Tag Archives: trauma

Drawing showing a regulated child. Her brain is being run by her curly grey matter (Cory) and she is calm, can listen and learn. It shows a fast transformation to dysregulated. This person is under the control of her amygdala (Amy) which is the fear centre of the brain. She cannot listen and learn, and her cortex is offline. The transformation back to regulated can be slow and take hours.

What Is an Amygdala Hijack and How Can You Help?

Leave a Reply

‘You’re HURTING ME!’ they cry. ‘Stop SHOUTING!!!!’ they yell.

What’s happening at these moments, when your child is beside themselves and they seem hypersensitive to every small thing you try to keep them safe and calm? When a whisper appears ear-splittingly loud and a featherlike touch is like being branded with a hot poker?

The Thinking Brain

When a child perceives a threat, their thinking brain, the curly grey matter or cortex (we’ll call him Cory) processes the information and decides how best to respond. Cory might override the emotional amygdala (Amy) and tell her to calm down, because it was ‘just’ a car door banging. And miraculously, Cory stays in charge and Amy has a little huff, but sashays out of the way.

But there are times when Amy decides that this is serious, so she punches Cory and seizes control. What happens next can seem wildly disproportionate, extreme, intense. Your child is in fight, flight, freeze or fawn mode, an automatic response to danger that’s run by the amygdala (Amy). For some children, Amy is more sensitive than others, constantly alert for danger and likely to respond with greater intensity than other (neuro-typical or non-traumatised) children.

When Cory is in charge, a person is regulated. When it’s Amy, then they’re dysregulated (also known as hyperarousal).

Regulation

Regulation is our default mode. It is when we can think, process, listen, learn, respond, react. We can draw upon knowledge and experience to size up situations and respond. As parents, we need to remain regulated to handle our child’s amygdala hijack. Things are likely to go downhill quickly if we panic or get overly stressed by it, because two dysregulated people adds up to utter carnage.

When we (or our child) are regulated, we’ll be relaxed, our movements will be fluid, our pupils will respond appropriately to light levels, our breathing will be calm, our limbs will flow, our skin will have good blood supply. We will adjust our volume, tone, pace to suit the conversation. We might be sad, excited, anxious, frustrated; and yet we remain regulated.

Dysregulation In An Instant

But something happens (we might trip and fall), or emotions build slowly until they hit overload and we push out of our window of tolerance and into dysregulation. Amy is the fear and panic centre of the brain and has a limited range of responses (fight/ flight etc). Our children act like rabbits in the headlights, goading, or running at full pelt. My daughter flees; my son freezes with a side of fighting.

When Amy is in charge, then our bodies will be tense, angular, our pupils might dilate so we can see better. Our breathing will likely be fast, short, panting; our heart will be racing in our chests. Our faces may pale as blood diverts to our muscles. We might get sweaty palms or goosebumps on our arms. We might shout, yell, push people away, run away.

Many children struggle to identify the early warning signals that are clues to an imminent amygdala hijack – my own children have sensory processing issues such that feeling hot or clammy or noticing a racing heart is beyond them. Which makes life tricky as we can’t take evasive action to disarm the hijacker (Amy).

An amygdala hijack is when Amy is in control of their brains and we have to deal with her, because Cory is offline.

How To Make Things Worse…

We can’t reason with Amy. She’s not listening. As parents, by trial and bruises, we discovered all the things NOT to do:.

  • Touching the person – a hug, squeeze, even a light touch, makes our daughter explode. She’s not all that keen when not aroused. Remember in fight or flight mode, all our senses are heightened. For children who are sensitive to touch, then any physical contact at this point is like punching them. I cannot tell you how many times our children yelled ‘you hurt me‘ when we tried to hold them during a hijack thinking we were doing the right thing to keep them safe.
  • Raised voices. I get it. The whole situation is super stressful. You might be freaking out (and even dysregulated). But, as above, children who are already sensitive to noise hear even a raised firm voice as unbearable. My children would yell ‘stop shouting at me‘ even when we didn’t think we were and sometimes burst into tears at the unbearable pain that a loud voice inflicted on their super sensitive hearing.
  • Being too close. My children’s bodies ripple with tension that I dearly want to soothe away. But they want to be left well alone. Stay safe and out of kicking or hitting distance if that is what your child needs.
  • Soothing, calming noises. Sounds like the right idea, but if I’ve learnt one thing, asking a dysregulated child to ‘calm down’ is like pouring petrol on a fire in the hope of putting it out. It’s only going to make things worse.

How To Make Things Better…

It’s detective time. What works for one child may not work for another, and what went brilliantly one day, might exacerbate things today. For my children, the generally successful (but not guaranteed) approach is:

  • Breathe. This is about keeping yourself calm. You might put your hand on your stomach and deliberately breathe deeply so that your child might notice your hand rising and falling. But often Amy doesn’t give two hoots about breathing, because she’s not all that keen on relinquishing control.
  • Stay close but do not touch. Depending on the situation, we might be sat outside their bedroom, across the room, or at the other end of a bench. We stay close (to keep them safe) but well out of arms (and kicks) reach, leaving clear air between our bodies. As they calm down, we might gently stroke a hand (but only by moving our hand slowly towards and backing off if they flinch away). You’ll get to know when they might be able to be hugged.
  • Stay silent. Nothing we say is going to make this situation better. Because talking is processed by Cory, and he’s not here. Amy speaks fear and panic only, so the less you say (preferably nothing at all) the better.
  • Hugging Toys. Whilst touching other humans can be triggering, some children can find hugging something cuddly tight to their body (a pillow, coat or toy) soothing. I’ve been known to stroke my daughter’s face with the ear of her favourite cuddly bunny and that’s met with more success than touching her directly.
  • Wait. Time is the most powerful tool you have. I’ve read that it takes six seconds for the adrenaline rush to calm down. That’s your golden window for quiet space. Whilst an amygdala hijack is often instantaneous, the reverse process can take minutes, hours, sometimes days (depending on the trigger, the child, their brain, neurodiversity and more).

