From the fringe.

Though I'd never overtly thought it I'd presumed that my life and those that journeyed with me would meander relatively unscathed and on the well worn paths of society's norms.

In part that's happened, as time as gone on I find us a little lost and in the fringes. The walk from the mainstream to the fringes was a surprisingly short journey. Education.

The debate on school exclusions  has ground on over the last few weeks and being a natural pragmatist I tend to see the reasonable middle ground in most debates. I'm really struggling with this, listening to arguments on both sides I realise that I'm in, we're in, the fringes.

I read well argued debates on child education and whole class welfare, on zero tolerance and parental responsibility and mutter under my breath to myself:

Walk a mile in my child's shoes, walk a mile in my shoes. 

Frankly dear teacher, I can no longer be bothered to explain at length the impact of early trauma and adversity, to lay out my child's world view and anxiety, simmering shame and fear.

I'd like you to do your job.*

Talking to a good friend and highly qualified teaching professional she shook her head as we discussed the challenge and she noted, when will many teachers consider what they can do to help, that perhaps the child is not the problem, the methods employed are?  They could listen perhaps to an army of parents who would be more than willing to have a reasonable conversation with them about what helps and what does not. Of course the vanilla SWer in me shouts there are good teachers, many good teachers and we've had lots of amazing teachers. I agree wholeheartedly but from the fringe it doesn't seem that way. A few rotten apples can ruin the barrel.

Education is a path we all must traverse with our children, for many of us it is a challenge of unequal proportions in our lives. For one of my children my primary educational aspiration is that they're still in mainstream education by the time she reaches her GCSE's.


*Sorry, the nice me is appalled at myself.

Cup of sadness

I often feel like I'm the guardian of my children's stories. Complicated, painful and wonderful stories that make perfect sense to some and no sense to others, stories that twist and turn their way to my door. The stories have characters that are good, characters that are bad and predominantly characters that are complicated.

Mostly it's been easy to share the story, as they say 'if you can remember being told you were adopted then it's too late'. Stories have flowed naturally and easily from the photos on the wall and the names in the books. We've all shared the stories of our jigsaw life and little ears find comfort, safety and value in the 'firsts'.

First time we met, first thing we said, first trip and so on..................

From the outset there have been parts of these stories that are hard to contemplate and consider. Hard for me as an adult but immeasurably hard when they are woven into the biological links, genetic bonds and tendrils of identity. There have been some tough conversations and if I focus on me for a sentence, some conversations that I never wanted to have and left shadows.

This guardian role hangs heavy, so easy to slip, so easy to say too soon or too late. We peel back the layers of the same story. We make sense of the same events with a four year old, then a six, nine, thirteen and sixteen year old. Gently we peel back the nuance as these little people grow and begin to understand, 'could not' keep you safe becomes 'did not', becomes 'would not' keep you safe. It's a cup of heartache we return to again and again.

Then our phone rings and though the back channels that we've built and fostered with birth family and we discover the story has moved on again. The cup of sadness has been topped up to overflowing.

The layers of complexity grow, I call my closest friends and they've no words or wisdom they just know. They help me hold the cup for a little while before I ask my children to drink from it again.  

Again, I blog in vague broad strokes. Take from it what you will.

Intervention or non Intervention.

I don't think what I'm experiencing is unique to adoptive parents, it's likely that many families walk an uncertain and delicate path as their children transition into adulthood. For us the early life trauma that pre dates our parenting seems to have hidden beneath very real boulders that had fallen into my child's life.  Compliance and obedience are very welcome character traits to greet a new parent, especially a new adoptive parent of three children that arrived one summer day 20 years ago. We were unskilled, unable or too naive to see the issues that lay beneath these rocks.

So now we see those seeds of early trauma finally bear their terrible fruit. That story is not mine to tell, so I shan't but I do have a story. 

It comes down to two choices; intervention or non intervention. Those choices have been chewed over and talked round for months. Do we as parents step into our adult child's life and 'fix' the unraveling that has occurred?

Every fibre of my being kicks against this, issues of consent and personal choice loom large. These are countered by questions of vulnerability and capacity. Bad decisions layered on bad decisions all trauma informed replaying earlier lives. My mind races to the  'nature or nurture' question, science seems to have a new view on that and so do I as the impacts of intergenerational trauma plays out before me. 

