The Good, The Bad And The Frustrating

I've posted many times over the past couple of years. I always feel this is a safe place to share my feelings. Parenting adopted kids is SO MUCH different from parenting biological kids; only other adoptive parents would understand.
Update on my family- I now have 5 kids; ages 14.5 to 11 (2- bio, 3- adopted). Our youngest was adopted from China almost 3 years ago at the age of 9. We also brought home a son and daughter (12 and 14) from Ethiopia October 2009.
My 2 newest children are doing amazingly well adjusting to life in our family/America. They are even doing well in public school. Not that we don't deal with some boundary issues from time to time and not that I'm naive enough to believe it's always going to be this smooth with them, but I am so amazed at how they are doing. I truly believe, with all my heart, that these 2 kids were meant to be in our family. I've never had the feeling that I have strangers living in my home or wake up wondering when they are going home (though I must admit private mom-time is pretty non-existent with 5 adolescents in the house ).
As I had expected though, we are all struggling a bit at times with all the changes in the family and I know it will take time to balance things out. But I keep communications open; especially for my bio-kids. I encourage them to share their feelings with me and my DH- the good and the bad.
My frustration is with my youngest son from China.... and I feel guilty admitting that I really don't like him very much right now. It's very difficult to want to be around him- he lies (about the stupidest things), whines constantly, never tries or puts any effort if something is remotely difficult. I even find him making his siblings mad or frustrated. Right now, I feel such a weight lifted when he goes to school and (sadly) dread when he comes home because I know he'll start the whining. When the whining starts, I feel like someone just put 50 pounds on my shoulders. We've also had lots of regression with him; to the point where he's messing in his pants and wants me to dress him for school each day. The frustrating part is that he doesn't do this at school. The teachers at school tell me he's very responsible and always tries hard. What gives?! Can this be the same kid?I did expect that we would probably see some regression in him, but emotionally I guess I wasn't prepared for this.
Despite me not liking him much right now, there are times when I do enjoy him. Especially when it's just the two of us doing something like reading a book together. And... I do feel that I love him as I find myself worrying about him or being the mother bear protecting him.
Anyway... don't know that I'm really asking for advice; just felt the need to get this off my chest. I am seeing a counselor and have shared my frustrations with him; that helps.
Thanks!

Concerns About Attaching/bonding With Older Kids

I will give you a quick synopsis of our situation. We adopted a brother(13)/sister(14) pair from Ethiopia; they've been home with us for a little over 2 weeks now. My original plan was to homeschool them for the first 6 or 9 months to work on relationships within the family with myself and my other 3 kids at home. We did this with our other adopted child from China and it helped. Before they arrived in the US, they had been asking me when they will go to school. We tried homeschooling the first week and it just didn't work. It was very apparent that they needed a very structured situation; the structure that a public school offered them. This is what they were used to at the orphanage. I knew they really weren't happy and just wandered around the house looking for things to do.
This brings me to my concern... I put them in public school last week. They come home everyday, happy and excited to tell me about their day. The counselor and ELL teacher at school have worked really hard to insure the transition be as smooth as possible. My concern is that they begin to attach/bond with the ELL teacher or another staff member who is there to help them through the tough things at school. When they have a problem (can't get the locker open, get hurt in PE, can't find the classroom,etc), it's the ELL teacher they seek out; she is the one that is helping them and is there for them... not me. Maybe I'm being paranoid, maybe I'm being concerned about something that I really shouldn't be concerned with, maybe this really isn't a problem, maybe I should have waited to put them in school.... but these are my honest feelings. And I really don't think they would be happy homeschooling. It was odd for them to see me as their teacher; they see me only a mom. I don't want to do anything to jeaopardize my relationship with them.
Thanks for 'listening' and I look forward to hearing what others have to say.

We Just Can't Seem To Get Through To Him

First the background- we adopted our son (international) when he was 9; he will be home with us two years this September. We have 2 bio kids (14 and 11.5). Our son seems to have bonded/attached well to us and we have seen some amazing things regarding the relationship between our bio son (11.5) and our adopted son (11).
Having said all that, we also seem to be struggling with some issues as our son has been with us longer/we've passed the honeymoon stage. We definitely see a test of wills coming out of him. Anything that is even remotely difficult for him, he just shuts down and refuses to do it. Just trying to get him to sound out an easy word (and he knows all his sounds); he shuts down. We encourage him, remind him of all the things he's accomplished, etc.... he still stands firm in his refusal. That was one of the issues we had with the school; they were doing everything for him rather than challenging him to try. I always got the "poor orphan boy" explanation from the teachers/staff. Yes, it is sad, but lets get him what he needs to be successful.
I will be homeschooling all of our kids this year... and to be honest, I forsee a year of him challenging me with his test of wills. Despite the anticipated struggles, my husband and I felt it was more important to work on the relationship with him instead of him being the only child of ours going to public school. How do I encourage him? From what he tells me about his experience in China and what I see here, I don't think anyone encouraged him to push through the things that seem a little difficult.
Then there's the lying- about anything/everything. We've talked to him about it and even REALLY praised him when he tells the truth (no matter how small). I know this was his survival mechanism for almost 10 years, but how do we help him to understand it is safe here? It seems like anything we try is pointless. He never seems to care about anything (I'm certain is how he survived for so long). So getting through to him is difficult.

Thanks for any/all advice.

Ia Kids In The Public School

Okay... my saga continues. I'm continuing to get resistance from the public school regarding understanding/testing of internationally adopted (IA) kids. I truly believe, from the comments that are made, that there is a definite lack of understanding of the needs of an IA child. Does anyone know of an advocate/organization that deals with this area? Thanks

Frustrated With School Meeting

I met with my son's teacher a few weeks ago to once again address some concerns we have regarding learning disabilities/difficulties and to , once again, push for testing. Surprisingly, she actually agreed with some of my observations regarding learning, cognitive abilities and attention. She agreed to talk with the school psych and get our son on the agenda to be discussed by the team. So, finally, we have a meeting with the team! My husband and I were excited to think we were going to get some resolution to some of our questions.
That bubble was burst after about fifteen minutes into the meeting. It started with half of the team members discussing how much the loved our son, what a great kid he is, how impressed they are with him, etc. I am very happy to know he is well loved and we love him and think he's a great kid too, but that's not what the meeting was about. Every concern we brought up in the conversation was quickly negated. We were "educated" on what adopted kids were about, like we haven't educated ourselves before the adoption as well as continuing to learn. The school psych even questioned us as to why our son has only freely been showing affection to us over the past 4-6 months when he's been living with us for 1.5 years. Personally, I'm very happy about the progress we've made with our son in this area; he's come a LONG way. We were also questioned as to maybe our son is fearful of us and what we might do if he doesn't attain perfection. We are perfectly aware of the fear/anxiety adopted children feel and work very hard on helping him in this area. Obviously, the school psych is not adequately educated in the area of adoption. The school psych and team were very resistant to testing him until next year. The school psych (who would administer the testing) said that even if we demanded our son be tested, he would only give the non-verbal tests as the other tests were inappropriate. He also said that even after the results of the test, he wouldn't change anything about what is currently being done with his pull-out classes. And, on top of it all, the teacher denied ever agreeing with me on our concerns.
Needless to say, we left the meeting very frustrated and discouraged.

Thank you all for listening. I would love to know how others have dealt with these issues.