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Unresolved fear drives severe behavior in traumatized children.

Severe behavior, in turn, can trigger unresolved fear in parents.

Awareness and skills can benefit children and parents alike—whether adoptive, foster, or biologic parents.

Children who've experienced adversity, especially in the earliest months and years of life, often manifest troubling behaviors arising from their pain—including rage and aggression against adoptive parents (especially the mother), defiance, and shunning of parental affection. Many well-meaning adoptive parents are shocked to find that their children can trigger strong feelings of rage and inadequacy. The dynamics of adoptive relationships reveal insights that might benefit many other parents.

In a study by Forbes and Dziegielewski of adoptive mothers of children with special needs—mothers who were distressed enough to seek therapy—77 percent indicated that since adopting, they experienced more rage and anger than ever before. Many mothers were shocked to feel desires to seriously hurt their children or themselves. Many mothers reported stress-related physical and mental health problems, exhaustion, changes in self-image, and marital strains.

In Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control, authors Forbes and Post offer helpful tips. They explain that children’s severe behaviors, as well as parents’ strong reactions to the behaviors, spring from strong, unresolved fears. When stress and emotions are beyond the window of tolerance, the general guidelines are to first calm the parent and child until the brain’s reasoning regions re-engage, connect with the child, and then correct.

Don’t Fear Your Past—or Your Pain

The unnerving behaviors of troubled children can stir memories of our own inadequacy or shame—dark places we weren’t consciously aware of, places that we protect with anger. These old troubling memories, once activated,........

© Psychology Today