Children's Challenging and Violent Behaviour: Solutions?

Have you ever been kicked in the face by a teenager, had an Xbox controller bounced off the back of your head by a child, been scratched or punched by a toddler, your TV ripped off the wall, your doors slammed so hard they come off the hinges or locked yourself in the bathroom for your safety because of a nine year old girl. Maybe not, maybe.

At the intersection of biology, trauma and circumstance we find parents and carers struggling to care and keep safe children with challenging, violent and aggressive behaviour (CCVAB aka CPV).

Complex neurodevelopment disorders, insecure attachment strategies, impulse control, trauma, dysregulation, domestic violence, all fall into this challenging soup that spills into the houses of many families. Up to a third of families with children with special educational needs (SEN) or children adopted or living in kinship or special guardianship arrangements live at times with challenging and aggressive behaviour.

Undoubtable the issue of CCVAB is creeping onto the radar of many organisations, services and professionals, just the see the number of training days that are being advertised here and there online. Though I feel a little cautious, or even cynical, when I see what is being offered to vulnerable and desperate families as it's a complex problem with often complex solutions*, did I say solutions?  The painful truth that the behaviour of our children lies at this messy intersection, as noted, and is often hugely influenced by the parents and carers' parenting styles, experiences and own challenges precipitated by the behaviour they're trying to manage.

For professionals stepping into what are often crisis situations, often with limited context and almost universally no specific training in CCVAB it is overwhelming. Again, this week I listen to a parent tell of social worker shrugging their shoulders and admitting not knowing what to do. So, what happens, sometimes professionals revert to the societal norm and look at the parents and carers and say, 'it's you'.

This is where it gets complicated, I'm not writing to apportion blame on anyone. That said, does how I parent my child influence their behaviour? of course. That is different to saying that violence and aggression are my fault, because they're not. 'Fault' is a troublesome word in this context but often one that is thrown around. We need to support families, we need to offer them alternative tools for effective to parenting. We also need to support the trauma that many adults and sibling experience as they live with this hidden form of domestic abuse. But what are the tools?

The solutions are nuanced and often only part solutions are available. A reduction is sometimes the best that some families will see, keeping all children and adults in households safe is good, not falling foul of services is helpful.

The ripples of CCVAB flow out of homes, into streets, communities, schools, families, work, mental health and bank accounts. The solutions, or perhaps the support, training and help we give needs to follow the ripples and meet the broader needs of families.

There are some glimmers of hope, three years ago this was a hidden issue. It's now creeping into the light. Serious case reviews have highlighted the failings of services following an parents death. Organisations have run campaigns and we are hearing the issue spoken about openly in new places.

We're now in a better and more open place, that said until families can be offered effective and compassionate solutions by compassionate and effective professionals many families will continue to struggle.






*Well, that's another issue if there was a 'solution' and I knew it I'd be a rich man.

Noise

There continues to be so much to say about so many things. I'm caught in this murky ground between national debate and lived life. Pondering the impacts of culture on contemporary perceptions of adoption, or some such twaddle while trying to find dinner money while negotiating fraught children out of the door to get to school on time to avoid the walk of shame. Some days I feel I could write and write just to try and make sense of it all. The big thoughts are refusing to be caught this week and I'm caught in the small moments of our lives. After National Adoption Week I need a break from the big thoughts away from the noise. We have a lot of noise around here.

The silence was enveloping. We sat and carried on as normal Flossy listening to some mind rot Capital FW music on headphones, Peanut was felt tipping,  is that even a verb, The GoodMrsC was pottering and I was Tweeting. 

There was a new presence in the kitchen. I confess it took me a while to notice, I looked up and saw that the GoodMrsC was coming to the same revelation of this new thing. Even the dogs seemed unsure. 

'Quiet isn't it' we said together. 

Lotty wasn't here. Lotty, the human wall of sound was away for the weekend at some activity centre or some such, being fired from a cannon no doubt. 

Since she left eery and unfamiliar silence had descended onto Coates Acres.

