Them's Fightin' Words

Josh McDowell says, "Rules without relationship lead to rebellion."

Of course, it makes perfect sense.

How then, do you enforce any appropriate standard of conduct and behavior for older, unattached children who absolutely refuse relationships? These are children who curse, scream, cry, throw, slam, and break things if you even imply some kind of close connection to them. They think any time they are corrected we are "yelling at them". They shout their hate and cry abuse any time they are made to follow rules they don't like.

While the girls and little boys readily use family words like "sister", "brother", "cousin", "aunt" and sometimes even "mom" for their foster/adoptive family (us), the bigger boys bristle at the very idea. It's as if they feel disloyal to their original family if they allow anyone else in. That's fine. The labels don't matter so much. We let them call us by our first names, but we still use the word "family" to describe the whole, disorderly bunch of us.

They particularly detest The Boss (which is a common thread among our most troubled kids and even our more normal kids often resent him too) since he has been here since birth and is viewed as favored and spoiled because of it. Interestingly, they often ask if he knows he's adopted (yes) and for a while Drama Boy was making an issue that I was not REALLY his mom and where is his REAL mom and are you going to even tell him you're not his REAL mom? Whatever. I'm not that insecure, buddy, but nice try.

An issue today with The Boss knocking over the boys' clean laundry which had been folded and piled high outside their door for a few days, exploded into Drama Boy yelling at him then crying and wailing that they "always get in trouble and no one else does" and Sparky running around in his boxers shrieking and shouting, which was his show of moral support for Drama Boy (as DB said, "We stick up for each other").

Their view continues to be "them against us" and they rebel against anything and everyone else.