When Ben was 4 years old and had only been home with us for about 2 months, he decided that he didn't want to leave the park where we were playing. I told him twice that it was time to leave, and he decided to ignore my request. Since he chose to ignore me, I did what I had done many times before with my other children...I said, "I'm leaving...goodbye", and turned around and walked away.

With my four older children who came to me by birth, it generally always worked and they would decide to come with me after all. It never seemed to induce feelings of insecurity or terror at all; "goodbye" just meant that Mom really was leaving, so you better grab your shoes out of the sandbox and come. Not a one ever tested me completely to see if I really would leave them, but Taylor did test me up to the point once where I got in the car and turned on the engine before he decided that it was a good idea to come after all.

Having since studied Love and Logic parenting, telling a child that I was leaving him if I really wasn't going to was more of a ridiculous threat than something that could be followed with a natural consequence. I suppose if I had a friend or my husband waiting to walk home with the child after I drove off, it would have been different.

Ben, having been home only a short time and having suffered some pretty traumatic experiences in his life, pretty much flipped out when I said "goodbye." Being deaf and having only two months of language exposure, he didn't have the vocabulary to tell me that he was frightened, but his body language and shrill scream said it all. He truly thought he was being left once again, and he made sure that the rest of the world knew he was not happy about the idea.

Since that experience, I have never told one of my kids, "Goodbye, I am leaving you." Whether born to us or adopted, I don't feel that telling a child "I am leaving you" is emotionally healthy for them to hear. Add in the situation of a child who has been abandoned once before, and you might be sending that child right back to feeling the trauma he felt the day he was abandoned, even if it was at a much younger age where you think he wouldn't remember.

I had to hold Ben that day and reassure him repeatedly that I really wasn't going to leave him. His language deficits made it rough for his understanding, but I took every opportunity after that experience to always let him know that he was with our family forever and that we would never leave him anywhere alone.

Feeling loss as an adoptee

Do Infants Grieve?

Choosing our words carefully

Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew