There is a poem that has been near to my heart for a while now. It was written by Dorothy Law Nolte and is titled Children Learn What They Live. It is quoted all over the Internet so I am not the only person who loves it.

You can read the poem at http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/Kristone.html. They received permission from the publisher to quote the entire poem.

The first year (after adopting my daughter was Ukraine) was very hard. It was stressful on both of us. My darling daughter had so many issues that I fell back on an old habit.

QUESTION: How do you eat the elephant?

ANSWER: One bite at a time.

So we took things, one step at a time.

My daughter just had so many issues. Examples... crossed eyes, no emotional palette, over all developmental delays, attachment issues, SID, major sleep problems, food issues. Emotionally she was like a zombie with 1 emotion; anger.... very strong anger.

And on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 represents "very strong willed"..... My daughter was and continues to be a 20.

I had adopted a 3.5 year old. But the reality... She was a jumble of different "ages". Emotionally she was around 1 year old. Language skills were around 18 months. Some physical skills were around 2 years of age. Cognitive abilities were around 2.5 to 3 years of age.

When I adopted my 3.5-year-old child, I didn't know exactly what jumble of "ages" her skills were at. The orphanage staff told me her diagnoses were squinty eyes (crossed eyes) and development delays. And the orphanage director told me that Natasha was very strong willed. And I assumed she had attachment issues because she so easily went to anyone.

So back to Dorothy's poem... I read it every Sunday because there was a poster a church with it. The poster was a reminder of how important modeling behavior is.

And this one sentence (below) from the poem reminded me that my daughter had a lot of bad behaviors modeled for her. She lived in a poor specialized (handicapped) orphanage for years.

If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.

She wasn't going to believe me that it was OK to stop fighting. She couldn't believe it was OK to trust me to take care of her. She needed some actions. She needed to see results.

In the orphanage she learned that whoever got to the toy/clothing/food first, had a shot at keeping it. I watched her groupa playing once. This was a group of 20 3-year old children in their socked feet. Their playroom was right next to their sleeping room. The playroom was empty with white walls. It was a "Lord of the Flies" environment. If you haven’t read the book, it means the children’ created their own society which was a harsh society.

These children were playing a game of tag. It was more like watching fish school in the ocean. First the group ran 1 person into the wall HARD. Then the group pushed another person into another wall. It was very strange to listen to... These children didn't make one noise. No shouts of joy or anger or pain. Even their noise from breathing seemed to be toned down. And they were very careful with their little feet. There was no stomping, but they were running.

This was the hostile world my darling had lived in. It was up to me to model a different world. And I had to be patient and keep modeling. The poem was my touchstone every Sunday.