Most parents probably wouldn't describe an evening that included repeatedly and rudely disrupting complete strangers during a dinner play, constant redirection, and a running commentary about everything that wasn't perfect enough, as "a good night" with their child.
But I did.
Last night, I took Natalia to see Matilda the musical. It's a book and movie that her and I both love. A nostalgic story from my childhood that I enjoyed time after time.
Objectively, it really was a nice evening.
We laughed. We spent time together. We shared an experience and made a happy memory.
Yet woven throughout the night were the behaviors that have become so familiar to our family and none that were surprising to me.
Years ago, I would have driven home discouraged. Instead, I drove home thankful. Because compared to what our daily life often looks like...
It was a good night.
If you've never lived with a child who has severe developmental trauma and Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), that probably makes no sense.
But if you have, you probably understand exactly what I mean.
I have more recently been asked on multiple occasions, "Why don't you hardly ever post anything about Natalia? Why are there so many fewer pictures of her than of the boys?"
Or statements such as "She seems like the easiest one of the bunch!"
I understand why people think that. Social media only shows snapshots. It doesn't show what happens before the picture...Or after it.
The truth is...
She is probably the hardest thing our family has ever walked through.
And that is incredibly difficult to say out loud because with that vulnerable truth comes shame I feel blanketed in daily. Let me explain...
Most people believe that once a child is rescued from abuse and neglect and placed into a safe, loving home, healing naturally begins. That love, consistency, therapy and time, should eventually make everything okay. I used to believe that too. Challenging maybe for a while, but simple.
What is that age old adage..."time heals all wounds?" I wish it were true. But some wounds happen before a child has the words to describe them. Some wounds become wired into the way their developing brain understands safety, relationships, and trust.
For some children with severe developmental trauma and Reactive Attachment Disorder, physical safety does not automatically become emotional safety. When the very people who were supposed to protect you became the source of your fear, your brain learns that closeness itself is dangerous. So when healthy parents offer love, nurture, comfort, connection...those things can actually feel threatening instead of safe.
Children with RAD aren't simply "acting out." Many of the behaviors are survival strategies that once kept her physically and emotionally alive.
Understanding that has changed how we see our daughter. But understanding where the behaviors come from doesn't erase the impact they have on everyone living with her.
Very few, if any, fully understand what it is like to live in our home. The honest answer is... it's utterly exhausting.
It's cameras in nearly every room of the house recording 24/7.
Alarms on doors and windows.
Locks on bedroom doors.
Locks on the food pantry, freezer and fridge.
It's counting food because we've learned that a full pantry in the morning can be nearly empty by afternoon.
It's finding food hidden in bedrooms.
The gorging.
The hoarding.
The wrappers hidden under mattresses, tucked into drawers, stuffed behind furniture.
It's wondering every day what personal, valuable or sentimental items have disappeared or were destroyed...Or whose room was entered while they were gone.
It's daily emotional explosions over what most people would consider small disappointments.
It's constantly asking yourself..."Is this true?"
Not because you want to doubt your child. But because years of relentless lying slowly erode trust.
You begin questioning everything.
Every story.
Every accusation.
Every explanation.
Every tear.
Not because we've stopped loving her...
But because we've learned that reality inside trauma can become incredibly distorted.
Take it from any of us, living this way changes you.You don't relax anymore. You don't fully let your guard down. You don't leave your purse sitting out. You don't assume everyone is safe just because the house is quiet. You sleep lighter. You listen harder. You anticipate problems before they happen because if you don't...you're usually too late.
People talk about hypervigilance in children who have experienced trauma.They rarely talk about what happens to the parents now raising them. Eventually...the trauma begins living inside us too.
There are days I feel more like the security officer of our home than a mom. And if I'm being completely real, there are days I feel like a prisoner inside the home that was supposed to be our family's safe place. Our haven when the world outside is too chaotic and loud. A lot of days, sitting in my car in my driveway feels more safe and comforting than entering the door of my home.
One of the hardest realities is that the primary caregiver—most often Mom—frequently becomes the target. Trauma specialists sometimes call the primary caregiver the "loving threat." The safer and more nurturing you become, the more threatening that closeness can feel to a child whose earliest experiences taught them adults couldn't be trusted.
That means the person trying hardest to help often experiences the worst behaviors. Sometimes even Brent doesn't witness the full extent of what I experience because children with attachment trauma often behave very differently with different caregivers.That alone has created enormous strain on our marriage.
Then there are the siblings.
Our other 5 children have had treasured belongings stolen. Special gifts destroyed. Their bedrooms entered. Their privacy violated.Their peace interrupted. Their childhood changed. They've learned to lock doors. Hide the things they love. Protect themselves. They've had birthdays interrupted. Vacations derailed. Family outings overshadowed. Moments that should have become treasured memories transformed into disappointment and crisis management.
As parents, we spend every day trying to protect the child carrying the trauma while simultaneously protecting the children living beside that trauma. It's a balancing act that seems unachievable a lot of times.
And then there's Bryce. Many of you know Bryce's story. Bryce survived catastrophic physical abuse as an infant. He cannot verbalize and tell us what happens. He cannot defend himself the way most children can. He depends on the adults around him to be his voice and his protection. That reality changes everything. There have been times when we've caught Natalia waiting until she could get Bryce alone and taking out her frustration on the one person least able to defend himself. We've also caught situations where she intentionally provoked him until he reacted—biting, pinching, or pulling hair. If we hadn't witnessed what happened beforehand, it would have appeared that Bryce was simply the aggressor. It's pretty terrifying because Bryce cannot tell us his side of the story. So we don't have the luxury of letting our guard down.