Then What?

As the child starts to calm, then having specific extra-calming activities to hand can help to reset their bodies and help them recover from the stress hormones that have flooded their system.

  • chewing (gum or sweets)
  • sucking (particularly thick liquids like smoothies or milkshakes through thin straws)
  • eating (to reset their blood sugar levels which can be disturbed by the fight/ flight response)
  • listening to music, movement, and
  • distraction can all help.

My son (who freezes) would respond really well to Lego as a distraction. I’d rattle the box, chatting merrily to myself about whatever it was I was building. He couldn’t get himself out of a funk, but his natural curiosity and love of Lego would gradually overcome his mood and he would slowly come out from under his duvet, peek at what I was doing and eventually join in, building with me.

Safety Is Your Priority

As Sarah Fisher says in her book “Connective Parenting” the two most essential steps are keeping people safe, and staying regulated. Everything else can wait.

Sometimes you sit outside a room whilst your child throws stuff around (and you pray they don’t up-end the box containing a thousand pieces of Lego). Amy is unpredictable and wild. So you keep your distance and keep yourself safe. And you wait for them to calm. Because they will, eventually. Amy is no marathon runner. She’s a sprinter. Thank goodness.

Yes, I know how hard it is to handle these situations when Amy hijacks them in a busy public place (when a stranger touches her hair, darn them). But knowing what to do, and how best to react, gives everyone the best possible chance of calming down and recovering the situation. We try to make sure we (or the children) always carry fidgets, worry stones and chewing gum for emergencies.

What are your best strategies for helping a child who is dysregulated/ hyper-aroused or experiencing an amygdala hijack? Let me know in the comments

Facebooktwitter
Image entitled "Six SEND struggles in high school". 1. Communication. A Teacher is giving a long multi-stage instruction. Also saying "why can't you just...". 2. Relationships. Shows a masking child being ignored by other pupils. 3. Stress. Shows a teacher saying "test time", "move seats", "stand up and read to the class", "you're teacher is absent so today you've got me", "hurry up". 4. Concentration. Shows a pupil in front of a board covered in greek letters. 5. Safety. Shows a pupil being tripped up whiilist others pupils laugh and point. 6. Sensory - shows a pupil being poked, feeling overwhelmed by smells and sounds.

Six Reasons School Is Hard for SEND pupils

Leave a Reply

School is hard. Our two children coped okay in Infants (bit fidgety), started to struggle in Juniors (bit distracted and can’t sit still) but by high school, things became far, far harder. To a point that school became a step too far for our daughter as she hit autistic burnout.

But why? Here are six reasons that SEND pupils find schools to be exhausting, overwhelming and an huge strain on their mental and physical well-being.

1. Communication

Teachers are busy and have a lot of information to convey. They might give a series of instructions in a single breath. But what if you can’t hold that much in your brain at once? Our daughter has a very low working memory, so can cope with one or two things at once (on a good day). Anything more and she simply won’t remember the rest. Too many and she won’t even remember the first thing you said as her brain is overloaded and freaking out. How many teachers have time to give out one instruction at a time and wait for the pupil to process and then complete it? Yet that’s what she would need.

And it’s not just complexity of teacher’s instructions that derails them; communication in the teenage years gets a whole lot more involved. They have to navigate nuance (subtlety), metaphors, ambiguity, idioms, sarcasm and jokes. Obviously this applies to chats with friends too, as teenage relationships become more complex and blunt honesty is less welcomed. Which brings us onto…

2. Relationships

The teenage years are about identity, belonging, fitting in. My daughter tried to be invisible, to avoid negative attention. But it doesn’t matter how much an SEND pupil masks or tries to be like everyone else, students know. They pick up on the differences. Neurodiverse young people say the wrong things, hold themselves differently, copy others as they try to understand the world, laugh at the wrong bits, say too much or too little, have too much or too little eye contact.

My daughter is attending a course for neuro-diverse teens and whilst they are all different (a few cope in school, some self-teach at home, some struggle to say anything at all), the one thing that is universal is that none of them have any close friends. And that sucks.

3. Stress

Many neurodiverse people find comfort in routine, whereas school is unpredictable. A teacher might be absent (and the temporary replacement rarely understands pupils’ needs), the seating plan might change, a test is set unexpectedly, children are asked to pick teams in PE (which is divisive and should NEVER happen), pupils are asked a question, put on the spot or asked to stand and read aloud. All of these things create huge anxiety and stress.

