My boss (as well as some friends and family) didn’t understand the damage caused by institutionalization. He didn’t realize there was a difference between a child (A) born in a family with plenty of resources and a child (Z) who lived in an institutional environment. He thought that love would cure all ills.

I would tell him a story about my darling daughter hitting another child. He would quickly tell me that his children did it too. I think he was just trying to reassure me because I was a first time parent. But he was so busy supplying advice that he forgot to listen to me. It was annoying.

There are 3 basic differences between child A and child Z.


· The child's motivation for the behavior
· The intensity of the child's behavior
· Disciplining the child


Reading about Maslow's hierarchy of needs really helped me understand my daughter's needs.

Here is Maslow's hierarchy. Until you satisfied the first need, you cannot move forward to the next need.

1) Physiological (food, water, basic survival needs)
2) Safety
3) Love/Belonging
4) Esteem
5) Self-actualization

I quickly noticed that love is number 3. Until my daughter felt her physiological and safety needs were taken care of, she wasn't going to deal with love. She wasn’t going to attach to me.

Before I could start to discipline my child, I had to understand her motivation. My child would hit, but she was protecting herself. No one had ever kept her safe before. She wanted food, she would beg for it or take it. She wanted a toy; she would grab the toy from another child. She took what she wanted.

Have you every noticed that your crisis isn’t always perceived by someone else as a crisis. Well we do this same thing to children. Oh, a broken cracker isn’t a big deal, no need to cry.

Wrong......... A crisis is a crisis. Pain is pain. My daughter could be very intense and this was my clue to pay careful attention.

When I brought my daughter home from Ukraine at 3.5 years of age, she was deathly afraid of making mistakes. She would have major meltdown over spilling water or tripping and falling down.

So for discipline we would role-play "making mistakes" and "dealing with mistakes".

By the way discipline comes from Latin. It means teach or instruct. It doesn’t mean punish.