COUNTER-INTUITIVE PARENTING

I think that I may have simplified, in my own mind at least, a key to parenting children with early trauma.  (or RAD, if you prefer)  So often the challenge is to find a clear and fairly brief way to explain to the "uninitiated" the reason why I am not seeming to "parent" my radish child - at least not in the way that seems "common sense" to the onlooker.

Perhaps I am simple-minded, but somehow getting a grip on some easy image helps me to remember, in the heat of battle (so to speak) how to respond.  If I still need a little kernel of truth to keep me correctly oriented, how can I expect the onlooker to understand?

When I first received my "awakening" it was in the midst of a crisis with Maxim.  I'd picked the poor kid up late again, and instead of hopping into the car gratefully, as I'd expected, he started using profanity and calling me names and even kicking the dashboard, etc.  I wound myself up to ADDRESS the situation with a firm, authoritative "How dare you speak to me like that, young man?!"  when God slapped me across the side of the head and presented me with an image.  Instead of the angry teen, I suddenly saw a terrified little dog.  And is a terrified dog attractive?  No.  In fact, a terrified dog looks like an angry, dangerous dog - snarling, hair standing up, claws bared, salivating, teeth showing, ready to attack. I've learned that you see beyond that with an animal; you understand the fear, the instinct for self-preservation in that body language.  In that moment God allowed me to see the fear behind the aggressive behaviors in my foster son.  And, the moment I began to console, to speak quietly, and yes - to apologize......suddenly things calmed, the growling stopped, the hair laid down, and I could pet that scared and shaking little animal.  What remains in my mind as most remarkable, is how once I started calming him, Maxim actually allowed himself to be petted..... I stroked his hair, and told him how stupid I'd been, and helped him see that he had every reason, based on his past experiences, to react that way when someone didn't pick him up.  How stupid I had been!  This miracle - both in terms of God's intervention, and the impact my changed attitude had - has informed my parenting ever since.

But, can you believe that even so, I still find myself falling back on the parenting approaches that "come naturally?"  So calling up the image and the idea of  the child as a frightened animal can keep me on track.

Recently another very simple idea presented itself to me - one that again, helps me clarify in my mind why the counter-intuitive response is best, but better yet helps me to easily explain it to others.

I realized that ordinary punishments - and by that I think I can really include everything from a short whap on the behind to a time-out, to the typical removal of a privilege - all rest on the foundation of trust and love between the child and the adult.  On a very basic level, the parent and the child crave unity once again.  [For my Catholic readers - it even strikes me that the punishment or consequence stands very much in the same place as a penance in the Sacrament of Confession.]  If the child accepts the punishment, he realizes that it "blots out the offense" so to speak.  It makes everyone whole.  Hopefully, from the parents' point of view, it is also a learning experience.  From the child's point of view it hurts, but is "right".  Oh, children chafe under punishments - how I remember doing so myself!  Yet, eventually, I'd recognize my fault, accept my penance (so to speak) and all could be "made up".  Even that phrase "making up" seems to refer to a fault and an action meant to undo it. 

But that entire process is dependent on the prior relationship.  It is depndent on trust and love.  Trust that the parents love the child and know best, and love which demands that a sense of unity be restored.

The child who comes from early neglect and trauma never learned that most foundational concept - that adults (and by association all authority figures) have their best interests at heart.  Stop and think - how could they believe that?  They go hungry, they are left cold, they experience care that is random and violence equally random.  How can that lead to trust?  Neither is there love, because the child's love is in response to the parent's love.  And, perhaps trust is a precursor to love, in any case.

Thus, the radish child doesn't see punishment as for their own good.  (I'd contend that most children, even very young ones, because of those very early infant lessons, on some level understand that everything the parent does is a form of care for them.)  Neither does the radish child have a sense of unity with the parent that cries out to be restored, when damaged or broken.  Punishment cannot be accepted by this child as either any kind of "good" or as a way of restoring relationship. 

Punishment is perceived as a threat.  There were no early infant-lessons to teach trust, rather the child learned that he must watch out for himself.  The adult may even be perceived by some children as the enemy, as surely as fire, or deep water, or a barking dog might seem threatening to a normal child, the adult is likewise threatening to the child who received only or mostly hurt from adults in those first weeks, months and years. 

This idea dawned on me first when I saw how Ilya responded to punishment.  In his early days, when he was small, Craig in exasperation resorted to a whap on his behind and an attempt to take him by the arm and direct him toward the door (or chore, or whatever).  But, Ilya, rather than respond in a chastened way, as expected - as our bio children would have responded - instead, reacted like a person being attacked by a masked intruder.  I could see the adrenaline and the fear-for-life come over him.  Craig, still in "regular parenting" mode, where the parent must retain authority - made some further attempt to physically restrain Ilya - nothing violent or threatening mind you - just physically directive, two hands on his shoulders to push him toward the door, something like that.  But Ilya was already in fight-for-your-life mode.  I could see clearly that there was nothing we could have done to "win" via using force.  All in an instant it was clear as anything had ever been to me that no amount of force, no weapon, no level of anger or "autoritativeness" would have prevailed because Ilya was fighting for his life and he would have died before he would have given in.  That was the day when I realized why children die at the hands of their parents.  Oh, I am sure that there are parents who are abusive and working out their demons on their child.  But that day I saw how easy it would be for well-intentioned parents, especially those inculcated in the idea of  the importance of "parental authority", to end up killing their child.  Particularly their adopted child.  Because the child who never attached to an adult, neither trusts them nor loves them.  And when that is absent the parents simply do not have "authority" any more than a masked intruder has authority.  Both are perceived as threats.

Well, you're thinking - that was not a short explanation, Mrs. Kitching!  No; once I understood it from the inside, I came up with a short form something like this:  Thanks, for your advice.  That would have worked with my bio child,  But XXX didn't learn to trust adults as an infant, so she perceives ordinary discipline as a threat. And I attempt to smile (or at least keep a stiff upper lip) in a situation that once would have reduced me to tears of humiliation and embarrassment.  And I may even add, In some ways she is not unlike a little wild animal, and I need to be the "child-whisperer". 

Well, at least they buy the "wild animal" part.