My daughter becomes mute when stressed (selective mutism), yet a senior teacher put her on the spot and then waited patiently for a response. Whilst she became less and less able to respond as her anxiety rose and rose and rose. (This was before her formal diagnosis but when her support plan noted potential neurodiversity.)

4. Concentration

Focusing for almost an hour at a time, in a stressful unpredictable environment is a huge task for neurodiverse children. They have an ability to focus that is almost unparalleled (hyperfocus), but only on the things that hook into their brain and capture their attention. So with topics that don’t grab them, they struggle to focus their energy and enthusiasm. They might lose their place (then have to ask another pupil what was said, incurring the negative attention of a teacher for talking), miss steps out, or just lose interest because they’ve no energy left.

Their desire to escape, to look outside, to cope with overwhelm by stimming or day-dreaming, often takes their brain in directions that aren’t conducive with study. But these are valid coping mechanisms and no amount of shouting or cheerleading is going to change things.

5. Safety

Safety is paramount for all of us. Our children need a solid foundation beneath them, to feel that the world is okay, that it is free from threats, that they are safe and can relax. Despite policies that promise safety, schools are rarely the safe haven that SEND pupils need. It doesn’t matter what your paperwork says, if a student is harassed, barged and picked on before they’ve even sat down for the first lesson.

My daughter doesn’t trust adults (due to trauma as a baby). She takes months to get to know a grown-up well enough to trust them. In a high school with five lessons a day, five days a week, on a two-week timetable, her interactions are too infrequent and too many for her to build that solid relationship.

Then there’s bullying. The name calling. The pupils who touch her or her hair deliberately to provoke an extreme reaction. Who say horrible things about her being adopted or her birth parents. How can a pupil feel safe if they experience things like that on a daily basis?

6. Sensory

Finally, there is the sensory experience of school. Imagine having the volume turned to overdrive on every one of your senses…

  • Smells – from science labs to the food hall, from the smell of deodorants in the toilets or after PE, or being maliciously sprayed with it. The smells can make our children feel physically sick.
  • Sounds – school is a busy place with thousands of pupils. There is a constant onslaught of noise from chatting, chairs scraping, desks moving, books banging, alarms going and more. Then there are teachers raising their voices to be heard above the melee.
  • Touch – for a child who hates to be touched, the jostling as pupils stream from one classroom to the next in a busy corridor, the queues for food at break and lunchtimes, the poking and prodding, the chair kicking, those who deliberately touch her hair for a reaction. Never mind the scratchy uniform and shoes…

Everything Is Wrong

When my daughter or son were struggling with school, when it all became too much, when they sobbed or shook in their beds unable to move or attend, I’d ask them gently what’s wrong? I wanted an easy answer. Something I could solve.

Invariably their answer was EVERYTHING, which I thought less than helpful.

It took me time to fully understand them, their bodies and brains, and get to grips with their individual needs. To unpick their experiences in school. To wake up to the truth in their answer.

For them, nearly everything is wrong about school.

And however much school make minor adjustments – like ear defenders or letting them leave class early to avoid some of the crush – most schools are inherently overwhelming, overstimulating, overtaxing. They’re an experience that is just far far too much for some of our children.

Our children were born a certain way and they can’t rearrange their bodies and brains to fit a system that causes damage (to their self-esteem) and threatens their well-being (through constant crippling anxiety). It’s time for things to change. For government and local authority to truly understand the special educational needs and disabilities and design (and crucially fund) a system that fully supports their needs.

Facebooktwitter
A large 12 decorated with candles, a map of the UK, the seaside, a bunny, a dog, and the image from "And Then There Were Four" which is four people cut from paper.

We Are Twelve (Years Old)

1 Reply

Twelve years ago, our children came to live with us. The two of them (brother and sister) came and made us a family of four.

How has it been twelve years already?

We still remember that first night, where we thought they’d gone to bed exhausted and congratulated ourselves until our son woke in fear and cried for ages. We tried everything until Andy found a spot half-way up the stairs where he settled. We’ve no idea why, but we suspect it was sea of beige that had no reminders of the fact he was somewhere different, new, strange.

The Toughest Year Yet

Those early months were tricky – mostly due to the constant demands and utter exhaustion that dogged our steps and brains. Oh, for the simple joy of swinging them higher and higher whilst they blew raspberries at each other, giggling their heads off. Nowadays their muted joys involve TikTok and three-hour baths.

The last year has been the hardest yet. Our daughter hit autistic burnout and has taken a very long time to recover. There were weeks when she barely left her bedroom; her mental health was precarious and her anxiety huge; it impacted all of us.

School is no longer part of her life; it’s proved too much, and we’ve had to adjust to a new normal. Our son, amazingly, has kept going, although his anxiety sometimes stops him in his tracks.

So Much To Learn and Unlearn

For ten years, we viewed our daughter’s struggles through the trauma lens. Yes, she struggled with sensory overload and emotional regulation, but that was trauma wasn’t it? Eighteen months’ ago, she was diagnosed with ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder and we hit a new learning curve; discovering more maps to her brain. Whilst also saying “Oh” as we realised why she does what she does. We also believe she has ARFID.

Since every autistic person is different, we’ve become detectives. Observing her body language (she’s often unable to express her needs), her stimming, her movement or stillness, her face, eyes, the tension in her body. We have to hear the words she doesn’t say.

