Relationship, not Behavior

I received this email. I've changed the names and I'm sharing it with permission. I am sharing it not because I think I'm wonderful, but because maybe if we all parent a little more like this we'll be glad we did.

It’s been a while since we spoke, but I wanted to share a story with you that I think will warm your heart an make you give yourself a big hug. It’s kind of long, but I think you need the full context.

I was in Ontario twice this fall, in September and October doing training and parent advocacy organizing, both times with a very good friend who is one of the smartest non-adoptive-parent people I know when it comes to adoption issues).

The September trip was fun and pretty easy, but the October one was very emotional for me. I had just returned from 10 days in Italy on a business trip with my husband and was very worried about our youngest son, Mark, 19 who was spiraling out of control. We knew he’d been smoking and doing some prescription drugs off and on, wasn’t showing up at work, just falling apart.

The friend I was with happened to have some of your flyers in her car. I picked one up and started going on about how funny and smart you are, then started reading the flyer, being struck by the “12 tips for parents” -- especially #3 – focus on the attachment, not the behavior. I came home with a renewed confidence in my gut feeling that his adoption, attachment and racial and emotional identity were behind all the behaviors and convinced my husband that we had to change our focus. We had to make it impossible for him not to want to be around us by making his environment warm and welcoming and by consistently being loving and concerned for him, rather than angry and reproachful for all his f-ups.

On November 5 I found him in the driveway, in his car, sobbing, and was led to believe he was drunk and had broken up with his girlfriend. Instead of yelling, I told him I was worried that he could have hurt himself driving like that, asked how I could help, told him I loved him, and sent him to bed. His last words to me that night were “I appreciate it.”

Pre-Claudia-inspired, I would have gotten up the next day and left him sleeping until 9:30, when I would have started waking him up, nagging that he’d be late for work again and to get out of bed. Instead, Buddy and I went to bed worried about him and went in to check on him before leaving to drive Buddy to work at 7:30. I found him in bed, unresponsive, not breathing, in a coma. It turns out that my worries about him in October were well-founded – he had started experimenting with heroin – and on the night of the 4th he had allowed another boy to shoot him up multiple times. He had overdosed on heroin during the night and aspirated vomit, suffering a serious anoxic brain injury.

For several days the docs and nurses tried to prepare us for his death or severely impaired (physically and mentally) future. It’s been just over 4 weeks now and Mark was discharged from the rehabilitation hospital, last Friday – weeks or months ahead of anyone’s best predictions. He’s walking, talking, thinking, laughing and... Loving in a way that he was not able to before. He doesn’t remember much about his ten days in intensive care, but knows we were there around the clock with him. He has more recovery to go and is connected to a community rehabilitation program for OT, PT, speech; then on to sub abuse program, but for sure will be making a complete or almost complete recovery. I am convinced that without our shift in thinking and relationship with him he would be dead now. Instead he knows, without a doubt, that our love for him is unconditional.

Thank you for your unknown inspiration. Have a wonderful holiday with your family.

While getting an email like this was very encouraging to me, knowing that I had made a difference in a families life, I pass it on to encourage all of us, no matter how hard it is, to remember that relationship comes before behavior. Always.