Lotty came into our lives in January of 2006 and it's never been quiet since. She wailed quite a lot. Her first word was dad and she's used it at full volume ever since. When she was little I was known to wear ear defenders around the house, if I didn't my internal monologue had to shout to be heard. 

Her talking is like shouting. If you're holding a conversation in the same room as her you slip into shouting so that you can be heard. We all start shouting and we're not even angry yet. 

She doesn't have to be talking, she is noise. Like a human amplifier, she's stick thin but bangs an clatters around the house like she's wearing diving boots, she doesn't shut doors she slams them like every one of them has given her a personal insult. If she's nervous she wails, kind of musically, but wailing none the less. She turns the telly up so loud so she can hear it above the sound of her own noise. 

If she's happy she shouts. When she's cross she she's very very loud. She talks in her sleep. She never shuts up.

It's exhausting and debilitating, it sets your nerves on edge and creates anxiety in your heart. A friend and his partner came to visit us, they were thinking of adopting. When the children had finally gone to bed he looked at me like a man who'd been assaulted and all he could say was 'the noise, the noise'. Yeah, welcome to my world. 

I'd like to say that we grew bored of the peace this weekend and how we missed Lotty. Not likely, it was lovely and we talked and savoured the glorious silence between our words. 

She returned and shouted her exploits at us,  I do love her. 

Grandad

So, adoptive grand parenting. Is that even a thing?

Clearly, in most areas of my life I'm making this up as I go along and this new 'development' is no different. However, I feel it highlights a specific weakness in my parenting, babies. One of the peculiarities of my very contemporary adoption experience is that it creates significant actual gaps in my actual parenting experience. Lotty is the closest we came to a baby, she rocked into our lives at 3  months old and continues to act as a force for disruption and exquisite joy with equal measure since those crazy days in December 2005. Her sass could literally be weaponised.

The night she came as our first foster placement, MrC had a prior arrangement with the big three and left me alone with this baby.  Lotty cried without ceasing and I was the physical manifestation of incompetence and fear. Think Fawlty dad meets Frank Spencer.

Anyway she survived and I survived.

That brings me to grandparenting, I've been pretty freaked out.  Up til now biology didn't matter, adoption was what it was and I guessed that there would be plenty to do as a dad; poo, vomit, soul crushing routine with the odd moment of love and joy. I suspected that the love would grow in the midst of all of the other parenting stuff. I know I do exaggerate. However, I fear grandparenting seems to be focused more on the fun and permissive end of parenting with all the really hard work removed. So, here's my worry, a worry that was hidden and in all the practical stuff first time round.

Will I love this child that has no biological link to me, I'm meant to be there for the fun and the games. What if I feel nothing? What if I'm rubbish at this? I'm struggling to get my head around it.

None of my contemporaries are grandparents yet so I'm currently taking advice on the issue and that's helped.
I remain nervous.
It's made me think of how my mother felt when we introduced the idea of adoption to her.
It's made me think of some of the difficulties that adopters have with their parents.
I've confessed this to my daughter and I'm sure it'll all be ok. She didn't seem worried.

It took time with all my children.

Seems odd in a week like this all, media reports, DfE meetings and la de da flitting around it all comes back to being a dad and worrying, like every other dad, that I'm going to get it right.

2016 Child on Parent Violence Survey - The Impact on Parents

This week we're releasing the second report generated from the Child on Parent Violence Survey 2016. To be honest like a lot of research it often confirms what we already know and with this one focusing on the impact of living with Child on Parent Violence on parents, carers, guardians, foster carers and family members there are few surprises. But to say that is an injustice, many experience #CPV and the impacts can be insidious, enduring and destructive.

Dr Wendy Thorley has written up the data and produced the report. It can be downloaded here -

'CPV Exploratory Exercise- The Impact on Parents'

In our lives CPV precipitated me leaving work and a chain of events that leads me to where I am, that's a condensed version of events but only now can I reflect on the impact of that time. I'm blessed with a fairly robust psyche and can take some punishment, or so I thought. I didn't realise that there was a knot in my stomach every day 'til it had gone. I didn't realise that I lay barely asleep each night waiting for the sounds that would indicate that the fight was about to start 'til I had a nights respite and slept soundly. The ripples are lifelong, relationships are severed and physical and mental health is impacted.

