't drink much, but only because I hated feeling out of control. During undergrad I got it out of my system and went back to the values I'd learned.

Yes, I'm overprotective with Bob too, and I know she'll rebel. I also know that she'll eventually find her moral compass. My adoped kids don't have a history of those moral values. Apparently I'm the only one who thinks that I should force the kids to comply with our morals and standards. We do that without thinking about it for younger kids. We tell little kids, where to go, what to do, and how to do it.

I hate this. It seems like Hubby and I have a variation on this argument all the time now. I feel like that Earth Girl's Are Easy quote (yes, I know it's really a "Rebel Without a Cause" quote, but I never saw that movie!).

"You're tearing me apart! You say one thing, he says another, and everybody
changes back."