Mislaying The Positives

I think everyone knows that the last few weeks have been a little trying. Between school residentials and transition, there has been plenty to get my knickers in a twist about (if you somehow missed it, see Hysterical , The Big Trip and Is Dysregulation Rocket Science? ). This isn’t unusual, I’m frequently banging on about some issue or other, more often than not relating to LB’s education. I’m aware though, that in getting caught up dealing with the myriad issues, it can be all too easy to skip over the positives. It means that things, that when you stop to think about them are actually amazing, can pass you by with barely an acknowledgement. I don’t want to skip over these things – these achievements of LB’s – because they are massive within the context of his history and should be given the credence they deserve. I’m going to share one thing, in particular, today. First, I need to tell you some facts.

I don’t like bragging. That’s a fact. I can’t bear it when people go to parents evening then write #giftedandtalented on Twitter or Facebook. Or when someone asks you if you’re concerned about your child and you say yes, and then they say how they aren’t at all worried about theirs because they are exceeding expectations in every area. I don’t like it when people brag about how expensive their house is or how much they earn or how clever they are or any of the others ways that people try to seem better than other people. Just, no.

Here’s another fact. When LB started pre-school, his development was measured to be two years behind the typical expectations for his age – so he was functioning round about the level of a two year old, when he was four. That’s a very tricky educational starting point. There were many barriers between LB and formal learning – behavioural, emotional, linguistic.

When LB started reception class, he couldn’t count. I’m not exaggerating – he literally couldn’t count to three in the correct order. This was not through a lack of trying on anyone’s part – it was mainly due to his Developmental Language Disorder (DLD See Developmental Language Disorder or DLD & Education ), as well as his tricky start. It did mean that numeracy was going to be extremely difficult. It is impossible to do sums if you don’t understand the currency you’re dealing with. It literally must have been like adding apples and pears for him.

By the end of year 1, though LB had made incredible progress in all areas, he had never quite managed to hit an expected level in any subject. It didn’t matter. We were extremely proud of him because of all the things he had achieved and really, from a starting point of 2 years behind, how could he?

Year 2 felt like a big jump. Year 2 had SATS. SATS were going to be hard for someone working below the expectations of the curriculum; someone who had only been able to count for 18 months or so. Fact. We didn’t even know if we’d let him sit the SATS – if they were going to feel too big an obstacle.

Somehow, despite all those facts, at the end of Year 2, LB managed not only to sit his SATS but to pass his Maths SATS. Not only that, but he smashed it, gaining close to a ‘greater depth’ score. He has also been deemed to be working at the overall expectations of the curriculum in numeracy, so in his report, he got his first green light. In fact, he got one for science too.

Why are you telling us this, if you don’t like bragging? I hear you whisper.

I’ll tell you why.

The ACE’s index (Adverse Childhood Experiences index) came about as a way of measuring the impact in later life of various different adversities that could befall a child. This is important because it is only fairly recently that society has begun to acknowledge that things that happen during childhood can continue to impact a person throughout their life. It is important we understand that childhood abuse, neglect or the disappearance of a parent through divorce, death, imprisonment or moving into the Care system doesn’t stop impacting a person once the event is over. It is really important these things are widely understood. The old adage that ‘the child is safe now so the past can be forgotten’ really does need eradicating and something like the ACE’s movement helps with this.

The ACE index also tells us that the more ACEs a person has experienced, the greater their risk of mental and physical health difficulties, substance abuse and unemployment. In short, the worse your start in life, the higher the likelihood of your life outcomes also being poor. A double-whammy body-blow.

 

It is beginning to be recognised that though this information is well-intentioned and to some extent needed, by encouraging people to count numbers of ACEs, you are really misunderstanding the way trauma works. It’s feasible that a person could score just 1 on the index, for an event that may only have occurred once, on one specific day. The index would suggest that this event would only have a minor impact on the person. However, from what we know of trauma, this is isn’t accurate. Depending on the person and their own reactions, that single event could have anything from a minimal to a profound lifelong impact upon the person. Similarly, because you have a large number of ACE’s, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will end up homeless, addicted to alcohol and drugs and suffering several health complaints, and I think there is a danger in suggesting you would.

 

For a young person, growing up with the knowledge they have a high ACE score could well make them feel hopeless about their future, and is that really what we want for our most vulnerable children? Surely the message should be that, yes, rubbish things that happen in childhood can impact upon a person and as a society we acknowledge it. We should also be offering all the extras a child could need – therapy, education, social/behavioural/emotional support – to help them in overcoming the impacts of those ACES. We should be acknowledging that children with any ACE score need more from us – more care, more love, more support. We should be flagging them up as at risk of the future harm the ACE index suggests whilst providing them with what they need to negate that risk.

