Be Prepared

I’m no Boy Scout but, as an adopter, I do think it might be worthwhile nicking their motto. When you look up its meaning, Wikipedia says it means “you are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do you duty”. Now, although I do not consider adoptive parenthood to be my ‘duty’, I have committed myself to it and do find myself in a constant state of readiness. I couldn’t tell you what I’m ready for necessarily (often a lie down in a darkened room) but I do tend to expect the unexpected.

I wouldn’t say that Little Bear is unpredictable. Well, I sort of would. He’s predictable in that I know the full range of behaviours he might display and I know him well enough to anticipate how events or states might impact him. I can often predict what he might do next or what he might say or how he might react. However, what none of us can really be sure of is what kind of day it is likely to be when he wakes up in the morning. I’m starting to realise that there can be quite a variance. Also, no matter how well we know Little Bear, he will always have the ability to occasionally throw in a curve ball or say or do something out of the blue. As well as this, even though I can often anticipate his behaviour, it is still the sort of behaviour you should be ready for. For example, if your child is a runner, you can’t go round being surprised when they run off. You won’t expect them to run off every second either but you will always have at the back of your mind that they might. You’ll be prepared to grab them or sprint after them, just in case.

On Sunday, I had a lovely afternoon with Little Bear. Big Bear had gone on a playdate then out for tea and to the cinema with Grizzly. Little Bear and I stayed at home. We got the Lego out and sat in the playroom for ages building things and pretending. Little Bear was calm and played happily with the same game for an hour or so. When I could tell he was tiring, I made him some tea and let him have it in front of the TV for a rest and also because his brother had gone to the cinema. Afterwards I ran him a bath and we had a big game of floating racing cars. He read his school book then I read to him. He chose Green Eggs and Ham and realised after a few pages that he could actually read that too. He kept saying “no, I can read this one Mum” in a slightly surprised tone and continued to prove his point until he had read the last 30 pages or so. He was an absolute joy. We had a lovely time. It felt like quality time. I felt he had benefitted from us being on our own. All was good. I really enjoyed him.

On Monday morning, I was lulled into a false sense of security. My prediction of Monday was based on Sunday’s rose tinted lenses. This was foolhardy. I should have been more prepared.

Monday wasn’t a really bad day but it was very different day. I’m pretty sure that Little Bear didn’t stop talking. At all. All day. I’ve read somewhere about ‘verbal scribble’ which is a very apt description. Little Bear verbally scribbled all the live long day. We went to the park. We wanted to walk. Little Bear wanted to play football. We played football then we walked. He didn’t want to walk. We were ready to leave for lunch. He didn’t want to leave or get out the tree. We went for lunch. He didn’t want lunch; he wanted to go to the park. You get the picture? Everything was a bit of a battle and he REALLY wanted to do a lot of things. Each time we did the thing, he REALLY wanted to do another thing. It was as though nothing satisfied him and he was constantly seeking life’s secret elixir, without any success. It was a tiring, trying of patience kind of day. It also involved loudness, constant interrupting, difficulty sitting still and a need to be fed otherwise eating wasn’t going to happen either.

I should have been prepared for the presence of dysregulation because it’s an omnipresent possibility. I’m not sure why I wasn’t but it’s certainly nicer to begin the day assuming you are going to enjoy your child rather than count down the minutes until bedtime.

Based on how Monday went, I wasn’t too excited about today. Grizzly was going to be at work and I was mostly going to be having 1:1 time with Little Bear.

This morning, he surprised me with one of those unexpected, out of the blue curveballs: a life story chat at 7am. There is nothing like a mention of birth siblings to wake you from a sleepy stupor and get your ‘be prepared to answer whatever array of questions might be coming your way hat’ on.

Life story work is one area I can’t really predict with Little Bear because it happens so infrequently. Months go by with no mention at all and then all of a sudden, bang, a big question when you least expect it. However, because we are adopters and because we know he might do this now and again, it is in the backs of our minds and we are sort of prepared for it in an expecting the unexpected kind of way. So today started with perusing of the life story book and the fishing out of some photos. I think the chat went okay. Little Bear seemed satisfied with his information and I didn’t go away deriding myself for having said the complete wrong thing.