CPV remains a taboo, with multiple, complex and nuanced reasons fuelling it solutions are not easy to find. However, even though solutions are not easy to come by even in discussing it in the open we are able to shine a light that will bring relief to many.

Read the report and share if you can. Share with your Social Worker and let's continue to push to raise awareness and to seek out affective and appropriate support and intervention.  

Again, thank you for participating.

Phone Call

I got a call from a number I didn't recognise, not unusual, the man on the other line said he'd been given my number by someone who knew someone who knew me. It wasn't a work call but it kind of couldn't not be. 
Straight to the point he declared 'I want to adopt a Syrian child, preferably about 4 or 5 years old  and definitely without live parents or family as that would be too complicated'.  

I'm moved by the images of refugee children especially those without families or adults to care for them. The idea of the most vulnerable caught up in terrifying and confusing circumstances  then removed from their families and adults to care for them is heart rending and upsetting beyond measure.

I feel that as a nation and as a society and as humans we have a moral duty to act.

But the question I have is what should we do?

I live with children who have experienced loss, separation and trauma and though their experiences are different to child refugees they are not that far removed.  For MrsC and I it is without doubt the most challenging experience and aspect of our lives, it almost broke us.

Knowing this makes me question what the solution is for the young refugees. I work in the context of a foster care system that is struggling to accommodate the children that need homes. I see the headlines that announce 9000 carers needed to fill the gaps, even those children with the most basic of needs struggle to find a bed. Every day I read referrals literally begging for placements for children*.

Then I look at the children that are refugees and I see the 'normal' complex needs, such as the effects of trauma, loss and separation but I see them multiplied by language, culture, food, education and the immigration system. I can't imagine caring for my children whilst negotiating these additional hurdles.

Bringing refugee children here seems like a notion that appeases our need to respond but I wonder if it's the best solution for those children. We want to do something but perhaps we should think differently.

It's a complicated situation and but I'm pretty sure pouring them into a foster care system that is creaking is not the solution. I read a lot about bringing them but not so much about caring for them. Of course pragmatism would argue any port in a storm but I'm not sure that we would accept children being left with families without appropriate training and financial and professional support. Would the large ongoing costs per child be better used identifying families that reflect the children's culture and language then training, equipping and supporting them to care for these children? Would this be politically acceptable, giving money to communities across Europe and North Africa to care for some of these children?

There's more I could say but nobody reads long blogs.

Anyway- The man on the phone and I had a brief chat, we didn't speak again as I don't think he liked my answers.





*I'm not exaggerating

Unresolved narrative

It's been a hard week for a load of different and mainly external reasons. Of course it goes without saying that I can't say what, when, who, how or why. Of course I can confirm that they're all related directly to the early lives my children and their route to my door. I'm not down or depressed. I just am.

I was speaking to a friend about something or other and he noted that some folks he knew struggled with what I wrote sometimes as there was, as he said it, 'an unresolved narrative'.

Well if it makes you feel any better so do I.

I write what happens, what I see and what I think. Of course I filter and edit it but it's an account of our lives from my perspective. Other perspectives are available of course but I feel that I'm fairly representative of a large number of parents who care for children who have experienced trauma, loss, separation and have travelled through the care system.

I write to make me feel better, to get the dirty water off my chest. I'd love to write about all the warm hugs and beautiful moments that blossom out of difficult experiences. Perhaps I do but in different less obvious ways, I think I find hope.

Today as Mrs C and I returned from our recent sessions with one of the massive's therapist I confessed that I didn't know how all of this is going to turn out for us as a family. Not the immediate but the long term. Not depressed just pragmatic, what does the future hold? I never thought that we'd retire to the seaside, see the grandkids once a week for a slice of Battenberg cake and a Wurthers Original, crikey no.  But I'm not sure how in the medium to long term some of my children's adult lives are going to play out. Our journey so far indicates that for some it will be ok but for some it's not so clear,  so our narrative is unresolved, but can anyone's be resolved?