But the 'intervention or non intervention' question rages, putting a new and unexpected challenge between me and MrsC. We have always sat squarely in different camps. I'm the non interventionist because that's what's right and proper. 'How will they learn if we always catch them before they hit the ground?' I say. MrsC is a rescuer, it's her DNA. Now we both are unsure of our default positions. 

The curse of all parents, not just adoptive,  seems to be the uncertain future of our children. We extrapolate todays problems through the lens of our experience and we see the dangers ahead. Right now these dangers seem very real, tangible and beyond what I ever imagined, see no easy way out without my stepping in. 

I talk to my other adult children, I seek their counsel. We see that perhaps if we step in now we may always have to. It seems dramatic writing it but I ask if they are prepared to step in when I'm too old to do it. I try to recalibrate my mind, 'always step in', this was not my plan. Again is it time to adapt, new paradigms of parenting that cut against the parenting norm and accepted wisdom. 

Some minds cannot learn, for whatever learn, some scripts are already written. After years of being the safety net it's clear that it's no longer accepted or wanted. I fear that the ground on which the child is going to fall this time is rockier than all of us anticipate. 

So now I'm an toying with becoming an unwelcome interventionist, a position that is an anathema to me. 

I'm not sure that makes much sense really but many of my friends that have walked the adoption road before me nod in agreement, my peers tell tales of young adults adrift in a world that seems to have laid out more snares and traps than the one we inhabited. Is it all doom, hell no and the adoption rule of thirds seems to ring true again. Some fall, some falter but keep on and some run. 

Core

It's the end of the busiest year that I've ever had and following National Adoption Week I put my brain in neutral to try to get some space while I crack on with life.

When my mind is idling I find ideas bubble up for blogs and posts but I've been resolute and steered clear of some of the big questions that surface.

However, I can't seem to get away from this idea that we need a universal adoption support service that really meets the needs of adopted children.

This is not a criticism of the Adoption Support Fund, if anything that is an attempt by government to provide for our children because some LAs are not. Of course, the good ones always have supported children and families and had a good core service. They have used the ASF wonderfully but there are other LAs that have never done so well and they have struggled to utilise or facilitate the ASF.

The ASF is not perfect and I could list the failings, I'm many things but I'm not an apologist for the Department for Education but on balance I'd argue that it's done much more good than harm.

My gripe is the core service offer of post adoption teams, I want local authorities and the Regional Adoption Agencies, when they come, to provide a good core service.

Recent reports have again highlighted the vulnerabilities and challenges of adoptees and adopters. It's like lots of research, bleeding obvious to anyone who's spent more than ten minutes looking at the issues.  It's beyond doubt that the cohort of adoptees within a UK context are amongst the most vulnerable in our society. In context of all UK children they're a small group but in relation to Adverse Childhood Experiences they punch way above their weight. The children who are adopted today have had to have had the worst of life to reach the threshold for adoption.

So, if you're going to have an adoption service then tool it up to do the job not just assess, match and out the door. Because we will come back and like it or loath it adopters can be pretty fearsome advocates and lobbyists.

Quietly I've been disgruntled, I see courses being offered in this and that giving support to families, interventions and programmes designed to take the ASF money but I can't help but feel they should be part of the core service of PAS teams. Child on Parent Violence affects up to 30% of adopters it's prevalence justifies support being part of the PAS core service. Challenges with school impact a huge proportion of adopted children they support needs to be part of the core service. Therapeutic parenting programmes, again should be build into the core services. Some families need ongoing professional supervision, a safe space not a stolen minute with the child's therapist on the way into a meeting. Supervision would be an excellent addition to this core service. I could go on, filial therapy, play therapy etc. All of them should be core services not money making schemes.

I read a tweet* from  @RealSWTutor this week that provoked me to stop and think a little differently. It was about something else but but paraphrased it turned to this in my head.

'Adoption isn't a hurdle that must be overcome but a trauma that must be supported'

Overstated? Yes, for some but not all.

I hope to see that one day we will move away from 'interventions' to support that's ongoing and enduring.  That the core services will be fit for purpose, a purpose that many of understand saves money and in a funding environment where we expect more for less this core service is an investment.


No punchlines I'm afraid just living in hope.