I think there’s a danger in suggesting that something that happens early on will categorically lead to x or y later. These things are not set in stone. With the correct support, children who’ve had adverse starts in life can and do overcome the barriers their early lives attempted to block them with. I’m not saying it’s easy – it will undoubtedly be harder for them than for children without ACEs – but shouldn’t we try? Shouldn’t we aspire for the best we can for all children?

So, when a child comes from two years behind expectations, having experienced neglect and the severing of links with their biological family, and several moves, and despite all that catches up with expectations for children who have dealt with none of that, shouldn’t we be shouting from the roof tops? I think so.

Often, it is the most privileged who brag the most. It is hard to be impressed by the gains of those who already had a head start, but when the one who was lagging behind, who joined the race a long while after the others and kept on running despite being so far back, manages to catch up, that’s truly brag-worthy.

This is not all about catching-up though. Even if LB hadn’t have caught up, but had kept running, that would be a significant achievement too. He’s still running when it comes to literacy and he may always be, as may many of his other adoptee peers who have educational mountains to overcome, and I think it’s important we acknowledge that every next reading level, every percentile, every point on every scale, is harder won for our children with ACEs. But they’re doing it. They’re out there, surpassing expectations all the time. And I don’t want that to be lost in schools that don’t understand their behaviour or in parents having to fight or getting dragged down by the multitudinous battles they’re facing. We mustn’t mislay the positives. These positives are huge and indicative of something bigger even than ACEs. They’re about human fortitude and our ability to overcome. And a beacon of hope for what can be achieved, when we properly support our most vulnerable.

 

 

 

 

 

Advertisement

3 in 1

Have you seen those multi-tools you can buy? The ones that look like a pen knife but when you open them up, they’ve in fact got a pull-out spanner, a pen, a bottle opener, a screwdriver and a corkscrew somehow stashed within them? You buy one tool but you actually get five. Very nifty.

I feel as though these tools are a metaphor for adopting Little Bear: he looks like one child but I’m pretty sure he’s comprised of at least three.

Sometimes it feels more like a whole band of delinquent imps, but I digress.

There’s the Little Bear who is a complete and utter joy to be around. He’s cute, funny and gentle. He’s considerate – he wants to help you and he’s concerned if you’re hurt or upset. In fact, he will be prepared to defend you to the hilt if he perceives some wrong doing towards a loved one: there’s the time he punched a girl in the face because she picked on his brother; the time he pottered down the hall with his dummy and blanket, to give a neighbouring child a stern telling off at the front door, as they had, again, been mean to his brother. That stern word reduced a child three years older than him to tears. It was impressive, I have to say, and totally belied the image conjured up by the dummy and blankie. There wasn’t any malice on either occasion – just a pure sense of love for his brother and a strong sense of injustice. If you had to pick teams, you’d want that Little Bear on yours.

And he’ll tell you how much he loves you. He’ll weave his little arms around your neck and in your hair and he’ll press his face to yours and he’ll say you’re the best mummy in the world, that he loves you to all the planets and back again. That he loves you a googolplex. That he’s never leaving you and even when he gets married, he’s going to live at home with his wife.

That Little Bear is also thirsty for knowledge. He listens intently. He learns at an impressive rate and dedicates himself to improving – thinking about how to get on the next reading level; if he can fill up another Maths book; how to get his mouth around that multi-syllabic word that is proving a challenge. He’s receptive to direction and can show a good level of resilience.

He’s smiley and affectionate. We can take him pretty much anywhere. And when we do, he will doubtless find a person with a dog, approach them slowly, saying, “Please can I stroke your dog?” He’ll pet the dog and the dog will love it. He will thank the owner extremely politely and you will see them thinking what a cute child he is, how well-mannered he is, how unusual it is for a child to ask before touching the dog. You can see him restoring their faith in children.

Then you wake up in the morning and he’s all but disappeared. In his place is another Little Bear who is unpredictable. He’s a bit like the one I just described above one minute, and then the next he isn’t. Sometimes he wants to please you and sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he listens and sometimes he won’t. Sometimes he’s kind and gentle and occasionally he will whack you with a toy sword for absolutely no reason. This one can be skittish. He might sit down for a while and play Lego but when it’s dinner time he will hop and climb and do roly-polies on the bench. You can enjoy your time with this one but then you might ask him to do something that doesn’t suit, such as get out of the bath or stop playing football or to turn off his iPad, and he will become miraculously deaf.

This Little Bear is the one who might do something shockingly unpredictable from time to time, such as dip his hands in the toilet or lick the bottom of his shoe or maybe, the cat. One minute you feel like smothering him in kisses and the next like tearing out your own hair. We do meet him quite often. You’d probably describe him as ‘spirited’. He’s loud, incredibly so – in fact you wonder if this one is a child within a child, like Russian doll children, with a combined lung capacity and double-energy to match. This one talks incessantly – literally from waking until sleep – and especially when you are trying to concentrate on driving everyone home alive or conducting an important phone call.

