Fear of Loss

Little Bear has had an emotional few weeks. It began with the unfortunate death of his pet hen. It was unfortunate because he hadn’t had her that long and she was originally called Curious George (before he re-named her Izzy, that is) and curiosity really did kill the hen. She was a serial escaper, the true Houdini of hens, scaling the 6 foot fence on innumerable occasions and outwitting all our attempts to contain her. Alas one night she must have taken one chance too many and been met by an errant fox.

When Grizzly, Big Bear and I discovered the loss, we could already foresee the problem: this would hit Little Bear hard. We did the usual thing; Grizzly and Big Bear went to the farm to get another hen that we planned to pop into the hen run without Little Bear being any the wiser. However, Izzy was a beautiful black hen, with shiny iridescent feathers and when the boys arrived at the farm, there were no black hens left. Eek. We were left with no choice but to tell him the truth and replace Izzy with a different coloured hen.

Little Bear initially took the news quite well. The distraction of a new hen waiting outside for him in a box was helpful, especially when she turned out to be the friendliest hen we’ve ever had and allowed Little Bear to pick her up and cuddle her straight away. She was immediately christened Ronaldo and apart from the poor thing’s gender confusion, all was well with the world.

However, as the day wore on, there were several occasions when Little Bear’s eyes filled with tears and he said how sad he was about Izzy. This alone was probably quite triggering but to add insult to injury, Grizzly had to go away that evening to Germany. Grizzly travels a fair bit with work, he is generally away overnight most weeks but it is usually in the UK and evidently the idea of him going away for 3 sleeps and in a plane felt quite different to Little Bear. We could tell something was bothering him from his behaviour. Over the morning, Little Bear found it harder and harder to listen, becoming rude and a little verbally aggressive. Much of this was targeted at Grizzly.

After lunch we decided to go to the park for a few hours to have some quality family time before Grizzly went. When Little Bear and I were in the downstairs loo, him stood on the loo seat looking into the mirror while I applied his sun cream, he took me by surprise with a throwaway comment. “I don’t remember being in that girl’s tummy,” he said out of nowhere. “Your birth mum?” I asked and said her name. “Yeah,” “Well, most people don’t remember being inside someone’s tummy either,” I reassured. “Ok,” he replied, hopped down and wandered off.

Sometimes these life story chats are so random and out of the blue that you are left wondering if they really happened. I made a mental note to fill Grizzly in when we got to the park, as evidently Little Bear had a busy mind that day.

In the car, the situation between Little Bear and Grizzly was deteriorating further. I don’t think Little Bear had followed some instruction or other and appeared to be being purposefully combative. Grizzly was rapidly running out of patience. Things were heading towards explosion territory. Without wanting to replay the conversation we’d had in the toilet in front of Little Bear, I suggested to Grizzly that Little Bear might have a lot on his mind and that might be why he was behaving as he was. Grizzly managed to wind himself back, which is so hard when you are already at the getting mad stage and wondered aloud to Little Bear whether he might be getting annoyed with him because he was really sad about him going to Germany. It’s so obvious now when we’ve got the wondering right because Little Bear crumbles in front of your eyes and can turn in a split second from furious rage to heartbreak. Sure enough, he just dissolved. Yes, he didn’t want Grizzly to go and he was sad his hen had died. We did the usual reassurances but on this occasion Little Bear was so upset that we only got a few metres down the road before we had to pull the car over. He climbed into the front, into Grizzly’s knee and wept.

It was such a shame. Its times like this when being adopted is different. For children who have not lost an entire previous life, losing a pet does not spiral into wondering whether daddy really will come back. It doesn’t trigger all those feelings of having lost precious people before. It doesn’t make them think about the mysterious woman who gave birth to them or the family they never see. It doesn’t make them fearful of losing everything all over again.

Little Bear’s hen loss was a real loss. His dad going to Germany for three days and coming back again was not. However, having the background that Little Bear has causes him to perceive a small or temporary separation as a potential loss. The threat of real loss is never too far away when you’re adopted. He has been with us more than 2 and a half years now. That time has been really stable. Nobody has left him. However, the significant losses of his birth family and then his foster carers in his formative years have left an indelible stain on his memory. I wonder whether that will fade over time or whether the threat of loss will always haunt him like this.