*'[S]ocial workers will struggle to gain trust within a system that sees domestic abuse as a hurdle that mothers must overcome, rather than a trauma through which they should be supported.' Highly recommended reading: https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/article-abstract/doi/10.1093/bjsw/bcx125/4616221?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Trauma & Dominoes

We'd been doing ok, of course the constant caveat is that when I say 'ok' I mean it's that sort of 'ok' that means we're not reeling from chaos to fear minute by minute. I mean that strategies are working and we were getting ready for our holidays.

The organisation and energy that it takes to get us on our holidays is herculean, mostly shouldered by the goodMrC,  it makes the moon landings look like child's play.

However, Flossy elected to remain at home, a positive move.
Positive that she acknowledges it's all a bit too changey, unfamiliar, transitiony and stressful.
Positive that those who go on holiday can remove the fences that we erect in our daily routines to keep Flossy safe and live a bit free.
Positive that she'd rather remain with her Grandma and big sisters.

Though Flossy remains at home we still have to get all our dominos in line and coach those who will stand in the gap. We also have to leave a happy child.

Then we had a wobble and a stumble as we drew close to leaving.  What it was over, like always, is lost in the struggle and melee that follows. Fiery words aimed to hurt me were spat out, but that wasn't enough words turned to deed. Did I say 'wobble'? I think that's an understatement.
Then it's over and we try to move on.

Flossy moved on, I struggled to.

It was all a bit reminiscent of the difficult days at the end last year, I could feel that trauma's script being replayed and its dark fingers tightening around me.

Strange that I've now my own trauma to add into the mix, I'd not thought of it in those terms til this 'wobble'.  I've kept myself busy and put my energies into work and all the other stuff. I'd thought that it had gone but there's a residual stain, that I'm reluctant to call a trauma, that hangs over me. By comparison to my children's trauma it's nothing, but comparisons are never fair.

More and more I speak to parents who carry their own trauma, not vicarious but first person. It's a result of their life and experiences parenting traumatised children, vulnerable but sometimes scary children.

It took a few days but I eventually put it all into the box marked 'later' in my mind.

We lined the dominos back up, waved Flossy goodbye and off we went.

Social Work Games

Peanut and Flossy are playing Social Workers again. 

It's hard to tell what is going on but they are clearly feeling passionate, I lean in and try and interpret the scene. 

Lotty, 11, is clearly working hard to care for her babies. It's not clear but I think the babies have been naughty, or that's what Peanut, 5,  seems to be saying at full volume. I don't like to criticise but her communication and intervention skills are not all they could be and as for her empathy? Well frankly they don't meet the required standard as set out in the professional capabilities framework for newly qualified let alone experienced practitioners. Peanut continues, if they don't behave you'll have to go away she shouts to Lotty. 

It doesn't feel like a sad or happy game, volume in my children's games is no indication of either. It feels like a matter of fact sort of game, it just is.

I heard once that 'I'm down on Social Workers', I don't think I am but I am acutely aware that we're often agents of the state and nobody wants to see us at the front door. Generally, there are no good reasons to see us, even if we're welcome, we're welcome because we're helping in a bad situation or meeting a need that we'd rather wasn't there. We try to be fixers. 

The game continues, Lotty's perceived 'non compliance' is testing Peanuts patients and the tone is turning threatening. Lotty, is arguing the toss, quite convincingly, but she needs to be careful Peanut is holding the cards in the game. Social Workers hold all the power.

Children play out what they see, what matters to them and their play can often be a window into their thoughts and feelings. Social Workers have been involved in most of my children's lives they've never played Social Workers until now.

I keep listening to them but I'd rather they weren't playing Social Workers.

Trauma

I just want to run into the street and shake my fist at the sky, I want to go totally 'Fawlty Dad' and thrash the ground with the branch of a tree.

Why?

Because Trauma wins.

It stains everything it touches and seeps out of the shadows of children's lives and with insidious determination casts shadows over mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and anyone close enough to touch. It feels personal but it's indiscriminate, it chokes love and care, crushes hope and joy. It blinds, deceives, draws you in and asks you to dance to it's tune, it camouflages itself and deflects the blame onto everyone close.

Four weeks ago the historic trauma rose up and cut through us all like a scythe.

Our family, friends, colleagues, faith and professionals caught us. They held us when we couldn't stand, they gave us the worlds to say when we didn't know what to say, friends and acquaintances stepped in and stepped up. I've never felt so cared for in my life. So, thank you for your kind words and wise words shoulders to cry on and ears to listen. There are too many to thank but thank you anyway.