This week my heart skipped as I walked through the shops, Lotty's 10 year old hand took hold of mine and we walked and talked. Her hand felt small but it was just so natural with an easy familiarity that was precious. Big deal, you say but I'm her dad and I'm the proudest dad in the world because she loves me. I also know that in 5 years this time holding hands will not happen.

Sometimes I hold onto that second in time when my hand is held because in that moment my narrative actually feels pretty much resolved.

Challenging Behaviour Top Trumps

I like conferences and training. Though the conference and trainy bit can be hit and miss, ranging from excellent to dire, it's meeting other people on a similar path that feels the most rewarding. Chewing the fat, crying on shoulders and sharing tips and tricks.

Of course, you meet at least one person who you can't help wonder how they managed to get approved as adopters and one person on the edge of firebombing their local adoption office.

One of my favourite bits is when we all play 'Challenging behaviour top trumps' in the breaks. There's always someone who starts with a relatively modest,

'Oh, we have challenging bedtimes, sometimes I have to get really firm'. 

Sensing an easy victory another will come in.

'Well, I must tell you that Tarquin spontaneously combusts at the mere thought of bedtime'

Not to be outdone a bystander will add.

'Combusts? Once when we tried to get Petula to bed she held a three day rooftop protest that had to be quelled by the local branch of the territorial army'

And so it goes on, the anecdotes slowly getting more extreme, we laugh and our mouths are agog at the scale and scope of the challenging behaviour. Of course someone wins, my friends true story of having cement poured down their toilet usually wins.
But all the losers walk away feeling much better and thinking 'Crickey, I thought I had it bad, little Franella seems quite tame by comparison'. In fact it was quite productive for the losers and they can pick up tips, tricks and the number of the local TA.

Of course there are other break time activities including my personal favourite, 'Stupid and Insulting things my Social Worker Said Snap'.

The best bit being that we're in environment where we can use shorthand, not have to start at the beginning and can share our fears, joys and journey with people who get it. The 'games' are a therapeutic and  important part for all the above reasons. Of course, everywhere parents meet, playgrounds and playgroups, similar games are played. It's a parent thing.

So, in light of this I wish all of you at the Adoption UK conference a smashing day and next year they should formalise the games and give out awards.

Adoption Sunday

#adoptionsunday

I wholeheartedly believe that the Church has within it's DNA the mandate to care for children and young people in the looked after system as well as those on the fringes those going into the system and leaving. Not exclusively of course but within the context of all the other 'stuff' we should be up to, we've even got a bible verse for it. However, and it's a big however, I'm also aware that we have totally screwed this up. I choose my words carefully, but I look back and within living memory I see that the church's actions reflect a complicated history, yes meeting a need but also perpetuating that need through moral policing. As late as 1970 the church was complicit in sending British 'orphans' to the far side of the world. Other actions have taken place and having watched Philomena recently I am  shamed at what was done in God's name, children removed from parents in the name of I don't know what. That legacy remains very much alive.

The biblical adoption narrative and stories in the bible feel, to me at least, as almost irrelevant to contemporary adoption. The systems and legal routes that we have built are not relevant to that narrative. Of course we are called to love and accept children but there was no Social Worker for Moses or Jesus adoption stories. When I see the adverts in my twitter feed for Adoption Sunday I get nervous. Nervous as for every child that 'needs' adoption there is a family that probably want their child back. I'm under no illusion that unspeakable acts are committed and some parents cannot and don't want to care for their children. But the context of adoption is shifting before our very eyes and that picture is ever more complex with less support for families, injustice and wrong decisions remain a possibility. The church's mandate is to protect and support the vulnerable  regardless of where they find themselves and with at least 30% of mothers with children in care system living with mental ill health it's time that the church made amends to the families that lost their children.

What am I proposing? Do we need to repent? Is that enough? I don't know, I'm just making this up as I go.