We suspect our son is also neurodiverse, and whilst the professionals assure you that children don’t need a diagnosis to get the support they need in school, that’s not our experience. He is not even on the SEND register as school still tell us that his needs can be met by ‘Quality First Teaching.’ But that’s next year’s battle…

Goldilocks Life

We search for the sweet spot. Not too overwhelming that they hit sensory overload (bowling on a Saturday afternoon proved impossible, whereas early Sunday morning had been fine). Whilst encouraging them out of their comfort zone.

Avoidance is a strategy that’s all too easy to fall into. The world can be an utterly overwhelming place, with strangers, sensations, noises, lights and more to deal with. Yet we don’t want to batten down the hatches and live like antisocial hermits. Because whilst that’s an attractive option (especially for our daughter), it won’t help us learn, grow, and refine coping strategies.

A Meal Out To Celebrate

We went out for a meal. We’ve gone out every year, and sometimes (before we understood their specific needs), it wasn’t easy, fun or a celebration. There would be stress, anxiety, an inability to eat, an urge to leave almost the minute we arrived. Several meals ended up with frowns, sulks, stomping and mutterings about why bother and we should’ve stayed at home.

But we’ve learnt a lot. We’re honing in on the Goldilocks spot. By going early, we avoid the noise and numbers of strangers overwhelming them. We go somewhere we’ve been before, where there is something they both like to eat. We’ll encourage them to take fidgets, headphones, to chew on ice, to suck on straws, to nibble to avoid hanger, to stim on their phones.

I’ll be able to assess my daughter’s level of anxiety from what she’s wearing: on a great day, my daughter will pick a fab outfit with tights, short skirt, something that yells “Look at me”. She’ll slay (but hate me saying that). If she’s feeling anxious, it will be baggy tee-shirts, a huge fleece, baggy trousers. It’s her armour, and it tells me that she needs support.

We know how to read our kids. When our daughter starts to struggle, she’ll shrink inwards. She might struggle to eat, as she’ll be using all her energy to stop herself running away. We won’t stay long (maybe an hour). And afterwards, we’ll allow both of them to stay in their safe places if they want to decompress.

How Did It Go?

We had a good time, the only hiccup being we all ate too much!

Eldest sat in a corner of the room (good spot), using her headphones to listen to music (I could tell she was anxious as she was part-baggy). She thumbed her phone and popped her head up occasionally. She smiled. She laughed (at whatever was going on online). But (massive win) she ate a burger from the adult menu for the first time and demolished most of her meal.

Youngest didn’t feel the need to stim or fidget. He got a bored, so we played word games (20 questions) as we waited for food to arrive, which was great fun and taxing as we had to guess the cartoon character (thankfully Andy got SpongeBob).

There was no stress. No struggle. No overwhelm or meltdowns or raised voices. Not once did I think it would have been easier/ happier to eat pizza at home.

Our life might be quite a long way from what we imagined, but we’re finding our way, together. We love them to Ikea and back, and we’ll do everything in our power to make sure that they have the best life they can, given the way their brains and bodies are wired.

Sometimes it’s a bit rough around the edges. Sometimes we get it horribly wrong. Sometimes we forget, or fall back into Tradiitional Parenting territory.

But we’re still here. We’re still together as a family. And that is worth celebrating.

Happy Familyversary to Us.

Facebooktwitter
Parent asks for help with bullying, teacher says "it's not bullying its a friendship issue" cartoon shows girl punching and jumping on another girl.

Why Won’t They Call It Bullying?

Leave a Reply

The litany of incidents my daughter experienced was long and protracted – months of:

  • stamping on her feet
  • calling her names
  • sending notes around class saying she was ‘a little rat’
  • swearing at her
  • tripping her up
  • scribbling on her work and telling the teacher that my daughter had done it

My daughter would tell her teacher/ the lunchtime supervisor/ whichever adult was nominally in charge. We would tell her teacher. We would email, ring, or catch her teacher in the playground at pick-up. Her teacher would nod and say:

“Thank you for letting me know. We will deal with it.

I’ve no idea how they were ‘dealing’ with it, except that my daughter was still being punched, kicked, yelled at.

School Policies

We researched their policy on behaviour and bullying. It said:

‘Bullying is taken to be the willful and conscious desire to hurt, threaten or frighten someone using words, actions or gestures. Bullying is pre-planned and usually happens on more than one occasion.’

It Was Never Bullying

Not once, not in any call, meeting or email did anyone refer to the situation as “bullying”. From teachers to the Head. It might be ‘an incident.’ For months at Junior school it was a “friendship issue.” We felt gaslighted. It wasn’t a friendship issue. It felt more like a campaign of physical and verbal abuse.

The strongest punishment that school gave the perpetrator was a missed break and lunchtime. They didn’t miss a single day of lessons, whereas the stress took it’s toll on my daughter for hours each day and night.

School’s Duty of Care

Schools, and every member of staff in them, have a duty to keep children safe. From adults, but mostly from their peers (in our experience). But all that means nothing if all you do with your bullying policy is post it on your website, then ignore it when push comes to shove comes to trip comes to name-calling.

Children need to be able to trust adults to keep them safe. That’s fundamental to their emotional and psychological well-being. If they are scared to come into school every morning because they are afraid of what another child (or children) might do to them, that’s not okay.