I spoke with school on the Monday morning, to make them aware of Little Bear’s fragile emotional state. It was a good job because that day, for the first time ever, he talked to Mrs C, his TA, about some of his life story. I have spoken to her since and she said that Grizzly being away really impacted on Little Bear. He had struggled more in school; regressed in his attitude to learning and even sabotaged his work, something he had completely stopped doing.

Unfortunately, shortly after Grizzly got back, it became obvious he had caught some lurgy from the plane and was unwell. He wasn’t at death’s door ill, just man flu ill, but Little Bear was worried in a death’s door kind of way, I suppose because his threat of loss censors where still on high alert. It’s so hard for him, having to carry around the weight of worry that something bad might happen to someone he loves all the time.

Thankfully, Mrs C seemed to get it and made the link with Little Bear’s earlier life without me needing to point it out. I really feel as though she has been listening to us rabbiting on all year and she is pretty tuned into the little dude now, thank goodness. Having an understanding approach at school and some extra cuddles will no doubt have helped Little Bear to get back on track a little quicker.

 

*In looking for a medical term for ‘fear of loss’, I stumbled upon this list of fears: 

Phobias list

Check it out, it’s pretty entertaining. Obviously I don’t find people having fears funny but I’m hard pushed to believe some of them are real… Fear of sitting down, Tuberculosis or being infested by worms anyone?

 

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Pets, Children & Why We’re Not Getting a Dog

We keep thinking about getting a dog. We have favourite dog breeds and have even thought about dog names. We are not getting one though, unless I actually want to have a nervous breakdown, which I don’t, so we are not getting one. Not in the foreseeable future anyhow.

It is not as though we haven’t got any pets. We have two cats, outside fish, inside fish and up until fairly recently we had three hens (they got old, don’t worry, it isn’t a grizzly fox story).

The cats are good pets for Little Bear. The cats are quite straightforward with clear boundaries; if they are happy they show you with purring, if they’re not they show you with a scratch. They literally never get over-excited, I don’t think cats can be bothered, and if Little Bear is too rough or over-exuberant with them, they either walk away or give him a nip. Obviously I don’t want him to be nipped or scratched but it is a natural consequence of not treating the cat properly and has led to him being very gentle with them. He has learned that if he is nice to the cats, they will reward him with cuddles and sleep on his bed. Whenever that happens I always tell Little Bear how much they love him, otherwise they wouldn’t want to be in his bedroom or on his bed and that makes him feel good.

Little Bear has started to get involved with feeding them and knows when they’re hungry. He is also good at keeping them company on the way to the vets. He is less pleased when the little cat goes on a killing spree and brings all sorts of half-maimed creatures into the house but he has helped to catch a live mouse on more than one occasion and has also tidied up dead birds (I don’t make him do that, obviously, but he likes to help). The cats have taught both boys a lot about life, nature and responsibility.

The fish are quite entertaining to look at but I have to admit they are the least exciting of all our pets for children. Little Bear enjoyed building the pond though and enjoyed keeping it ice-free over the cold spell we just had. He likes to feed the inside and outside fish and helps to clean out the tank. Pets definitely provide opportunities for helping and feeling successful.

Our hens have been our most fear-inducing pets, though only ever in other people’s children, not in our own. It has always been a bit of a surprise to folk when they have come across them in our back garden as we live in a typical cul-de-sac, with a not-very-big garden and you don’t really expect to find them there. We have fenced off part of the garden at the side and the hens are generally free range in that bit. Children have to go in there to get to the trampoline though which is what causes the consternation.

We already had the hens when Little Bear came home and he was pretty interested in them from the beginning. I have some lovely photos of him holding one of them and also him inside the hen house with them all outside! I was pretty impressed with him that at the age of three he was brave enough to get hold off one (they were friendly but you did risk a whip from a wing if you didn’t hold them firmly enough). The look on his little face of pride and happiness is just lovely.

Little Bear has learned quite a lot from the hens. When he first arrived I don’t think he’d ever seen an egg before and he certainly didn’t know that hens lay them. The first time he was left alone with the freshly laid eggs, he threw them all on the ground and trampled them. I often talk about the incident in my workshops and I genuinely think it was because he didn’t understand the context. He didn’t understand that the hens had laid the eggs, that we could take them inside and cook them or that we could eat them. I think he just thought “they look interesting” and explored them on a sensory level.

Funnily enough Little Bear is a good little helper in the kitchen these days and whenever we are baking or making pancakes, he is always in charge of the egg part.

