Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Dealing with naive and foolish behavior in older adopted children.

I love following the blog, www.imghanaadopt.blogspot.com. Recently, Mama D posted about "Parenting the Older Adopted Child." I thought it was a great discussion and one that could be used to encourage and edify parents of older children.

My response to Mama D's post,

I believe there are two factors that come into play.

One-the children are naive. We had an adult Ugandan break our car door handle because he had never opened a car door before. Or, a toilet seat busted because the person thought you stood on the toilet seat (like a pit latrine of sorts). This is just the beginning of a long list of things we have had broken because of someone being naive.

Secondly-the children are acting out of foolishness. Reading throughout the proverbs explains a lot foolish behavior/actions. And it is our ministry as parents to direct our children away from the path of foolishness onto the path of wisdom--and for most of these older adopted children, they spent the good part of their formative years without such direction.

There is hope, however. We have a son that we brought home just 4 months ago who is 7+ years old. He grew up in the deep bush. He had never seen a toilet, bed, utensils, etc. And yet today he uses the toilet (and even wipes the pee off the seat). He has wonderful table manners. And makes his bed each morning.

It takes time, a lot of patience and discipline to teach wisdom. But one day our children will thank us for it.

"Wise choices will watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe." Proverbs 2:11

1 comment:

Laurel said...

Thanks for the link to my post.

I've enjoyed the discussion in the comments, and have 2 more similar posts planned in the next week. These are things that parents of older adopted children need to be talking about.

Hugs!

Laurel :)