And the responsibility for solving that doesn’t lie with the parents. It lies firmly with the teachers, the staff, the leadership team, the governors of the school. And the first and most obvious way to make a school a safe, welcoming place is to take bullying far more seriously than they do.

What School Can Do

LISTEN. Not just to what is being said, but the tone, the emotion, the feelings. If the child is so upset they are dysregulated, then help them calm down first.

BELIEVE THEM. If you don’t believe them, you destroy what fragile trust you might have, and if a child earns that adults aren’t trustworthy, then all bets are off. You need to know that a stressed child might experience an amygdala hijack. That means that their thinking (curly grey) matter is not actually online. So they might not remember the incident clearly. Don’t assume they are lying. Their memory of the event does not exist (clearly, or at all). Ask witnesses if the picture is unclear or confusing.

ACT. Follow your school’s policy. If something nasty happens a few times, it counts as bullying. Don’t call it something else. Record the incident. Record what you have done to resolve things.

COMMUNICATE: Tell the parents about what happened and what you’ve done as a result. Keep them in loop. Build trust between you, that you are keeping their child safe, that you are taking it seriously, that you care.

It’s not just sticks-and-stones, it is psychological warfare.

Our children deserve to go to school and feel good about who they are, not attacked for their size, their sexuality, their neuro-diversity, their beliefs, their phone or lunch.

Bullying destroys self-esteem, mental and physical health. Don’t let them win.

Facebooktwitter
Girl reading and colouring in den

How to Navigate Transitionitis

Leave a Reply

July is a rock hard month. Every year. The end-of-term routines are chaotic, unpredictable and with all the changes ahead, children often feel adrift. They are overwhelmed and dysregulate at levels unprecedented in the other eleven months of the year. Whilst we haven’t found a magic wand, there are some things we focus on to help our children cope:

  • Things that minimise out-of-school overwhelm
  • Things that calm and soothe
  • Things that engage their bodies in sensory activities
  • Things that de-stress them

Here are a few ideas from me and my twitter friends:

Lean On Your Routines

Make home a haven of normality and routine

  • Say no to parties, trips, and out-of-the-ordinary events. Children are already coping with so much in school, they don’t need even more piled on top at home
  • Create a predictability at the weekend with a routine if you don’t already have one – a mix of sensory stuff, laughter, exercise and calm time

Calm and Soothe

  • Reading together – we’ve recently begun reading together before the school run (walk), as that provides a very calming environment, where we are sat or cuddled close together and sharing an activity
  • Chewing gum – that chewing action on school pick-up can really help them to cope. And research has even proven it. If you don’t like gum, then raw carrots or toffees or bagels are all chewy alternatives
  • Sucking on hard boiled sweets, lollipops, or on drinks through straws. Choose a thick (but not too thick) liquid like a thick milkshake as it both lasts longer and has a stronger sensory impact
  • Singing nursery rhymes or simple songs. Sure, you might be fed-up of Daddy Shark or the Narwhal song but your kids might just need that repetitive and funny song to centre them

Engage Their Senses

  • Bashing, sucking or melting their favourite Lego or plastic characters out of ice-cubes (with hot water pistols)
  • Digging for dinosaurs or unicorns that you have buried in the garden – with their hands or spoons
  • Water fights or paddling pools if the sun is shining
  • Baking together – with lots of tasting and testing and licking of bowls and spoons and then eating something delicious at the end of it all
  • Bouncing – trampolines and bouncy castles can be great at relieving stress and creating a rhythmic sensation
  • Games that include blowing are great for regulation as it helps control their breathing (long exhales are the key)

Chill – Maximum Downtime

  • Avoid homework or bringing school home in any way – its stressful enough without invading their home life as well
  • Relax, alot – movie nights, games, reading in their bedrooms, playing Lego together, painting, drawing – whatever is relaxing for them
  • Dens and small spaces are often heavenly for children who find the emotional and sensory overwhelm exhausting – even a small tent in the garden can be a real respite for them
  • Get outdoors – there is something inherently calming about big open spaces, nature, trees, beaches, sand, soil.

Let It Go

At this point in the school year, the focus in our house is on regulation. Keeping everything calm.

So I might help them dress, put their clothes away (rather than insisting they help), accept that one minutes’ teeth brushing is enough for today, pick up more of their stuff than normal. I also tend to back off insisting they contribute to household tasks – I tend to tidy a bit more, put their laundry away when they are at school.

This is not about creating a precedent or even letting them get away with it. It is about accepting that at this time their capacity is reduced, so I adjust my expectations to avoid tipping them into an amygdala hijack (or meltdown).

Some children need plenty of exercise and extra sleep. It is about knowing (and experimenting) with what works to help your young people to cope with a very tricky time of year.

In the end, it’s all about making everyone’s lives a little bit easier.

Just until term is over and we can all breathe again.

Facebooktwitter

Adoption Myths: They Won’t Remember

Leave a Reply

It is tempting to imagine that a child adopted at a young age will not remember the trauma or neglect they experienced. It’s something well-meaning friends and family might say to adopters when they are cradling a small child in their arms ‘They won’t remember’.

The idea is superficially true – young babies and toddlers will not consciously recall their experiences. They may never say “Mummy hit me” but that doesn’t mean to say that they are unaffected by their experiences.

A foetus will not remember the alcohol their mother drank, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t spend their whole lives trying to overcome the changes to their brain and body.