But on this Adoption Sunday my mind is with my children's 'other' family members, grandparents that never saw grandchildren again, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters that lost their children. Morally and ethically complex, murky situations, they challenge my notions of forgiveness, redemption and who is right or wrong. I can't help but consider how they may feel on Adoption Sunday.
 

For the first time since records began we have more adopters approved than children waiting to adopt (that's another blog). So where do we look this adoption Sunday? Of course we pray for the children, but what else do we pray?

Real Dad

I was pottering in the utility room while Flossy was sitting with her big sister in our kitchen. Big Sister is 8 years older and has never lived with us but with her aunt/ We have a good relationship and she is canny kid, actually she's a young woman, works hard and keeps her nose out of trouble. Big Sister was showing Flossy a family photo album that she'd made.

As I pottered I overheard Flossy ask 'is that my real dad?' as she looked at different photos. It's a loaded word 'real' when attached to dad or mam for many adoptive parents (step parents too).
I paused when I heard Flossy say it. I just waited to see what was going on inside me. Nothing.  Flossy was using it as just a form of words no values or judgement. I'm way past insecurity or the need for affirmation in relation to my status as my children's father. I was interested to see how I reacted.

It contrasted to an event a few days later.Lotty had single handedly managed to dysregulate the whole family drawing all of us into her bonfire of our sanity. 

She screamed as she flailed around the house.

'You're not even my real dad'.

The words spat at me looking for maximum effect as she ran around the walls.

Words aimed to hurt, which is a little unusual for Lotty. I was a little hurt, mainly because I was disappointed that she'd tried to hurt. Without the shadow of a doubt  I know that Lotty loves me but I do like the kids to be kind.

It's a cliche of adoption parenting the image of a child shouting the barbed words to inflict pain on their adoptive parents. In all the years that the big three have been with us it's never been said,  I'm sure it's been thought but never said. As for Flossy she's more that able to use it as a precursor to why she won't do as we ask in almost all circumstances. 

Back to Lotty, I reacted more out of indignation with a subtle hint of smarm. 

'Oh, tell me something I don't know'. Said in the style of Rick from the Young Ones.

It didn't make things better.

Twister

Flossy's gone on a trip.

Three days two nights with her year six schoolmates. Since this time last year when the academic year above Flossy undertook their Year Six right of passage we've been painfully aware of it's looming presence.

Flossy has been nervous married to giddy excitement manifest in the usual 'flamboyant' behaviour. Did I say nervous, I meant all consumingly, physically overwhelmingly punch your lights out if you mention it nervous. This feeling has been precipitated by the usual letters and school meetings about the upcoming trip.

I can confess to having had some very tricky moments.

Added to that we've had to prepare the school. Mrs C has had to give Flossy's new teacher a whole raft of appropriate background information  and lay out the raft of procedures that would be beneficial to follow around sleeping, eating, etc. The usual stuff that makes us sound like overbearing and oversensitive parents. I guess we are that's therapeutic parenting for you.

The inevitable game of dysregulation Twister was played this weekend when we all collectively unraveled in turns and had a proper hoo haa ding dong of a time right through to Monday morning. You know name calling and argy bargy. Then in a moment that bubble burst, we restored (I know all the phrases) and we had nothing but excitement and appropriate nerves until she left.

So off she's gone. Smiling like a cheshire cat. Away from the home for only the second time in 10 years.

What a hole it leaves in the house,  a lot of background stuff, mainly tension, that we don't even notice anymore has gone with her.  Of course we live on tenterhooks dreading an out of hours call from the school but I'm sure it won't come.

More encouraging I'm look forward to her excited return, phew, it is better with her than without. I didn't say easier.


On another note we got a school letter informing us that she has to go dressed as her favourite Rohld Dahl character next week. I swear they are trying to kill us...........there is no one thing that has caused more chaos in our house than bleeding dressy up days.

Now, where did I put Twister?

Call me maybe

Me: Excuse me I was looking for a first phone for my 11 year old.

Sales assistant: Ah, you’ll be after a ‘trainer’ phone.

