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My long-time friend Pat Johnston left an interesting comment in response to my genetics/environment/choices blogs. She discussed “goodness of fit” and encouraged me to read a newly released book Nurturing the Nature: Understanding and Supporting Your Child’s Unique Core Personality by Michael Gurian.
First off, I would love to read that book. Trouble is I haven’t had a moment to read a book in eons. By the time I shut down my life at night there are not enough grey cells left to process anything even remotely deep. And reading during the day is a pipe dream. But it sounds like a great read… (Side bar here… the last book I read was An Unlit Path and it was only after it had been in my possession for months and only after I read other bloggers on adoption.com rave about it… AND only after I started it on a road trip reading with a penlight when I could do nothing else with my time!)
Secondly… I completely get the “goodness of fit” and I believe in it as well. (I blogged about it here.) There is no doubt in my mind that some placements clash because the parents and child are not a good psychological fit. BUT, having said that… my friends and I have had numerous conversations about whether or not Amy might have “come out differently” in a different family. Someone once said her landing in my family was like “getting dropped into the middle of the Kennedys!” While I cringe at the particular family clan to which we were compared… I get the drift. The Kennedys are a fast moving, confident and motivated group of individuals.
The consensus among my friends and within my family is that Amy would be Amy in whatever family she joined. (And we have birthfamily info that supports that conclusion.) Perhaps had she landed in a family with far less expectations, the parents would have had a far easier time than my husband and I did. But would Amy have accomplished more if less had been expected? I don’t think so. If anything, I think if left alone, she would have done less. Perhaps some will say that living up to our expectations shut her down, but I don’t think so. We successfully lowered our expectations to bathe, smile occasionally, and move… and we were still often disappointed. (That comment sounds more snide and cynical than I intend for it to be… it just is how I see it… Is it wrong to be disappointed that your child struggles with those basic aspects of life?)
I was more than willing to “understand my child’s unique core personality.” And I will try and read this book… I’m not giving my friend Pat a cynical, snide response to her suggestion. I do believe the dance between parent and child is real and has much to do with family dynamics. But I also think that for a parent to dance with a child there has to be something within that child that is willing to dance as well. If the parent wants to Tango and the child wants to Cha-Cha, maybe they should learn the Charleston together. But if the parent wants just to dance (any kind of dance) and the child wants just to sit and pout… that’s another dance entirely.
Here’s an article on Goodness of Fit.
I agree with you, Nancy. Our son is faithfully taking medication that is supposed to lower his anxiety (it has) and another medication to help with his obsessive thoughts (it has) but he is now confronted with the issue of: does he want anything? He’s happy to take anything without having to work for it and has magical thinking that he can be an engineer like his dad/my husband and yet at age 13 he is still working on single number addition, just like he was four years ago. We know he could do it, but he just doesn’t seem to want to. Do I think he’d be different in another family? Well, I think it might be different not being adopted with his highly energetic and motivated younger sister in whose wake he seems to be content to follow in, but this is a pattern that at some level has worked for him. He wants nothing. From a talk I went to, he would be “unmanageable” from the choices of “coachable”, “manageable” and “unmanageable”. Why should he try if he wants nothing? While I understand personality fit to a degree, I think attachment is much more huge. Would I have become friends with some of the people in my family? No way! But I am attached to them and wouldn’t give them up for the world.
Well, I agree for the most part, too. But the thing is that when the “fit” is good, the expectations are so narrowed that the “clashes” aren’t as numerous or as painful for either partner in the dance.
And I would surmise that the other benefit of “goodness of fit” with a child like Amy and a parent like you, Nance, is that the parent with a personality like Amy’s just wouldn’t take her so PERSONALLY. Amy’s behavior is just not about YOU, it’s about AMY, and I hate o see my friend continue to feel it like daggers to the heart!
I know you are right, Pat. I really, really do get that INTELLECTUALLY. I am still way behind in getting that emotionally. I know what I need to do, I just can’t seem to get there yet. I wish I could. But I’m workin’ on it. Writing about it helps me process it. She hasn’t been out of the home that long. I am adjusting to the “new rules.”
I do appreciate your input!
I am already practicing the solo dance along side of my daughter. She is simply not intereted in having a partner. I used to be. I’m trying to refocus and internalize the fact that her issues are her issues. She has to have a desire to move forward. I can’t coax, plead, hope or dream for her. It’s so difficult to let go, but I have to for my own sanity.
The only match that could have made sense in my mind was that of mob scene in the household where she could get lost and not be noticed for her lack of ambition, etc. Our household is not like that. We embraced her and she can’t stand that. Her dance will be frantic, erratic and exhausting. I’m trying out the waltz. Wish me luck.
I would venture to say that millions of bio parents feel the same way about their children. I just spent a few days with my nephew, about to graduate in the top 5% of his class from high school (amazingly) who has no ambition for anything–friends, driving, working, career.