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…and a “defiant” step back?
Beauty is edging up on three years old. I mean, we’re less than a month away from celebrating her third birthday. It’s close and she’s excited. I am, too. Not only because it’s her special day, but because she’s on the brink of aging out of Early Intervention Services and is then eligible for an Early Childhood Education program through our school district.
A few days ago, she had her final re-evaluation. It went…okay. I was hoping for a bit better news, but I’ll take what I can get. She’s hovering around the two year mark in terms of, well, mostly everything with the exception of social responsiveness (i.e., she knows you’re looking for an answer when you pose a question) in which she’s spot on for her age. One of the things the developmental therapist noted was that Beauty was lacking a little core body strength, primarily because of the way her body shifts when she’s toe-walking (which is frequently). She should be a candidate for a “preschool” program upon her third birthday. But she’s definitely not a “developmentally set” three year old.
My topic of the day, I suppose, is one that’s weighing a bit heavy on my heart a bit. Beauty is strong-willed. She is very much into doing, well, anything and everything on her own terms. She’s been like this for as long as I can remember, and for the most part, it works out well enough since she and Bear tend to “share” the power during play time. She’s mostly agreeable, but I know how and when to approach her when I’m looking for her directly undivided attention. The one thing that bothered me from the evaluation, though, is that one of the therapists used the word “defiant” to define her strong-willed nature. Is she? Am I just sugar-coating her behavior as typical toddler bossiness? I suppose it’s possible. The therapist then said that she finds defiance more frequently in children who were internationally adopted. Could it be a result of grief? Maybe. It’s not uncommon for grief to rear its head several years post-adoption, even in very young children. But on the flip side, could it be a result of Beauty’s terrible twos? Quite possibly. There’s no right or wrong answer at this point; I can’t ask her–I can only look for signs. Perhaps I’m overly sensitive to the idea of Beauty’s grief because I feel very hyper-aware of it’s possibility. So I pose this question to you, parents and/or caregivers of internationally adopted children, have you witnessed your child’s grief at an early age? If so, how did it materialize?
Back to defiance for a second, though. I hate the mere thought of assigning any word with even the slightest negative connotation to any child; to me, it says “here is your self-fulfilling prophecy; we deemed you ______ and so you shall be.” Maybe I’m getting a little too overprotective and Mother Bear-ish, but my cubs will never think they’re anything but bright, wonderful, and lovable beyond words, at least when I have my say. Sure, they’ll make mistakes; they’re not perfect. But I never claimed perfection: I did, however, claim they are–and always will be–wonderful. While I can’t pinpoint Beauty’s “defiance”, you can rest assured that she’ll never hear us “label” her–or Bear or Bella, for that instance–as anything other than the amazing individuals they are. Everyone has their less-than-stellar moments (and children are absolutely no exception) but this does not and will not ever make them any less wonderful.
[...] Family Connections (CFC) and we’ve already had a partial reevaluation, which I detailed a bit here. For whatever reason, though, they did not book us an evaluation with a physical therapist [...]