Me: Yes, ideally I’d like it to be as uncool as possible and with as limited use.

Sales assistant: of course sir, come this way, would you like it in kindergarden blue or vomit green?

So the conversation went on my recent trip to buy a phone.

It’s an oft discussed topic mobile phones and children. There’s a raft of good and helpful advice available and for each potential negative there’s a positive. So, after much thought and a veritable Magna Carta of rules, codes of conduct and terms and conditions set before Flossy we have relented and she got a ‘trainer’ phone for her 11^th birthday.

We’ve walked this path before and Sarah got a phone when she was 13 some 10 years ago. Of course it was the source of much strife and the police were very helpful. To be honest I’ve only ever found the police to be very helpful, and dare I say it more empathic than some Social Workers I’ve met.

Though it had been the object of much discussion, debate and dare I say a little tension I agreed and went and bought a phone that texts and calls. No more and no less. It feels like the right time and like any tool has the potential for good and bad so we are going to practice the good and limit the bad with a low tech phone.

Flossy got her phone and initially was a little crestfallen that it wasn’t an iphone 6 plus with unlimited data, hey the kid’s allowed to dream, she was then rather excited.

I felt fine, clear guidelines were issued and sanctions were discussed.

It lives in downstairs, it is not to be abused, Flossy buys calls, any calls to the police (other than genuine) will instigate permanent loss, threatening texts/calls will initiate time limited removal, etc. If all is well then we’ll consider moving up a phone model to something a little less uncool.

I felt fine right up to the moment when I put Flossy’s number into my contacts. What a funny feeling it was like a changing of the guard. A good and bad moment. Exciting as she grows into a young woman terrifying as she grows into a young woman.

I paused as I entered her details, things may never be the same…………………

Shame game

I was prepping for a thing I am doing this week and was considering the influence of shame and came across some thought provoking quotes*.

                 Shame: a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour.

                 ‘Shame is a soul eating emotion.’  ― C.G. Jung

                 ‘The difference between guilt and shame is very clear—in theory. We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are.’ - LEWIS B. SMEDES, Shame and Grace

Shame in our house is an easy target to hit for some of our children, in fact the real trick is not hitting it for them.

‘Don’t do that, don’t do this, why have you put that there, why did you say that, where have you been, what are you doing?’ Regardless of the intonation or innocence of the questioner these words, like arrows, score direct hits on feelings of shame. Understandably this precipitates a reaction, pushing back and fighting. It’s a well worn path that we often try to avoid but seem to find ourselves travelling.

Appropriate parenting uses tiny drops of shame to moderate behaviour with immediate restoration. Though I confess that Peanut seems impervious to this approach after cutting a chunk of hair off her head this weekend she was given an appropriate stern talking too. She was then given the love, restored to the fold and all was well, though her hair was hacked it was redeemable. Peanut then slinked off and and removed 50% of her fringe to the hairline giving herself a semi mullet. Mrs C, an ex hairdresser, was mortified/devastated, I suggested that Peanut is to only be allowed out of the house in a balaclava for the next six months while it grows out.

Not helpful.

Peanut though without remorse or shame noted in her defence ‘it’s dad’s fault, he says I look like Dora the Explorer, so now I don’t’. In my defence I wasn’t in the house. The more astute will be wondering how a three year old got her hands on a pair of razor sharp professional hairdressing scissor not once but twice. As the qualified Health and Safety Officer/Social Worker of the home I’d like to claim ignorance.

I digress.

In light of the stuff I’d read and pondered on shame I started to think about the ‘why’ questions that I hear myself ask Flossy.

Each 'why' seems like an accusation directed to the core of her being and punch straight into that shame.

‘You are bad’ is what is being heard. Frequently we are mopping up the aftermath of overwhelming shame. Teachers, friends, wider family members passers by in the street set it off and we mop it up.

I’d never given it much thought as to why ‘why’ questions don’t work. Maybe this is part of the answer.

Oh, and we compromised and found a headband for Peanut.

*I didn’t get where I am today by not knowing how to Google stuff