Little Bear has always enjoyed a practical task and would often help Grizzly to hose out the hen house or to re-fill the feed or water or just give the hens some treats. Our last hen, Yoko, recently became poorly and it was obvious she was going to die. It was during the Beast From The East so we brought her inside and she sat in a washing up bowl by the back door for several days while we gave her ‘end of life care’ (the poor thing had lost her ability to move about). Both boys were good at sitting with her and stroking her. Big Bear even suggested she might want to watch You-Tube on his I Pad!

I think that having her inside and letting her go naturally was helpful for the boys who could get a bit used to what was happening and were not shocked when she did die (though the three of us did stand there for quite some time staring at her, trying to decide whether she was breathing or not. It’s harder to tell than you’d think!).

Having pets has certainly brought another dimension to our lives and I do think the boys have gained from it. They have developed empathy, caring and the practical ability to look after something.

I could see us with a dog: I could see the boys would get a lot from one too. Only we just can’t get one. It’s a bad idea.

Little Bear LOVES dogs. I don’t think I’ve ever met a child who loves dogs quite as much as him. When he was smaller he would just run at them, whether he knew them or not and would be desperate to get his hands on them. We have had A LOT of chats about not knowing whether dogs are friendly or not and that you must ask their owner first before you can touch them. Little Bear has learned the rule well but it has not stopped him from gate-crashing stranger’s picnics to make a furry friend or trying to wrestle a lead from someone so he can walk their dog. Once, we were in the country park near to home and I happened to turn around just at the instant Little Bear had over exuberantly scooped up a Dachshund and was dangling it face first above the ground, the poor thing no doubt scared out of its wits. Another time we met a Chow Chow on the high street and within three seconds of being acquainted with it, Little Bear popped his hand in its mouth, probably as he was intrigued by its dark tongue. Dark tongue or no, you can’t go round sticking your hand into random dog’s mouths.

My brother has a dog. She is only about a year old, massive and EXTREMELY bouncy. She is a Tigger of a dog. She is very friendly and has no malice in her whatsoever. She never growls and loves the children. However, and it’s a big however, she has some issues with regulation. She basically can’t regulate herself and hence can be poor at listening, unruly and very, very excitable.

Before we go to see the dog, Little Bear and I always have a little chat. I remind him that if he runs and jumps at her, she will jump up at him. I remind him that if he wants her to be calm, he needs to be quiet and calm and move about slowly. Little Bear knows all this and can tell me the rules. I believe he has every intention of sticking to them.

When we arrive, the dog will be beside herself because some new people have appeared and not only that but some of them are tiny people and that’s way more exciting. Her tail will be wagging with such vigour that she’s knocking things over and she will be being held by her grown-ups to stop her from jumping at everyone’s faces. As she is considerably bigger than Little Bear on her hind legs there is a very real possibility that she will knock him flying. Little Bear doesn’t mind one jot and is just as keen to get to her. What usually ensues is a tangle of human and dog, lots of licks and possibly an accidental scratch.

Already, Little Bear has forgotten the rules. Then mayhem breaks out. The more times the dog licks him or stands on him or knocks him over, the more excited Little Bear gets. The more excited and loud and fast Little Bear gets, the more excited the dog gets so the more she leaps about like a lamb and the more Little Bear laughs and falls over, the more the dog tries to bury under him and the more it tickles and the more he laughs. The dog and the boy reach fever pitch within the first 5 minutes of meeting each other.

Now, if that lasted for half an hour and then everybody calmed down I could deal with it. But it doesn’t. You wouldn’t think it humanly possibly but Little Bear at least, remains at fever pitch the entire time he is with the dog. We once managed 24 whole hours at my brother’s house before Grizzly and I couldn’t bear the dysregulation any longer. People say, “but they’d get used to each other, they’d calm down after a bit” but they wouldn’t. Little Bear doesn’t get any calmer and Grizzly and I find it really hard because what everyone is seeing is Little Bear at his worst. He is completely out of control. He has lost his ability to listen and he cannot be controlled either by us or by himself. He is as dysregulated as he can get. It means that when we try to get everyone to sit quietly and watch TV or let the dog have a nap, Little Bear is not physically capable at that moment in time of leaving her alone or of being quiet or of sitting still. It means he seems very disobedient and is constantly told off.

Having written about Interoception recently, I do wonder if that is the root cause. I read that part of being under-responsive to interoceptive feedback is that you don’t know when you’re getting over-excited or when you need a break. Little Bear certainly doesn’t when he is with the dog and last time, he was absolutely exhausted when we got him home, having come down from his adrenaline-fuelled high.