We dropped Big Bear off at my Mum’s for his grandparent time and headed into town together. Having not had particularly high expectations of the event, I was relieved that we had a lovely time again. I suspect that 1:1 is much needed for Little Bear and hence he generally copes better in those situations. He needed new shoes which put a spring in his step; I tactically fed him toast at the right time (and a hot chocolate in an espresso cup which is quite possibly the cutest drink a child could have); we stuck stickers; we coloured; we stroked a rabbit; we went to the library. It was lovely and I really enjoyed him. Little Bear climbed a few things and tried to swing on a few things and found it hard to sit still. But I knew he would: I was prepared.

Sometimes situations arise that with the best will in the world you can’t anticipate and they can lead you to question what you really are prepared for. When we got to the library, rhyme time was on. I didn’t know this; it was a coincidence. In this instance, rhyme time was full of parents and very small children – babies and young toddlers. The group were singing nursery rhymes and listening to stories. Little Bear was rooted to the spot, transfixed. Initially I didn’t pay him much attention, encouraging him to look through the books. When I realised he was in a bit of a trance, I watched him, watching them for a few seconds. He looked shy, curious and a little mesmerised. Having just read The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce Perry, it was fresh in my mind that children who have been neglected have often missed out on early rhythmic interactions and the singing of lullabies and nursery rhymes. It was also fresh in my mind that older children still need to experience these things in order to heal their trauma.

I looked at him looking at them and tried to weigh up the situation. He was twice or even three times the size of most of the other children. I had no idea whether you were meant to officially join the group or pay. I wasn’t really prepared for this situation. However, I concluded that the bottom line was that Little Bear, whether in the body of a lanky 6 year old or not, was developmentally well matched to the group and as uncomfortable as that felt, I would need to suck it up. “Do you want to join in?” I whispered. The answer was basically yes, so long as I came with him. I crouched beside him, to make us slightly less conspicuous, as he sat on a chair in the group.

Little Bear loved it. He was completely entranced by the songs and sat really well. He couldn’t have managed to join in when he was 3 or 4 and probably not even 5, but at 6, it was just perfect for him. Having missed out on all those early experiences and having had such significant language difficulties, Little Bear doesn’t actually know any songs. Some sound familiar to him but he doesn’t know the words well enough to sing along. That doesn’t stop him trying and results in a tuneful hum with some louder words thrown in for good measure. I watched him side-on, feeling a little embarrassed but making myself get over it, while he sat straight-backed, earnestly joining in, wide-eyed and trying his very best. I loved Little Bear so much in that instant that my heart hurt a little bit. I wasn’t prepared for the situation but I am prepared to do whatever I can to help him.

The next second his hand was going up to suggest a rhyme. I was intrigued by what he would say and slow to anticipate what was inevitably coming next. Little Bear suggested ‘jingle bells’ and broke into song and he was about two lines in when I woke from my daydream and realised this wasn’t going to be the clean version. Yep, Uncle Billy and all that…

The Scouts are right: be prepared. You don’t quite know what might be coming next.

 

 

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Beginnings of Life Story Work

Little Bear has now been with us for 16 months but we are just in the fledgling stages of talking about his life story.

In the early days together Little Bear did not have enough language to ask any questions or to understand any explanations we might have tried to give about many things, least of all his complex start in life. We kept a photo of him with his foster carers, Karen and Bob (not their real names) in his bedroom as a starting point and as a way of showing him there was something else before us. He looked at it sometimes and we talked about Karen and Bob openly: about things Little Bear had done at their house; about things we had done when we first met him there; about whether he might be missing them. After a few months he would sometimes say that he was going to go back to them. I wrote about that phase in I’ll stay. No, I’ve changed my mind..

I think Little Bear has always understood that he is adopted, even if he didn’t necessarily know that that was the word for it. I think he knows he didn’t always live here and can certainly remember being at Karen and Bob’s. I don’t think he can remember anything before that. For the majority of Little Bear’s time with us, this has been the extent of his life story knowledge. He hasn’t asked many questions and just seems to accept that he lives here now.

About 6 or 7 months ago we received Little Bear’s Life Story Book. Although we had had our criticisms of his Social Work Team I have to give them their due and say that they’ve done a great job on his book. We are very lucky, not least because he actually has a book, but also because it is nicely personalised and his birth parents have provided quite a lot of photographs for it, including scan and baby pictures.