We always know where Bryce is. We always know where she is. We think about who has access to whom. We intervene before situations have the opportunity to escalate. One of my greatest fears is allowing Bryce, who already survived unimaginable abuse once, to experience fear or victimization again.
Our job has never been choosing between our children. Our job has been trying to protect all six of them at the same time. Some days that feels impossible.
The struggles don't end when she leaves our home.
School has been incredibly difficult.
Phone calls.
Meetings.
Suspensions.
Harassment of peers.
School security involvement.
Each incident leaves us wondering if tomorrow will finally be different.
Perhaps the most confusing part for people on the outside is this:
She can be incredibly charming.
Funny.
Bright.
Charismatic.
Engaging.
She can make complete strangers smile.
She can be affectionate.
Thoughtful.
Endearing.
People are naturally drawn to her.
Then, almost without warning, everything changes.
The child who was laughing with you moments earlier can become argumentative, controlling, explosive, or emotionally detached. That unpredictability makes life incredibly difficult to explain. It's also one of the reasons families like ours are so often misunderstood.
People often ask..."what about consequences? How are you disciplining her? Why isn't it working? What could you do differently?"
The truth is, discipline usually depends on something many of us take for granted.
Remorse.
Regret.
Empathy.
Guilt.
When those emotions have been profoundly disrupted by early trauma, traditional parenting loses much of its effectiveness.
How do you discipline behavior when hurting someone doesn't produce remorse in the offender?
How do you teach empathy to a child whose earliest experiences taught them survival mattered more than relationships?
It's heartbreaking.
The hardest truth for our family to accept is this...
She lived with her biological family for ONE year.
She has been with us for EIGHT.
Eight years of love. Eight years of consistency.
Eight years of birthdays, Christmas mornings, family vacations, prayers, therapy, hope, tears, advocating vehemently for specialized help/care.... Eight years of refusing to give up.
And yet...
The trauma from that first year of her life still has a stronger grip on her than the eight years that followed.
It's incredibly difficult to wrap my mind around. And quite frankly...
After years of the exhaustion, heartbreak, destruction, and grief this journey has brought to our family...
It's sometimes hard to wrap my heart around too.
I love her. I do. I've learned in all of this that sometimes love shows up as only a verb because the feeling itself is hard to find in the constant chaos and predictable unpredictableness. In my own confusing battles, trying to define "love" in various relationships throughout my life... I've made peace in this one, realizing that, love as a verb is just as fierce and just as important as love FELT deeply. It's allowed me to lay down guilt as a mom that isn't mine to carry and to lay down defeat that isn't actually what it seems to be.
Every foster/adoptive parent I've met wants to believe that if they just
Love enough...
Sacrifice enough...
Pray enough...
Stay consistent enough...
...love will eventually undo what someone else broke.
Accepting that we still haven't been able to heal what happened during the first year of her life is a grief I don't know how to describe.
You grieve the childhood she deserved. You grieve the daughter you know is buried beneath layers of fear and survival. You grieve the relationships trauma has stolen from your family. And you grieve because despite everything you've poured into helping her heal...you're forced to accept that some wounds are deeper than your love alone can reach.
That doesn't mean we stop loving her. It doesn't mean we stop fighting for her. It simply means we've had to accept one of the most painful realities of developmental trauma in our journey of foster care and adoption. Parents cannot love someone else's trauma away.
We've had people say...
"Love her harder." "Be more consistent." "Have you tried...A-Z?"
The truth is...We have. For years. We've loved harder than I knew was humanly possible. We've changed our parenting. We've changed our lifestyle. We've attended therapy...we still do...every single week. We've read the books. We've gone through specialized trainings. We've found specialists. We've prayed. We've cried. We've exhaustively questioned ourselves. We've fought for our marriage. We've fought for our other children. And we've fought for her.
This post isn't asking for sympathy. It isn't asking anyone to feel sorry for us. It's asking for something much simpler.
Understanding.
Because if we tell the truth, people think we're giving up on our daughter. If we stay quiet, people assume everything is fine. If we protect our other children, people think we're excluding one. If we include everyone, our other children often pay the price. It's a no-win situation that very few people will ever have to imagine.
The guilt is relentless.
I look at my relationships with our other five children, and they feel so natural. Easy. Mutually joyful. Safe.
Then I look at my relationship with her, and I grieve what isn't there. Not because I love her less. But because trauma has stolen something from the both of us.
I know the relationship she deserved. I know the mother I wanted to be for her...the mother I hoped could "fix" her. The kind of mother that exists so effortlessly with my other 5 children but that feels like an unreachable fairytale dream with her. And every day I mourn the fact that, despite eight years together, we're still fighting a battle that began long before she ever knew our names.
Please hear this above everything else...
Our daughter is not unlovable. She is deeply wounded. She is worthy of love. She belongs in our family. And we will never stop fighting for her or her needs.
But we will also continue fighting for our marriage. For our other children. For peace inside our home. For safety and for healing. Because every one of our children matters. And so do we.
So if you've ever wondered why our family looks different...
Why you don't see as many pictures or hear as many stories of a particular one.
Why I celebrate what seems like tiny victories...
Or why I very often look as exhausted as I feel...
Now you know a little more of our story that I've never elaborated on before. It's never felt inspirational or beautiful. It's messier than I care to be associated with in any form or fashion. It's confusing, chaotic and peppered with dysfunction and defeat. Often disappointing, no matter the genuine efforts made.
Behind every child with profound developmental trauma is often an entire family quietly carrying wounds of their own.
Sometimes the greatest gift you can give families like ours isn't another parenting tip. It isn't another opinion. It isn't another judgment.
It's simply believing them.
Because every smiling family photo tells only a fraction of the story.
And sometimes, a night that looks ordinary to everyone else, feels like a miracle to us.
