The thing about parenting advice is it’s usually just tailored to whatever worked for some random person’s kids. What if you (as my wife and I have) adopted 4 k

The thing about parenting advice is it’s usually just tailored to whatever worked for some random person’s kids. What if you (as my wife and I have) adopted 4 kids over the course of 8 years, all with FASD who are all insane in different ways? We have had to learn 4 radically different approaches to parenting. Our key has been understanding the needs (emotional, mental health, etc.) of each child and accommodating those needs. I think this translates to normal parents and their biological children, though maybe the needs aren’t so severe. Some specific ways this has played out for us: - for our kid who needs to understand “why” she can’t do what she wants or else has a panic attack, we have had to spend an inordinate amount of time explaining our philosophy of parenting. Sometimes this means “opening her eyes” with some information that is probably a bit mature for the typical kid her age, but for her that’s outweighed by understanding our good intentions for her better. - for the super needy one who stuffs her emotions and ends up having migraines and puking everywhere when she’s not doing well, this meant spending a lot of money on a mental health specialist to figure out her exact needs, experimenting with basically all aspects of her life and tuning things over time. We spend about half an hour with this one every evening just talking about her feelings, making her feel heard and nothing else. - kid #3 has the most severe case of FASD but is probably the most emotionally healthy of the bunch. For him we just have to accommodate his education and development in a way that keeps him confident and develop some “key words” when we want him to adjust his behavior. E.g. when I need him to stop joking around, which is all the time (haha), I tell him to “lock it up,” and he knows what that means. - #4 had 4 other homes before coming to us, so he has always had abandonment issues. He doesn’t remember any of it, but it’s part of him. As a result he tends to want to be more self-reliant and he doesn’t deal with big changes very well. When we still needed outside help he would have difficulty anytime we changed nannies. For him this meant we just really needed to reinforce his concept of family, remind him we won’t ever leave, etc. And then also let him do things for himself since that’s where his confidence comes from. Those are just some examples. And as kids grow their needs change. In my experience parenting is not a set of steps or a magic formula. It is time invested in knowing your children’s needs (whatever those are) and helping them reach their full potential (whatever that is). It’s trial and error. It’s sacrifice.