A Little Bit of Neglect

Is neglect worse than abuse? Is alcohol in the womb worse than violence once born? Are wounds that can be seen (treated, mended) worse than those that can’t?

Nearly all children adopted in the England are adopted from social care, having been removed from their birth family due to neglect and inadequate care.  We were told that during our preparation training by our adoption agency, so we knew that. But we also were painfully naive about the potential impact of that neglect on their brains, on their development, on their bodies, on their emotions.

Researchers have started to assess the impact of neglect using simple experiments. In this one, a parent deliberately ignores (neglects) their child for a short period. Note that:

  • The child is safe
  • The child has an adult in close proximity

This research, devised by Dr Edward Tronick powerfully demonstrates just how vital eye contact, engagement, play and responsiveness is to a baby as young as one.

“The results are almost immediate and they are devastating. The baby looks to the dad and tries to get the dad back into those games… the baby starts to get frustrated… within three minutes the baby has really dissolved“

The Impact on a Child

By being grounded with a parent, who provides a sense of safety and helps her keep an even (emotional) keel, the researcher Dr Richard Cohen goes on to say that the baby can:

  • explore the world
  • meet new people
  • try new things

All because the baby has that safebase to rely on. Dr Cohen goes on to say:

“We can only begin to imagine what it’s like for babies whose life is like … all of the time – and they don’t get that responsiveness, they don’t get any help getting back to an even keel”

The long term impact can be that the child:

  • has trouble trusting people
  • has trouble relating to people
  • has trouble being calm enough so that they can explore the world

Our Adopted Children DO Remember

Our children cannot tell us what they experienced in their lives with their birth family – and we don’t have all the information either.

Yet we have seen how they can struggle with trust, with relationships, with staying calm or on an even emotional keel (all the things the researcher quotes above). As they grow older, these first experiences seem to have an even greater ripple effect on their social interactions and school life.

Bubbles’ stress-response (amygdala) is super sensitive and often hijacks her brain with a fight or flight response to what is an apparently trivial event. Such that the festive season becomes a tightrope of stress, overwhelm and more (see Festive Fear For All The Family).

Babies Are…

As Dr Cohen says at the start of this video, babies are much more capable than imagined – capable of instigating play, of encouraging their carer to interact with them and respond to them.

But they’re also much more vulnerable.

The next time someone tells you that child adopted at a young age won’t remember, why not show them this video and blog?Facebooktwitter

Festive Fear for All The Family

Leave a Reply

So Christmas (Easter, the Summer, end of term) is upon us again. Tis the season to be jolly, or in our family, tis the season to go a little bit bonkers and have a mini meltdown in a crowd.

Tisn’t The Season To Be Jolly

I love the whole trees, fairy lights, magical side of Christmas (Andy is on the Grinch side of the Christmas divide, but this blog is not about him) and we (okay, I) imagined that the children would love it too. So when they joined our family, we attended lots of Christmas fairs and events with the kids, to immerse them in fun, goodwill and festivities.

But last year, after a fairly bad tempered tree festival, we began to wake up to the fact that these events more often than not deteriorated into crossness, frowns, stomping off and accusations of ‘You are mean.’  We were treading a tightrope across an emotional minefield.

Spontaneous Is Not Fun

From a child’s perspective these events can be:

  • Noisy – there is often loud music and voices clamouring for attention
  • Crowded – being jostled amongst teeming throngs of tall giants isn’t much fun
  • Confusing – do we drink hot chocolate or have cake, listen to the choir or have a lucky dip? They want it all and that’s hard to handle
  • Overwhelming – sounds, sights, smells of food, choices, raised emotions in the people around them, all add up to a sensory assault and rapid overload

These events are different, special, OUT of the ordinary; yet ordinary is what my kids thrive on.

Adopted Children Love Routine

Routine might sometimes be synonymous with boring yet that’s what my children need. They feel safe and happy cossetted in a warm blanket of cosy predictability. Our family is happiest with a simple routine:

  • Getting up at the same time every day and doing things in the same order. The kids beg for breakfast in their PJs on a weekend, but it can throw the whole morning when I ask them to get dressed afterwards
  • Walking the same route to school – when Andy walked them once, Bubbles tugged on his arm and shouted ‘You are Going the Wrong Way!!!!‘
  • Having predictable meals/ mealtimes/ bathtimes/ playtimes/ bedtimes

Christmas is the Anti-Routine. It is a sparkly curveball that wrecks their safety, and threatens their fragile sense of safety and security. So it’s no surprise they don’t react with giggles and glee.

School Timetables Fear

Schools, nurseries, playgroups, churches etc, organise festive feasts of fun. Event after event after event to celebrate religious festivals or Mothers’ Day, Easter bunnies or ends of term. Discos, film nights, singing, dancing, storytelling, plays, performances, sports, clubs, painting, drawing, snowflake cutting, bake sales, fundraising events and more.

Events that are designed with the best of intention, but that create anxiety and fear in adopted children, traumatised children, kids who have experienced upheaval, abuse, violence or loss associated with this time of year, children who are introverted, or SEN, or autistic (the list goes on).

