Okay first a little back story as legally as possible. She is three, she was in foster care and we have adopted her and her two brothers. There was extreme neglect, she was taken at two years, placed in a home where she was treated like a queen but her brothers were treated very poorly and now she is with us where we are trying to help her heal.

Okay so, my daughter is three. She is amazing and beautiful and smart and funny annnnnd violent when I’m not looking towards other kids, and has outbursts that last for hours, and smiles at me when I discipline her, and sneaks out of her room at night into her brothers room to wake him up by shaking him(he is two) annnnnnd I’m drowning here.....trying to give a ton of positive attention and reinforce that but woah mamas I’m feeling at a loss right now.

She gets timeouts and I made a behavior chart in which she gets a small prize if she makes it through a day and has her clip at “GOOD”. I’m desperate...Also I think she’s made it to good once in the past four months...am I being too hard? Some times I feel like screaming at her and just breaking down and crying. But I know that won’t help anything. I’ve gotten her into counseling and they can’t see these huge concerns. People tell me it’s because of the trauma and I know that is part of it of course! But she isn’t our first child to have major trauma and act out and I can sense there is something much more going on here. Family history has some mental health challenges. Our son has adhd but it is under great control and he is doing great as well as our other son. She only acts out like this with me and her dad but yet she can’t not be around us. She gets scared to be anywhere else. She is always telling people how much she loves me but...I don’t feel loved. I’m feeling detached from her more and more every day. I do love her and it makes me more sad then angry because I want her to be okay and I wish I had a magic wand to rid her of all this past trauma but I can’t. She also can’t act like this and be a danger to the other children so what do I do? I hope there are some other foster/adoptive mamas out there who have advice for this tired and sad mama.