If you are parenting a foster or adopted child who has been abused, the child might tell you that he feels “cold inside,” particularly if he is dealing with abuse memories or flashbacks. “Feeling cold” was a metaphor I used repeatedly to describe my internal experience. I felt like I was frozen inside. As I learned how to love myself, the warmth of the self-love began to melt the ice inside of me.

Most people are familiar with the feeling of a “cold chill” running up their spine. This is similar to what an abused foster or adopted child is describing, only the coldness is not limited to the spine. That awful feeling of a “cold chill” permeates every part of the child’s soul. It is not a good feeling.

The adopted child with an attitude is my own little guy. In fairness to him, he has a lot going on in his life right now. He left his beloved school of five years, along with most of his friends, against his will to start a new school (which he now loves). He has been through the stress of starting over as the “new kid” at a new school. He is in the process of transitioning onto Strattera for his ADHD but is still on the Focalin, which is causing multiple side effects. So, I can understand why he might be cranky. Nevertheless, it is not okay for a nine-year-old child (adopted or not) to cop an attitude toward an adult.

Nicholas and hub went at it this weekend. When hub told him no, Nicholas said, “I like my birth father much better than you.” This is the first time that Nicholas has thrown that dart at hub (He tried this on me years ago), and hub did not know how to react. So, hub got angry and chewed me out for “raising a spoiled brat.” (Yeah, that went over well. Another story for another time…) The big rub for hub is that birth dad never wanted the baby and was very vocal about this. Meanwhile, hub is now paying over $15,000 a year for our adopted child to attend a school that specializes in meeting his special needs. So, this comment really bothered him.

Nicholas has been talking about his birth parents a lot this past week, and I am not sure why. He got all excited about today being St. Patrick’s Day and prattled on about how much his dad loves it. I said that hub probably doesn’t even know it is St. Patrick’s Day today, and Nicholas said, “No, I mean my other dad.” I tried telling Nicholas that his birth dad is German, not Irish, but he didn’t seem to “hear” me.

Last night’s episode of Life Unexpected got me thinking about how awful it feels to believe that you don’t fit in when you are in school, especially in middle school and high school. At this age, it is developmentally appropriate to want to belong to a group, and there are certainly many teens who don’t feel part of any group even without a history trauma or foster care to cause it. However, as Life Unexpected highlighted, feeling like you don’t “fit in” can be a big issue for foster children and/or children who have suffered from trauma.

As the character Lux (played by Brittany Robertson) shows us, growing up in foster care is a very different experience from the norm, and living such as different life experience can cause a child to feel isolated from other “normal” children. I experienced the same dynamic as a child who has suffered from child abuse. There was nothing “normal” about my experiences, and it caused me to feel isolated from my peers.

On Lisa’s blog entry entitled Disability Rates Among Adopted Children, John posted the following comment:

Faith had the experience of dealing with unexpected ADHD in an infant adoption. My kids came home with known problems from foster care, but they also had other problems that were either not known or not disclosed. It would be nice if there were a no disabilities guarantee service. Disabilities don't define the child, only the parenting that you will do. ~ John

John is correct that your must adapt your parenting to meet the needs of your adopted child, whether those needs are disabilities or anything else. Many people enter into parenting with a theory of what will be best for a theoretical child, but you have to parent the child that you adopted. Sometimes this means changing course – possibly multiple times – until you find what will meet the needs of your child. I have been going through this now with my adopted child.

Nicole … its meaning is "people of victory" - Think Baby Names

The baby name Nicole is of Greek origin and is the feminine form of the baby name Nicholas. The baby name can also be spelled Nichole.

The baby name Nicole first appeared on the charts in 1942 at #947. After 1955, the baby name skyrocketed up the charts, moving from #901 to the Top 100 in only 14 years. The baby name Nicole was a Top 10 name from 1979 through 1988 and just dropped out of the Top 100 in 2008, where it ranked at #106. See Popular Baby Names.