Four words.

Four words that would provoke a collective groan/sigh from adopters. Four words that tell us that you aren’t listening, that you aren’t interested in our concerns and that you don’t want to admit that my child is not like other children.

Four words that write dread on the heart of a parent desperately trying to get help.

“All Children Do That”

• Gah!
• How dare you?
• Are you even listening to me?

A statement that isn’t even true. For the only things that ALL children (around the entire world) do is breathe, eat, drink and communicate.

The global nature of those four words sends shudders down my back, because one adopted child is not the same as another one.  How dare you lump every child into a one-size of policy, one way of rewarding or redressing behaviour, one way of motivating, one way of teaching them fits all.

I suppose that treating a class as one amorphous mass of children enables the teachers to feel able to cope, perhaps to kid themselves that they are doing their best, even if they are failing individuals within that group.

Not that every global (never, always, all, none) statement is detrimental – when we changed our language in line with advice from the fabulous Helen Oakwater to say our children’s birth parents ‘Couldn’t look after any child’ it removed any hint that our children were part of the reason they were removed, so in that instance, global is great.

A Category of One

But my children belong in a category of one. Yes they are both adopted, yes they were both separated from their birth parents and then from their foster carers. But they are fundamentally different characters, and as the eldest, Bubbles was with her birth parents for longer, and experienced more neglect.  It is likely that her brain is not wired the same as children who experienced care, love and attention in those first few months.

So whilst other children get frustrated, giddy, find Christmas overwhelming, meltdown in the middle of town, the reasons behind them and therefore the solutions for them are not the same. As a society we may have realised that corporal punishment is no longer acceptable, but we are a long way off having P.A.C.E. embedded into the way adults respond to children in schools and nurseries.

‘All [nouns] Do That’

Imagine attending a doctor’s clinic with a strange rash on the back of your hand. It is itchy, painful, dry, and it is driving you crazy. You have rubbed on a bit of hand lotion. When that didn’t work, you tried slathering it in E45 cream, and whilst it got a bit better, it has started to get worse again.  Clearly there is no easy answer to this rash and you might need something a bit more specialist. So you go to the doctor, someone who knows about these things and might be able to prescribe a cream to mend the problem.  But they only half listen, and then declare:

‘All hands do that’

What? Would you be happy with such a generic response, such a dismissive response, such disregard for your pain and suffering?

Me neither; I would be fuming. Livid. How dare she not take my pain seriously? ‘But my other hand isn’t like that‘ I might retort, only to watch a slow head shaking as if I am the person who is out of order wasting this person’s valuable time.

If it’s not okay for a doctor to dismiss the uniqueness of a patient’s experience, how come it is okay for adoptive parents to hear this time and time again?

Woe betide the next person who tells me ‘All children do that’ when I reach out and admit that I don’t know how to help my child, when I am desperate for someone to listen to the challenges that being an adoptive parent brings, when I just want to be heard.

Because the truth is that all children don’t do that.