Trauma has not won this battle.

Trauma remains a feature of our home but because of  those who closed around us we are still here, so thank you.

SuperDan, WonderJohn & the Sad Feeling

A cloud of melancholy, that I couldn't quite identify the source of, descended on me by the mid morning coffee break. Admittedly I'd had a 'fawlty dad' start to the day, a puncture then arriving on time at the wrong venue a mad dash cycle across London then barging my way to the front row of the room, cycle helmet, coffee and danish pastry in hand with my head the colour of a beetroot 3 minutes after the start of the conference.

But it was all good, a positive message of hope and restoration. I just couldn't pinpoint the sadness that seemed to be hovering over me. I had been given a free ticket to see Dan Hughes and John Baylin give a lecture to professionals that work with children who have experienced loss and trauma. That was rather smashing, it coincided with my days in London so it was on.

I cannot fault the training and I've read about PACE (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy) and attempt to use it within our home.  Dan Hughes was good and charismatic and this was backed up by the engaging John Baylin's description and analysis of the brain science behind the approach.
All good.

At half time I bumped into Sally D and I confessed my struggles, it all seemed so far removed from our lives.  I wholeheartedly recommend PACE but it can be a lofty ideal when matched to the challenges of caring for siblings in a family environment. When Child A is attempting to knock the teeth out of Child B then my response is not therapeutic it is that of a riot policeman. All the other stuff, you know the therapeutic stuff, is placed aside and I need to step in. But all that wasn't the reason for the feeling, I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Days later I think I think I got it, the feeling I had lingered, I realised, again, that love was not enough and time is not a great healer. My children's experiences have cast a shadow across them that may leave them a step out of the sunshine for all their lives. I know that, every day I'm faced with that but it's background noise in a busy life. But sitting and stopping and dwelling on the impact is sometimes hard to take.

The training was very good and perhaps I should have attended the following day that was focused on parents rather than professionals. I sometimes get confused in those environments I am a professional but I'm not a professional parent, I'm a keen amateur.

No easy answers

In one of my day jobs I speak to teachers and help them develop their understanding of the impacts of  loss, trauma and separation on children. I’m usually invited in on the back of adoption but I quickly move past this with my first slide and broaden it to a whole range of children.

I talk about children who experience abuse, of many strains, children cared for by adults other than their parents, children in the Looked After system, children who experience the death of a parent or loved one, children who experience mental ill health or live with someone who does, children who experience the imprisonment of a parent, children whose parents separate or divorce. I could go on, and usually do, indicating that the children who experience these challenges and are adopted are only a small fraction of those impacted.

Eventually the teachers ask is there anyone who hasn’t been impacted by trauma, loss and separation left? It’s an interesting question and the reality is that probably not, but the degree, implications and subsequent support are perhaps the key issue. 

So with that in mind I go about my day. 

This week on Twitter I was included into a very long conversation thread that drifted into this issue, along with many other issues to boot.  

For many of the adults looking after the other children that I listed they had no choice, circumstances and other such meant that they care for children that have lived under the shadow of negative experiences.

Are their needs greater than ours or ours theirs? Of course not. But we have many things that they do not. A voice. The goodwill of many people that can help us. The Adoption Support Fund. A statutory right to see our needs assessed, lobby groups, conferences and research that benefits us and our children. Adopters are uniquely privileged, we are universally seen by wider society, media and politicians as saintly and deserving. If you’re an adopter it’s not uncommon to be told ‘what you’re doing is amazing’, ‘I could never do what you do’ and other gushing statements. For us this is a choice, many of us didn’t ‘really’ know what we were getting into, but we chose this path none the less. You could argue that for some it was no choice but a last resort but that confuses the issue. Doesn’t it? Probably.

I’m not suggested it’s all creamy but I know enough to know that we have more in our favour than many others. Neither am I suggesting that we should sit back and rest on our laurels, of course we should push for better.

I often think what it would be like to care for my children in different circumstances, to be the cause or to have been a bystander to my children's trauma, the system may not look on me as favourably as I struggle with guilt, shame, mental ill health, challenging circumstances, your own trauma etc. 

I do know that some would prefer money spent on adopters and not on families that struggle. I do know that some would prefer the opposite. I'd like to hope that those who hold the purse strings also hold both ends of this spectrum in tension.