Obviously if we did get a dog Little Bear would love it but you can see why it feels risky. We would do our research and get a calm breed but a puppy is a puppy and all will be excitable to some degree. We wouldn’t be able to rely on Little Bear sticking to any sort of rule about leaving the dog alone for five minutes or not playing with it roughly and I do wonder how on earth we’d be able to train it properly in those circumstances. The very worst outcome for Little Bear would be us getting a dog then having to send it back, something we are, for obvious reasons, keen to avoid.

It feels a little mean, saying our child can’t have the thing he would love most in the world but until his regulation is improved, it’s too risky. I know there is a lot written about the benefits of dogs for adopted children but I wondered whether anyone else experiences the issues we do?

I think we’ll stick to cats and hens for now. Easter is just around the corner, the perfect time to welcome some new chicks…

 

The death of a hen

Last weekend Grizzly and I noticed that one of our hens was looking less than healthy. We consulted the hen book and as with most things hen-related, the answer seemed to be human dispatch. However, she seemed comfortable enough and I didn’t have the heart for it. She sat on my knee for a while and we fed her some mealworms and she perked up a little. She obviously wasn’t cured but we decided to let nature take its course. After a couple of days it was obvious she was taking a turn for the worse and it was clear she was going to die.

Grizzly and I realised that although she’s a hen and in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal, this would be the boys’ first experience of death and therefore the situation was going to require some careful handling.

Both boys had, at around about the age of 3 or 4, been through a phase of asking a lot of questions about death. I think it’s probably a normal phase, where children have the realisation that death is permanent. The idea of death seemed to play on Little Bear’s mind for a while because he was very interested in whose parents were whose e.g. that granny is daddy’s mummy and he had noticed, or Big Bear had pointed out, that Grizzly didn’t have a daddy. That raised the obvious question of where he was and in the very direct way that children do, Big Bear had announced to him that he was dead. We then had to try to explain heaven etc. I kept thinking that Little Bear had got it but then at very random points he would say “where’s yours dad, he’s dead?”. He then went on to invent a flying car that he was going to use to get to heaven and bring Grizzly’s Dad back. It was very sweet and did show an intrinsic understanding about relationships and missing people. It did however suggest that he wasn’t really getting the death thing. In this situation I’m quite ok with blissful ignorance for as long as possible so didn’t try to correct him too much.

Little Bear must have been continuing to ruminate on the idea as he then started to ask whether, once Grizzly and I were dead, he would go back and live with his foster carers! I wasn’t really sure if this was because he wanted it to happen (!!) or if he was just checking that it wouldn’t. The whole situation is made more complicated by his difficulties with language so I have tried to say that generally people die when they’re really old and have white hair so it is not something he needs to worry about. However, I have tried to point out that grandpa has white hair and is very much alive. I have also pointed out that Supergran is 86 and really old and also very much alive!

Anyway, so you can see why I was approaching the imminent hen death with some consternation.

In the event it was Big Bear who was really upset. I told him that I thought she would die before she actually did, so that he could say bye to her and hopefully be a bit prepared for it. Each evening he sat outside with the hen on his knee, cuddling her and crying into her feathers. He kept telling me how sad he was. I tried to acknowledge that but say that she seemed so settled and that stroking her was making her happy and that he was doing the best he could to comfort her. We kept her away from the other hens for the last couple of nights and made sure she was snug with a hot water bottle etc. Big Bear had lots of thoughts on her burial and that we would need to get flowers for her.

In the end, when she finally passed away (I was glad because the poor thing hung on for quite a bit longer that we thought and was quite comatose), both boys just took it in their stride. They painted a cardboard box coffin for her and then decorated a big stone to put on top of the grave. They helped Grizzly bury her under the hedge and I obliged with a tub of pansies.

I’m glad that we involved them. I think their reactions have shown it was the right thing to do. However, I don’t know if it has done much to help Little Bear understand it all. How do you explain to a small child, especially one with language difficulties that the hen has died and gone to heaven, yet there she is, in plain sight, sitting (although rather stiffly) in a box right before you? I started trying to say that her body was still here but her personality had gone to heaven. After Little Bear had said “what?” for the 5^th time, I pretty much gave up. It’s not like me to be at a complete loss but the concept is just too abstract. I think I’ll leave him in blissful ignorance for as long as possible.