Joanne writes:

Two years ago, a few weeks before her 12th birthday, I was going through some of the adoption paperwork, looking for something unrelated to her birthday, and I came across the court papers from when they were originally removed from their biological home. The date jumped out at me; June 3rd.

They were removed two days before her 4th birthday. As a matter of fact, her first full day in foster care, was on her 4th birthday.

Joanne noticed a pattern in her daughter's behaviours that led her to understand why birthdays were so hard. This allowed her to make adjustments to her kiddo's yearly schedule and has, seemingly, made everybody's life a little less stressful.

What kinds of patterns have you noticed? What have you done to help ease the behaviour tensions related to these patterns?