How do we rank need? Are some more deserving of public funds than others? Well I guess there are multiple views on that. When thinking of my child’s life path would money have been better spent on early intervention, or resourcing foster care and foster carers or providing support to adopters or on universal services. The reality is that money is spent at each point with varying degrees of success and to fund one is to not underfund another, as far as I know that’s not how public funds are used or how the system works.

The reality is that the need is greater than the available resources, that being so we are then left in a terrible position where most services could do with more money.  Need is graded and some get access to services and some do not. As adopters we're unique but that does not necessarily mean we receive or deserve a prioritised access to service. I'd like to live in a society where children's need are prioritised regardless of who cares for them be a single mother with mental ill health and a chaotic lifestyle or a middle class family in the leafy suburbs.  Is that the case? I'm not sure I'm in a position to answer that.

What upset me, or frustrated me, in the twitter conversation was that it's a debate that can't be boiled down to 140 characters. Confusion reigned as different people's threads blurred and messages mixed.  It wasn't a uplifting exchange.

I've read and seen enough to know that though the needs of many adopted children are profound and life long but that doesn't make them unique and in the grand scheme represent a small portion of the whole need that is present. 

There are no easy answers.

Hurt: One Year On.

I can't believe that it's been a year to the week since I spilled my thoughts in to a blog post after a tricky few incidents with one of the kids. Hurt was a reaction to a ever escalating pattern of violence that had started years earlier with the lashing out of a toddler. In a big child it can be no longer brushed off or ignored. Things were starting to get broken people were starting to get hurt.

I posted on a Hurt on a Thursday evening and the response was genuinely shocking as though I was the first person to ever stick their head above the parapet and acknowledge a problem that is commonplace for many. I'm not the first and I fear I won't be the last. The offers of support and solidarity were touching and humbling as people spoke of their fears, concerns and guilt.

Since then we've had an 'interesting' year. I refuse to be held hostage and I refuse to give up. I spoke to my local adoption team and asked for supervision or to be allocated a Social Worker. They couldn't meet that requirement so I instigated my own virtual supervision by emailing concerns or specific events of violence to a LA Social Worker. I think she was a bit sick of me so I added the caveat that I expected and required no support but if they could kindly keep the email safe just as a formal record of events. We informed the local police and asked them to make a note in their records just incase they ever got an emergency call so that they were pre armed with some info. We tell all the professionals we can this key part of our narrative. In short we keep ourselves safe, we've built a narrative as a safety net for us all. A couple of those emails instigated an Initial Assessment* from the local child protection team. That was an interesting afternoon our second in less than a year the Social Worker was quite nice really but still a good lesson for my practice.

In truth though things have eased, we get the attitude but less physical. In part we are getting more savvy. I invited my local Post Adoption Support Team to carry out a formal assessment of our needs and they obliged and we got some NVR training, I'd already had it through work so MrsC and my mam went on it and it was much appreciated.

We work hard to not let it get to the point of fisty cuffs, very hard, we take a verbal beating rather than a physical one and we step aside, distract and use plain old trickery and bribery to avoid the worst.  Still, we've had some ugly stuff this year and none of us, winners or losers, feel particularly edified by any of it.

I'm sure that for as long as there are children who have experienced and witnessed violence or word and deed there will be parents who experience violence. I refuse to be held hostage, I refuse to give up and I hope we can bring it out of the shadows.

For now we as a family take it a day at a time.



*The initial assessment is a statutory short assessment of each child referred to Children's Services focusing on establishing whether the child is in need or whether there is reasonable cause to suspect that the child is suffering, or is likely to suffer significant harm

Fostercare.

I might have been the worst foster carer that ever lived.

We were deferred at panel, they said we would probably want to keep any little children that we were given to look after. We argued at our second panel that in no way did we want to adopt more children and the very thought of it was utter tosh.
Well, we were approved and we did adopt the first two children we fostered.

That proved two things, Panels can be pretty astute and I'm deluded.

This week there have been Twitter threads on adopters relationships with foster carers post placement all precipitated by an article in Community Care on children remaining, or not, in contact with foster carers after they leave.

It seems to me that for foster carers the work to reward ratio is probably one of the poorest that is possible in any profession. The highs are high though brief but the lows can be relentless. Added to the pain is the uncertainty of outcomes for children when they leave your care, often these questions remain unanswered.

