Its not uncommon in families that have adopted older kids to have a time of the year where all the crazy behaviors return or are exacerbated. It tends to coincide with either the times they have experienced the most negative transitions, or when they experienced the greatest trauma.  And unfortunately, its fairly common for that season to be right around the Christmas Holidays (when families are the most stressed).

Just last week, M and L began making some unexpected choices.  M was stealing stuff from school and day care.  L was getting into the pantry and stealing food (including our diet food, which is kinda nasty) – the amazing thing about this is that I still can’t figure out when he was doing this, as we keep the pantry locked most of the time.  M was telling incredibly complex lies – L started lying too, but couldn’t keep it up, so would fold under questioning much more quickly.  And L has been melting down much more frequently, usually over food related stuff.  Finally, we got an email from L’s teacher saying she’s noticed some changes.

Put it all together – the fact that BOTH of them are having a rough time, at the same time – and I think we’ve found our crazy season – the middle of November.  Makes sense.  Three of their moves happened in October and November.  And who knows what else they may have experienced at this time of year before they even entered the system.

Now, our job is to figure out how to help them get through this crazy season.  Stay tuned.