For Bubbles and Nibbles, these events trigger anxiety, discomfort, uncertainty and more. Even if they enjoy the final event, the countdown can be agony. Bubbles will fret for around two weeks before a performance – two weeks when her learning is reduced, when her trauma mask starts to slip, when her emotions are as unstable as TNT.

A Carol Concert of Fear

Bubbles is singing at a carol concert this week. She loves to sing and be part of the choir.

Knowing full well that this was going to trigger her anxiety, I’ve been telling stories about the concert with her, sharing how the audience will be smiling, how her teacher will be looking out for her. Yet I missed something, because I forgot to step into her world. As we walked to school today, we chatted about the concert, and one fear eclipsed them all:

‘The church. It’s big and scary‘ Bubbles told me.

She blew me away. Because not only had she expressed her fear out loud, she had added new detail to it, something that I wish I had known earlier. For we could have visited the church together (in advance). Wandered up and down its aisles, got used to its size and shape in the light of daytime. We could have looked for toilets or exits, seen the doors and the pews, seen light shining in the windows. We could have made friends with the church, and in doing so, taken some of the surprise (aka fear) out of the concert.

Festive Fun is Family Fun

So we are starting a new family Christmas tradition.  A Christmas focused on each other. On our relationships and connection, on our energy and well-being.

We are avoiding all the Christmas fairs and events in our local area (which started in November for heaven’s sake). There is little sign in our house that Christmas is approaching – there are no decorations up yet, no obvious signs of the festive season, and as little change to our routines as we can manage with the exception of Rudolf (our own little mischief maker).

Our children have their solid Sundays – a park run in the morning and a swimming lesson before tea bookend a simple day of family time. There may be a trip to the cinema, some tablet time and a walk but not much else.

We are learning to put predictability at the heart of our family and our festive season, for that is where the most fun will be had.

  • Fun can be simple, easy, calm.
  • Fun can be cheap, low-key, at home
  • Fun can be a picnic in the lounge, baking in the kitchen, dens in the bedroom, bubbles in the bathroom, a Theraplay game for one-on-one time, balloons in every room of the house

The heart of family (and festive) fun is creating a sensory experience that my children are comfortable with from start to finish.  

How do you ensure your children have fun (not fear) at out-of-the-ordinary events?Facebooktwitter

The Trauma Mask

1 Reply

“She seems happy” says Hazel* (from school), as she sits on a table with our social worker Mo*.  We three are discussing how best school can support Bubbles to feel safe and secure.

I sigh deeply and remain silent, shaking my head a little.

Bubbles, like many traumatised children, lives her life behind a mask. A mask of control, of pretence, of keeping her feelings and emotions hidden. The mask only slips when she feels safe – when she feels secure enough to express the inner conflict of her world.

“Is Bubbles happy at school?” Hazel asks, her tone a mix of bewilderment and concern.

What should I say? There isn’t an easy answer.

A High Functioning Traumatised Child

Bubbles achieves in school. She is meeting expectations in all areas, exceeding them in reading. She tries really hard to do what she is told and what is expected of her. She tries (so hard) to please and be recognised and rewarded in school.

To all intents and purposes she might seem like a model pupil. She is what I call a highly functioning traumatised child. Yet a deep dark secret lies beneath the surface. 

But in holding in together, the truth leaks out as clues

  • The way she can tip into anger or frustration with a single misplaced word
  • Her reaction to friendship issues, to rejection taking it beyond personal into a slight on her very soul
  • How any stress or frustration shown by an adult will stress her out ten fold (by taking perceived safety from her)
  • Her chewing (raw, powerful grinding)

At a recent assembly I watched her chewing (as my heart went out to my amazing girl). It wasn’t just a curl of hair that strayed near her mouth; Bubbles was stuffing great handfuls of hair into her mouth and gnawing it with gusto. When it wasn’t her hair, it was the shawl I had crocheted for her. Yet minutes later, when I gently asked her if she was anxious, she denied it and seemed surprised that the shawl was wet.

The touching sight of her anxiety led me to action: whilst school had been hesitant when I had previous suggested one, that day I bought her a chewigem pendant to bite in school and at home (Bubbles was delighted). Her chewing isn’t the issue; anxiety is the issue. Bubbles isn’t present during her anxiety.  She is stuck in flight or fight mode (when her amygdala – what we call Amy – is in charge). Sometimes she simply doesn’t even remember being anxious or angry, as if her brain has blanked it out.

And because she doesn’t know she is anxious, she won’t tell you she is either.

Her Mask is Safety

Bubbles problem is simple: she doesn’t feel safe. Her early years were sufficiently chaotic and disorganised that she learnt that the only way to be safe was to be in control.

  • To take charge of every situation
  • To do what she is told to avoid anger or violence or harsh words
  • To deny her own emotions for they were too painful

She Yearns For Love

To her teachers and the staff, she seems a happy, cheerful model pupil. Like a swan. All elegant gliding on the surface, but beneath the water, her insides are churning like crazy.

Her need for love, for praise, for acknowledgement, for recognition competes with her anxiety. Bubbles sits and practices her times tables, her handwriting, her reading because she wants someone to notice her and smile.

A little eye contact and a smile mean the world to her.

Yet shame is just beneath the surface. A harsh word and her world crumbles. She tries so hard, exhausting herself every day holding everything tight, holding her world together, taking control of every tiny aspect of her life, losing the carefree years of her childhood.