Though we were only foster carers for two girls, Flossy and Lotty,  for a couple of years the impact stretched beyond just having two children to care for in our home. The tensions of carrying the burden of care but with limited control over most of the influences in their life seemed to be the worst possible combination and calling a Local Authority duty phone in an emergency is probably one of the most isolating and unreassuring experiences of my life.

Perhaps the worst feeling was that we were complicit in some of the trauma they experienced. We buckled them in the car seats that took them to contact that they didn't want to go to. Screaming and kicking they sobbed and hid from the transport worker but we dutifully ensured that they were ready. We pleaded with the Social Workers detailing the daily trauma and distress that they experienced but were given the usual answer:

'It's the court's decision there's nothing I can do'

But the court or Social Worker didn't wipe the tears or cradle the distressed and terrified children, we did. The arms that soothed were the arms that would hand them back the next evening. I assure you those days haunt Mrs C and me.

That journey to adoption was not short so I won't bore with the details.

These days I reflect on my own casual indifference to the big three's Foster Carers. We were young, inexperienced and perhaps to wrapped up in our own moment to realise the difficulties that they faced as they handed three wonderful children into our arms. I confess to being a little insecure too.
We walked away and didn't look back. We were guided by dogmatic advice built on ideas that grew in the 50's and 60's. We were sure that the children were fine and they didn't say other wise. Now I'm ashamed of my attitude.

When Peanut came into our lives we gained two new friends in her foster parents, they'd loved her and kept her safe through difficult months of contact. Within 10 days of her moving in they came to see us and we've seen each other regularly and are in regular contact. Like Godparents to Peanut.

One positive story does not constitute a rationale to make it that way for everyone. Of course there are good reasons to stop contact with foster carers for adopted children but my feeling is that there are also many good reasons to continue it as well.

For a myriad of reasons Foster Carers keep a low profile on twitter, blogs etc. It's a loss to us all they have a unique perspective that we need to hear. Like adopters there are good and bad ones but on the whole they care for ragamuffins and tikes, the lost and the lonely my children and yours.
They are unsung heroes of many adopted children's lives.

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.

Roll the dice

As I try to open a rather awkward container with an inappropriately knife, usually implausibly sharp and outlandishly pointy and more suited to hacking bamboo down, I think:

'This is a stupid act, this will end badly'

So, no surprise when I nearly have my thumb off, blood gushing and the sounds of family members screaming while others pass out. And I think to myself:

'Yup, that's exactly what I thought would happen'

I weigh the short term benefit, in that I can't be bothered to pick up the scissors, against the risk of pain. Sometimes I win and the awkward container is subdued by my flamboyant lack of regard for personal safety. Sometimes I lose and we re enact a scene from a Crimean War field hospital.

The Xbox

I weigh the benefits of an hours peace and calm against the potential for the prowling, pacing and simmering dysregulation that may befall the rest of the day.

For a few weeks lately things have been ok in relation to Flossy's Xbox time.
We've put the usual safeguards in place.
We give the allotted amount of time leading up to meals to have a positive reason to come off.
We give clear expectations around appropriate behaviour after coming off.
We cross our fingers.
We give 10 minute warnings, then 5 then 1minute.
It was working, not perfect but was easily offset against the hours peace we managed to get when Flossy played on the Xbox.

The hour, or so's, peace is sometimes a self care moment, or more often an opportunity to get on with some jobs, housework, make dinner etc.

But then that all changed, the usual control measures were no longer effective, dysregulation, name calling, insults, fights ensued. What happened? Then we realised the broken headset was fixed. The relative safety was encroached by school friends through the microphone. Overstimulating social interaction invaded the relatively controlled environment of our home.
The hour of necessary respite with her playing on the Xbox is followed by four hours of raaaagh.

So we pull back, consequences, boundaries re tightened, headsets and Xbox withdrawn. The hour of peace is alluring, convenient and needed but it comes at a cost.

Everyday it seems we weigh benefit against risk and cost. We roll the dice and somedays we win somedays we lose.

Roll the dice

As I try to open a rather awkward container with an inappropriately knife, usually implausibly sharp and outlandishly pointy and more suited to hacking bamboo down, I think:

'This is a stupid act, this will end badly'

So, no surprise when I nearly have my thumb off, blood gushing and the sounds of family members screaming while others pass out. And I think to myself:

'Yup, that's exactly what I thought would happen'

I weigh the short term benefit, in that I can't be bothered to pick up the scissors, against the risk of pain. Sometimes I win and the awkward container is subdued by my flamboyant lack of regard for personal safety. Sometimes I lose and we re enact a scene from a Crimean War field hospital.