I remember feeling a little freaked out when I first saw the book. It was partly because it was the first time I had seen photos of his birth parents and stupidly I wasn’t prepared for that. It was also because we hadn’t yet dipped our toes into the life story pond and it felt as though the book itself might have dormant chaos-inducing powers that could manifest if Little Bear so much as looked at it.

Our social worker, ever direct and sensible, told us to stop shilly-shallying and get on with showing it to him. With her words ringing in my ears I plucked up the courage and showed Little Bear the book. If the book does have hidden powers they are on the blink because he couldn’t have been less interested in it. I tried again a few days later but got the same response. I left it out where he could get it if he wanted to but he never did. Occasionally I would say “shall we look at your special book?” but this was always answered with a definite “no”.

Hoping we weren’t causing some sort of deep-seated harm, we followed our instincts and followed Little Bear’s lead. If he didn’t want to look at the book, we wouldn’t make him.

A couple of months ago, not long after Little Bear started school, he learned which month his birthday is in and went around proudly relaying the information. One day when we were in the car, Little Bear asked Big Bear when his birthday is. Then, as he does, he asked “why?”. I explained that was when Big Bear had come out of my tummy. I can’t remember whether Little Bear asked or whether I just took the opportunity to explain that he had not come out of my tummy, he was adopted: we had chosen him. Then he asked “did I come out of Karen’s tummy?”. I said “no, you came out of a lady called Sian’s tummy” (not her real name). That seemed to satisfy him and he didn’t ask anything further.

Last weekend our friends and their new born baby came to visit us. Little Bear loves babies and was keen to be the first one to get a hold. The visit must have triggered something as Little Bear started talking about T, a baby who was in foster care with him and whom he really misses.

A day or so later, Grizzly and Little Bear were playing upstairs and came across his memory box under our bed. As memory boxes go, I think it might be a bit rubbish. There isn’t much in it, mainly clothes and some items of unexplained significance. However, there was a photo of Little Bear with his birth siblings. He was very interested in it, particularly the aspect of seeing himself as a baby.

The next morning, at 7am when he woke and came into out room, Little Bear went straight to his memory box to look for the photo again. He wanted to show me and talk about his “friends”. I explained they were his “tummy brothers” because they had come out of Sian’s tummy too. I then had to right the confusion I had caused by explaining that they hadn’t all been in there at the same time. I was able to tell him their names which Little Bear was very interested in and he tried to learn them. I told him that they were in foster care like he used to be.

Little Bear didn’t want to put the picture back in the box so I let him chose a special place to keep it where he could find it if he wanted to. He has visited it again since.

When we got downstairs I offered his Special Book and this time he was very keen to look at it. We looked at Sian and Joseph (birth father) and I got myself in a bit of a tangle over what I was calling them. I kept saying “tummy mummy and daddy” to make it a bit clearer for Little Bear but Grizzly was in the background reminding me we had agreed on “Sian and Joseph”. The problem with life story work is that it is often thrust upon you when you are least expecting it and as we are only at the beginning I’m not that confident with what I’m saying or how to explain things yet.

As usual Little Bear took everything in his stride. He was most interested in seeing himself and then his foster carers. He was very happy when he found Big Bear, Grizzly and I and we looked at photos of some of the fun things we have got up to together. Little Bear didn’t show any recognition of Sian or Joseph and didn’t ask anything about them.

The whole time we were looking at the book Big Bear was hovering behind Little Bear’s shoulder. He seems very unsettled by all of the life story work, particularly talk of Little Bear’s birth siblings. I think it makes his position as Big Brother feel wobbly. He didn’t say anything afterwards but I can tell he would rather we never had to look at the book again.

I feel relieved that Little Bear’s story is more “out there” now. There never were any secrets but his lack of interest meant we didn’t discuss things much and I am aware that some of his peers are much more conversant with their stories than he is. However, I also feel reassured that our approach of drip-feeding information as and when opportunities arise is the right one for Little Bear and that we should continue to follow his lead.

I’m sure in the future the inevitable “why” questions will crop up and no doubt they will catch us unawares. I hope that we are able to find the right words when they do.