The Mask Falls Away

At home Bubbles feels safe.

She can express her raw, intense emotions without being shouted at, without incurring the attention of the class, without being shamed. The mask falls away and I see just how much keeping it all together during the day costs my little girl.

I am humbled that she trusts me enough to express her rage, her anger, her intensity – and writing this the guilt rises up at the times when I didn’t react with empathy. On a day when multiple things have gone wrong, her rage can last two hours.

Homework is hard. Not because she is lazy or doesn’t care. Sometimes she cares too much.

  • Sometimes (after a good day) she has energy and enthusiasm to spare and aces her homework, which builds her fragile self-esteem
  • After a hard day, when her anxiety left her running on vapours, then it triggers rage because it feels too hard (and rocks her self esteem)
  • If her anxiety is still sky high, then it triggers shame because she can’t remember her spellings or times tables.

Her battle is real, every school day. Yet somehow through all of this, she still manages to absorb information, to learn, to have moments of fun and friendship.

But when you ask me if Bubbles enjoys school, I don’t really know what to tell you.

* not their real names.

This blog is an excerpt from Emma’s forthcoming sequel to her book “And Then There Were Four” that charts the struggle to learn to parent her adoptive children therapeutically, to get support from school and the adoption agency and to educate herself and others in the needs of her adopted children. It will be published in 2025 and entitled “And Trauma Made Five.”Facebooktwitter

Is The Future of My Family Bleak?

Leave a Reply

Yesterday, Adoption UK and the BBC published a survey of over two thousand adoptive parents in the UK.  The results were sobering.

On The Bright Side

An overwhelming majority (percentages not supplied) of adopters said that they were glad that they had adopted.  A bright light after some more troubling statistics.

The Dark Side – Violence

Almost two-thirds of adopters had experienced aggressive behaviour. For some this is serious and sustained child-on-parent (CPV) violence.  I was shocked. How do parents cope with that? I struggle with being screamed at.

Then I remembered a friend whose young birth son was violent towards her over a decade go.  She struggled to get anyone to listen never mind believe that she felt abused by her child.  Has nothing changed?

Is CPV a taboo, a hidden problem in our society, ignited by traumas of all kinds?  Where it is the only outlet for some young people who find this busy, noisy, overwhelming world of contradictions too much to deal with?

And yet despite two-thirds experiencing aggression, only one quarter were in crisis, suggesting that many parents cope (somehow) and do not suffer breakdown. But a quarter is not a figure to celebrate, although it contrasts strongly to other research (over a 12 year period) stating that only 3.2 % of adoptions disrupt or breakdown.

And I wonder if I should have let Bubbles take kickboxing lessons this term.

The Teenage Threat

Being a teenager is no easy task. It is time where young people are trying to answer the question “who am I?” and find their own identity, one which is complicated by adoption, trauma, separation, neglect and more.

There are ten times more disruptions in the teenage years, which tells me that we are not doing enough to support adopted teenagers.

How do we equip all children, including adoptees to deal with the teenage years – what needs to be done before they get there, before the hormones and bodily changes complicate everything so that they have the tools to cope?  What do we need to give adoptive parents so that they can heal their broken children?

Forewarned is forearmed. But is it really that bleak?

A Pinch Of Salt

Clearly an online survey will only capture some adopters.  Not all might have seen the invitation to participate or felt they wanted to. With over five thousands adoptions a year, two thousand responses is a small fraction of those who have an adopted child in their household over the years.

Perhaps those most likely to respond are those parents who are struggling – who most need their voice to be heard, who most need the support systems to wake up to the reality they are experiencing, who most need things to change so that they can mend their problems and stitch their family back together, those who most feel unheard and unsupported in their time of crisis.

Regardless of how representative the survey is, around 1300 families have experienced aggression, and nearly 500 are in crisis, which is too many and means there are many more out there needing help.

Are we as a society content that adopters struggle to get support, to get therapy (one adopter on twitter said the waiting lists were too long for the therapy she needs to help her family – a tragic state of affairs), to get the advice, training, help that they as adoptive parents and their children need?

Shining a light on issues definitely helps – it sparks debate and further research, so that people know the truth of adoption.  But experts, therapies, support, groups, training, they all need funding.  Cold hard cash, if anything is going to change.

Do I Tornado-Proof My Family?

What does our future hold?

My family does not experience child-on-parent violence.  The nearest we come to a ‘crisis’ is when Bubbles can’t find her bunny at bedtime.

Andy and I are truly glad we adopted.

Yet this survey shook me up. Am I supremely naive as an adopter? Am I living in adoption fairy-land, hoping that we will buck the trend and live happily ever after? I want to believe that this will all work out, that our family will be just like other families out there, even if my children arrived through an unusual route.

As I walk the children to school in the morning, hand-in-hand, should I continue our chats about unicorns and the Haka, or start digging into therapeutic parenting to prepare for the coming storm?

Relax, Enjoy, Read

For now, all I can do is enjoy the time I have with my children.  My beautiful, fascinating, surprising, giggle-inducing, warm-hugging children.  Snuggled into the bliss of our family life peppered with the odd tantrum or meltdown over something and nothing.

And yet whilst I sit in the sunshine and read, it might just be a book by Dan Hughes (as recommended by @mumdrah) just in case.

What are your thoughts on the survey?Facebooktwitter