The Xbox

I weigh the benefits of an hours peace and calm against the potential for the prowling, pacing and simmering dysregulation that may befall the rest of the day.

For a few weeks lately things have been ok in relation to Flossy's Xbox time.
We've put the usual safeguards in place.
We give the allotted amount of time leading up to meals to have a positive reason to come off.
We give clear expectations around appropriate behaviour after coming off.
We cross our fingers.
We give 10 minute warnings, then 5 then 1minute.
It was working, not perfect but was easily offset against the hours peace we managed to get when Flossy played on the Xbox.

The hour, or so's, peace is sometimes a self care moment, or more often an opportunity to get on with some jobs, housework, make dinner etc.

But then that all changed, the usual control measures were no longer effective, dysregulation, name calling, insults, fights ensued. What happened? Then we realised the broken headset was fixed. The relative safety was encroached by school friends through the microphone. Overstimulating social interaction invaded the relatively controlled environment of our home.
The hour of necessary respite with her playing on the Xbox is followed by four hours of raaaagh.

So we pull back, consequences, boundaries re tightened, headsets and Xbox withdrawn. The hour of peace is alluring, convenient and needed but it comes at a cost.

Everyday it seems we weigh benefit against risk and cost. We roll the dice and somedays we win somedays we lose.

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

Jigsaw

I have to say that my views on contact have shifted slowly from a position of indifference, duty and obedience to my Social Workers instructions to where I am now.

As a new adopter, and a young opinionated man, I was a little callous to the plight of my children’s birth family, after all weren’t they the reason that my children had to journey through the looked after system. They were the root cause of many of my children’s challenges and struggles and they had reaped what they’d sown. Perhaps I was a little insecure.

I dutifully applied the dogmatic method of contact and its rationale given to me by my Social Worker that birth parents were not a positive influence and we should be careful. We did, actually Mrs C did, what we were instructed to do as previously documented in my post on letterbox contact. A couple of bits of information came back through the system, very limited though.

Slowly my views changed.

As a member of an Adoption Panel I read a multitude of Child Protection Reports (CPR). The vast majority documented tragedy and abuse layered on the misfortune, vulnerability, tragedy and the historic abuse of birth parents. One piece of the jigsaw.

As a student I worked with a small charity that supported the families of children in the care system. I read and saw enough to make me ask hard some questions of myself and the system, to look closer and think harder. Another piece of the jigsaw in place.

Again as a student I spent six months in a children’s services office and I saw that what had seemed so black and white was never so. Always the stories were nuanced, impacted by services and finances, complex family dynamics and a range of factors often beyond the control of the protagonists. The jigsaw picture began to take form.

Almost every day on Twitter and Facebook I see the frustrations and questions of adopters to their Social Workers that get them re framed as problem families. I see Social Workers failing adopters; miscommunication by adopters; misinterpretation of behaviour and words leading to difficult questions being asked. I can’t help but think of birth families negotiating the Child Protection system, nowhere near as user friendly as the adoption system. The picture is almost clear in my mind now.

But, as I write this I feel hackles rising, and I agree many adults have committed unspeakable cruelty, neglect and worse acts on their children. That they lose contact and rights over their children is without question. I see many children and young people so traumatised that they cannot even consider contact with the perpetrators of their pain, but that is not the picture I see.

I see that families are complex but I cannot believe in a system that by default considers all fathers, mothers cousins, brothers, sisters, half brothers, half sisters, grandparents, uncles and aunts as harmful to children.

Of course real life is complex, messy and refuses to be boxed by generalisations. I hope that a system of the future could consider a range of models for contact with a range of family members. Not just the dogmatic letterbox once a year to parents. But a dynamic, flexible channel that serves the best interests of the children not just adoptive parents or Social Service teams. 

For us we are now trying to help rebuild positive links to my children’s family.

Thinking back now I would have fought for another way of reaching my children’s family, of finding men and women who may not have been able to care for my children and their family but loved them none the less. Men and women of peace and love.

Yesterday we had the last BBQ in our old house we sat with men and women of peace and laughed and cried and delicately and sensitively started to work out how to share the young adults that we both love.