Every year I dread Mother's Day. In fact if you look back you will see I have written a post similar to this before approximately one year ago. I thought about just posting the same one again but I thought I should be so much more mature after another year of parenting children with RAD my post would be better................uh oh........
Several things to remember if Mother's Day blows up:
1) Don't take it personally. Plan ahead on it being a tough day and then if it is good, well nice surprise! : )
2) I imagine to them it is like celebrating all their past abuse and trauma. Acknowledge that and let them know you understand they are hurting and reminded of their past by this day.
3)Where is birth mom now and why didn't she want me? There are a variety of ways our children were taken from their homes. There are birth mom's who give up the rights to their children out of love and hope for them. Many of our children were removed by the state because of abuse and neglect or abandoned by the roadside in a foreign country. I also wonder about birth mom and how she is doing on Mother's Day. Talk about that and possibly say a prayer together for her.
4)Take the focus off of the whole Mom thing and just do some fun activities at the park or watch a DVD together.
Ways to be proactive:
1) Don't make a huge deal out of the day if it is hard for your kids.
2) Plan a day away from home without the kids. You can even plan a day away by yourself if need be: shopping, at a spa, visiting a friend or go visit your mom.
3) Don't talk about Mother's Day far in advance. Wait until the day of, and then let other's bring it up.
4)Tell them up front: "I know today is a hard day for you (if they have demonstrated this in the past). It is OK. If you need to talk about it I'm here for you. I'm so glad I'm your mom and today I am just going to be happy about that and I'll take care of your hurting."
5) Focus on your own mom and mother-in-law! Make it about them.
Oh...and Happy Mother's Day. You are extraordinary.
5 comments:
So good of you to allow the focus to be on your children's pain and confusion, rather than just on Mom's.
I think another important aspect of all that is to find something that their birthmother's gave each of your children (in looks, personality, etc.) and make mention of how much they are loved for who they are. That way they will not be as tempted to completely deny that part of who they are, even through the pain of losing their biological family. It is still part of them and if it can honored and esteemed, it will translate into your children honor and esteeming themselves more.
Peach,
Very good advice. That is tough for us as we know NOTHING about birth mom other than her drug and alcohol problems and some of her poor choices. We have no photo, nothing. I so wish we did.
Anonymous "A" here - My 9 yo rarely ever mentions bio-mom. She lived with bio-dad until age 4 and talks about him a lot. Since this is our first mothers day together, I have no idea what this will be like. We have not mentioned it at all, and were planning to have a surprise dinner for me Saturday night (surprise to my daughter that is!) If she mentions bio-mom, I was planning to take her shopping Sunday afternoon to buy a rose bush to plant in bio-mom's honor. If she does not mention her, then we will probably just leave it alone. What do you think? Is this a workable plan?
Anonymous,
Since this is your first Mom's Day I would go on with the plans and hope for the best. If not, it is a learning experience for you to see where she is at with the issue. Enjoy your first Mother's Day! : )
Mother's Day is always an interesting day at our house! I will be out of town for the weekend this year, so we are having a Mother's Day celebration on Friday night. My little RAD girl picked a special dinner, and tonight we will go buy a cake. I informed her of this last night - that we are celebrating both her moms - me and biomom. That made her happy. She is already trying to plan what else she can do. She is also handling it surprisingly well, and doing a great job of keeping herself under control, and asking permission on various things regarding the evening.
Tomorrow, we will also take time for her to write a letter to her biomom. A few weeks back we wrote her a letter and let go of a balloon with her feelings for biomom. I think we might do the balloon again at our celebration, she really loved that.
Anyways, I'm cautiously optimistic for the evening, but always know it could backfire big time!
Good luck to all the RAD families this Mother's Day! And no matter what the kids say, you're fabulous! :)
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