Beyond Consequences Institute Newsletter

Q: My 14 year old daughter was adopted at 8 months from Russia. She suffered severe neglect and was still in the hospital at that time and weighed 9 pounds at 8 months. At 12 years old, she started her menstrual but has not been able to manage her self-care in this area in terms of using pads or any other related of hygiene products. We are at the point where I have to have her show me that she has a pad in but I have to periodically check because she will go in another room and take it off. Consequently, she soils undergarments, clothing, and places where she sits. We continue to work, thankfully, with the BCI model, and it has brought her along quite well in many areas; however, I am stumped on this one. Do you have any suggestions or ideas for a way to approach this?

A: Your daughter has quite a traumatic history! Nine pounds at 8 months old is a child who was scheduled to die. Amazing. I mention this because we can't ever minimize the impact this is having on her development. She is emotionally too immature to be able to handle her menstrual cycle and many times children resist growing up because they inherently know they need to capture pieces of their childhood before moving forward. I have two suggestions.

First, connect with her about not wanting to grow up. I would suggest rocking her and holding her. She may need to regress in order to be able to move forward in her development. Talk to her about how you missed being able to care for her when she was a baby. Apologize for not being able to be there and let your heart sink into how you really would have given your life to prevent this from happening to her. Tell her you want to do everything now to make sure she gets what she missed with you. If you're married, have dad do the same. Rock her and reconnect with her. You all have been stressed with this menstrual cycle issue. The resistance to growing up can also be a fear of having to be responsible as an adult. This can be so overwhelming for children. Let her know that she can stay with you for as long as she needs to. If she has the idea that at 18 she is on her own (that is only 4 years away), this may be triggering the resistance. Tell her she can live with you forever (yes, this may bring up your own fears, but she won't really need to do this).

Second, avoid the issue of changing her pad from a cognitive framework. Just do it for her right now. Getting her to show you is too threatening and controlling for what she can handle. Your approach would be similar to changing a baby's diaper. You can say, "I realize this whole changing your pad thing is way too much, sweetheart. How about I just do it with you. Let me handle it." Take responsibility for her and when the stress is removed, she'll soon be able to do it on her own. This takes a big commitment on your part to keep up with it. Just remember that it is like asking a baby to change her own diaper. Impossible.

I would suspect that this issue with her menstrual cycle is not isolated and that she becomes easily overwhelmed in all parts of her life. The more you can do to reduce the amount of stress in all areas of her life, the more she will have the space to mature and develop. Trust that by reducing her load of responsibility and helpling her at this point, she will progress and develop a greater capacity within herself to be able to handle these types of issues on her own in the future. We all have to learn how to crawl before we can walk and for some of us, especially your daughter, it will be a slower path due to her intense history of trauma.

Love never fails!

Press on,


	Below is from an E-mail I received in response to last month's eNewsletter on children running away from home. It speaks volumes to the power of love, understanding, humility, and a single phone call: "I just wanted to comment on your article about running away and welcoming your child back, instead of meeting them with anger When I was a teen, I ran away three times. There was a lot of anger, restriction, and probably some physical violence that precipitated my leaving. I don't know what happened the first two times when I came back, but I do know that the third time, I was bound and determined not to come back. I was going to make it on my own, and I had made up my mind to be strong and go forward. I had had enough. What I do remember is my dad calling me and asking me to come home. He said they were having pork or lamb chops for dinner and that he was sorry and wanted me to come home. Because of that phone call, I came home. The man who was such a bully, for once realized his mistake and humbled himself. That made all the difference. We still have a relationship some 37 years later because of that phone call. I wanted you to know that your article was right on. Kids don't want to run away. They want to be loved and respected."