Then he’s a dog. A puppy. And he wants you to give birth to him. Then he’s a gorilla. Then he won’t answer to his actual name because, as he’s just tried to establish, he’s actually called ‘Woof’ and he’s a different species and no, clearly he can’t understand the language you’re speaking to him in because he’s a DOG. Idiot!

And you get to the end of the day and you’re tired, but in a you’ve wrangled a mischievous pixie kind of way, not a you just can’t do this anymore kind of way, and you giggle at his antics and think how cute he is and feel quite ready to do it all again tomorrow, despite the challenges.

But that Little Bear has disappeared. The minute you wake, you sense there’s a problem. Ideally you would reach for your flak jacket and tin helmet before going downstairs, because you already know you will need them. There is a sense of mania permeating the walls. He’s speaking too loud, too fast and with a lot of non-speech noises thrown in. You know he must eat breakfast and that might lead to the return of one of the other Little Bears.

But he won’t. ‘Would you like toast?’ is met with ‘I hate you’ and ‘shut-up’. He flatly refuses to come to the table. Seconds later he is scooting around the living room, on an actual scooter, not wearing an actual helmet, a pre-requisite rule of scooter-riding that he knows only too well. The scooter riding and the circles are winding him up further. You suggest he gets off the scooter but he won’t. He starts to crash it into the furniture. If you somehow manage to get the scooter out of the situation, he finds a ball to kick at the patio door or a toy knife to saw the table with. You mostly end up sitting him in front of the TV because safe containment seems wise. You check back, at regular intervals, but he mostly still hates you, still wants you to stop talking, doesn’t agree with any of your wonderings about the situation and may or may not threaten to head butt you.

Sometimes, foolishly, you wonder if a change of scenery might help. You let him choose, to help with buy-in. Sometimes, things are ok when you get to wherever it is but then other times you might ask him to come back and he will look you directly in the eye and stride in the opposite direction. You might calmly explain that walking along the curb-edge is not wise because a car might clip you and he will look you in the eye and fully step onto the road. You will ask him to come into the ladies toilet because he’s too young to go into the men’s alone and he will purposefully walk into the men’s. You will attempt to intercept him, because what could possibly go awry in the men’s toilets feels frightening and, because he isn’t listening to you being rational, you will make the men’s toilets sound scarier and more dangerous than it likely is and he, because he feels pumped and indestructible, will tell you that he can take these weirdos down and that you are in fact an idiot and the worst parent in the world and you never, ever, even attempt to keep him safe.

You may then lose your shit with him, because you are frightened that you actually can’t keep him safe if he won’t do anything that you say. Your brain starts to fear several aspects of the future: how can this Little Bear ever cope in a mainstream high school? How will he fair in the real world where there are very real rules that really do have to be adhered to because otherwise the Police get involved?

When he’s calmer, you attempt to explain this to him. He says he will punch the Police in the balls. And you think, shit, he might. Then you explain how prison works, not to scare him, but to explain that there are consequences to such actions and he says, ‘I’d like to go there and fight the prisoners and kill them,’ and you think several more unrepeatable swear words.

This Little Bear is pretty unreachable. You can try being supremely therapeutic, you can try being very firm, you can try reasoning. But, generally, nothing works. You mainly need to resort to survival – getting everyone to the end of the day, with all their limbs still attached and without having said anything you will live to regret.

Little Bear will say many things he may later regret. This Little Bear will even needle his biggest hero: his brother. He will say he’s going to kill his cat or his future wife (after asking her out first). Big Bear will understandably run of patience with this constant commentary in his ear and will shut himself in his bedroom. Little Bear will not be able to leave him alone, will not heed your instructions to do so, and will wonder why you are getting increasingly exasperated.

This Little Bear will say you’ve hurt him when you haven’t, call you all the bad names he can muster up and, if you intervene physically, to stop him absconding say, he may very well dig his nails into you or bite or hit you.

When this Little Bear visits you are very grateful for bedtime. Parenting has not been a joyous experience and you find yourself really hoping tomorrow will not be like that and that the apocalyptic future you are now imagining will not come to fruition. You wonder if you should start researching alternative high school provisions. You wished you drank and could seek solace in alcohol. Or even chocolate. But you don’t have either so you chomp aggressively on an innocent carrot.

You know, rationally, that Little Bear is not in fact three children in one; he’s one child who is differentially impacted by trauma. You also know that the harder your parenting day is, the more turmoil he’s experiencing and the more empathy he requires. You would also defy any therapeutic parenting expert to spend that sort of day with him and not lose their cool. That Little Bear would laugh in the face of PACE. Or probably punch it in the balls.

You remind yourself about the first Little Bear I mentioned. You struggle to compute that he is the same child as the last one. How could he be? They seem so polarised that you start forgetting the first one exists.

Then you wake and he’s back. A little curly head rests itself on your chest and a voice asks for a cuddle. And you forget about the last one.

Until he visits again.