Tag Archives: school

End of Term Problems

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‘Time to turn off the television/ tablet‘ you say in your best sing-song voice.

‘Yes Mummy/ Daddy‘ your child replies gleefully as they turn it off and skip to you for a hug.

For many of us the above is a fictional account of what happens, because…

Change is a shock.

There are little changes like shutting down a tablet and big ones like the end of a school year – which is a layer upon layer of tricky stuff to cope with.

Problem 1: They Are Bone Tired

  1. By the end of the school year, my kids are tired. Exhausted. Ready for a break.
  2. Because they are running on empty, they are more prone to coughs, colds, tonsillitis and more.
  3. Whilst they need a break, the holidays are a freestyle period of spontaneity. However much we discuss our plans, they struggle to grasp that amount of information in advance, so feel insecure about what is coming next.
  4. Long light days make sleeping harder (even with blackout blinds and curtains).

That in itself is quite a lot to cope with. But there’s more.

Problem 2: Transitionitis

Of course, the end of one school year is much more than just the end of term. Because next year, after the summer holiday:

  • Their teacher and teaching assistant will change
  • Their classroom and peg and drawer will change
  • Who they sit next to and the classroom dynamics will change
  • What and how they learn will change

EVERYTHING will change

Problem 3: Routine Is Thrown Out Of The Window

Dear Teachers

Please note – for every “exciting” thing you put into your end of term timetable, some pupils find them very, very, very stressful. Your exciting event is my children’s panic, stress, nightmares, inability to sleep, relax, enjoy or learn.

An Exhausted Mum

The end of term brings a veritable cornucopia of anxiety-inducing events. From sports’ day, to discos, non-uniform days, outdoor events, residentials or trips, plus award ceremonies, end-of-term assemblies and prize-givings. And don’t get me started on last year’s surprise talent competition…

If you’ve rocked a sobbing child who’s too stressed to sleep for days before each of these “fun” events, you too might roll your eyes when school announces yet another end-of-term surprise. Colour me unconvinced that these special events are great for all children.

Solutions: What Our Children Need

When the future seems wobbly, children need routine

What schools can do:

  • Stick to the routine as much as possible, for as long as you can
  • Provide lots of warning and a clear timetable for these non-routine events to parents in advance (no surprises, please!)
  • Pick one day of the week as your Event Day and then keep the rest of the timetable intact
  • Consider how your exciting events impact on those children who crave certainty and predictability in order to feel safe and stay calm (and essentially able to learn)
  • Schedule events throughout the year, rather than cramming them all at the end of term
  • Focus on laughter and fun during transition events to help kids relax
  • Create a comprehensive and gradual transition plan – starting the week after spring half-term and building gradually

When faced with change, with uncertainty ahead, with transition, many children need routine and predictability to help them feel calm, not spontaneity and excitement.

Ask yourself as a school what you can do to reduce not increase anxiety.

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Festive Fear for All The Family

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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

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“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 2019 and entitled “Hugging the Cactus”.

 

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Hell Yes – Adoption UK Conference

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Being an adopter, being a parent can be a lonely business, as you struggle with the change in your identity, battle for the right support for your children and immerse yourself in learning about parenting, trauma and attachment. Yet I was still nervous at attending my first Adoption UK Conference this weekend. I had no idea what to expect…

Four Hundred Fold

The room was packed with around 400 adopters, educators and social workers, in what can only be described as cosy seating, but we smiled as we bumped arms and legs. The speakers were incredible, knowledgeable, inspiring and more. And every so often they would tap directly into the mood of the room, and be rewarded with a simultaneous groan, sigh or laugh from 400 people, like a warm hug of shared experience.

When Nicki Campbell told of people asking if he’d ever searched for his ‘real’ mum, the room rolled its eyes and tutted, murmuring our assent as Nicky corrected their language, stating that his (adoptive) mum is his real mum.

When Daniela Shanley’s (of Beech Lodge School) slide said “Can I have a word?” we groaned, and felt that blushing embarrassment as she described the walk of shame.

The experience of the people in that room, their struggles to be heard, their fight for support for their children, their desire for their children to be given the same chances in life, just being part of that crowd of warrior woman and men was an inspiring and uplifting experience.

A Little Bit In Love

Amongst a host of incredible speakers, all of whom blew me away with their insights, their research, their experience, their passion and more, there were three that stood out on Saturday.

First was Sue Armstrong Brown, the new CEO of Adoption UK. Despite almost disappearing behind the lectern, her voice and passion carried straight to my heart and I fell in love with her a little bit.

She argued that “adoption needs its champions to be heard” and that instead of just improving the current (flawed) system, we needed to create one that reflects modern adoption, one that is fit for purpose.

She wove in shocking statistics from Adoption UK’s research (summarised in this infographic) whilst never once admitting defeat or feeling bowed by the challenges ahead.  Whilst adopted children are 20 times more likely to be permanently excluded from school, her mood and tone was one of a fight that we will win.

All Behaviour

Then Daniela Shanley blew me away with her dedication to providing a school to suit her child, even if that meant she had to build it herself after being told “this school is not for your son, and there is no school for your son.”

She connected with all the parents who have ever been told that their child is naughty, difficult, disobedient and more. She challenged us to look at adopted pupils in a new way, through different eyes rather than judging and excluding them using inflexible and rigid policies about journals or swearing that are not the right fit for their needs.

If you are thinking “we can’t do that” then look at her school’s behavioural policy (based on Dan Hughes PACE approach) or email it to your child’s school to show them just what can be done to support adopted children whilst maintaining standards.

This quote sums up her ethos:

All behaviour is communication, even when they are kicking the sh*t out of a filing cabinet.

If only all teachers and schools looked at pupils holistically, investigated the triggers that led to a situation, and were more curious about what the child was trying to express before they lent so heavily on policy, judgement, isolation and exclusion.

From Head to Adopter

And finally, I have to mention Stuart Guest, head of Colebourne Primary School in Birmingham. The only man (after my husband of course, better put that in) who made me want to move my life to Brum lock-stock and barrel just for my kids to attend his enlightened school. He introduced his children thus:

These are eleven, seven and four…  we were never very hot on names

How I laughed throughout this presentation. His entire persona of friendly dad, come headteacher, come hater of baths gave him a humanity that I fell for. Never mind thinking constantly “going to use that one” in reaction to the simple, practical tips that he and his wife use daily.

These three speakers stole my heart in different ways that day.

#tissuetribe

The final session of the conference was emotional and unforgettable. Four young adoptees (age 16 to 21) shared their stories and experiences of school. Their prepared answers to questions about how they felt about school, bullying, whether or not they reached their full potential was not easy to listen to, but it highlighted just WHY the changes are so necessary.

Midway through a clear response, a quiver started, C’s words started to stumble and catch, and she turned to her mother for comfort, shaking her head as she couldn’t continue. And every heart in the place reached out to her, felt for her, was there with her, as we recognised the tough times that some of us also experienced in school or that our children are experiencing today.

It was soggiest of the tissuetribe moments. I was overcome by the struggle, the truth of their school lives, and overwhelming desire to be part of the force for change, to be part of the tidal wave that would change the experience of adoptees in the future.

Hell Yes

But it wasn’t just the speakers who inspired. I bumped into a friend of mine (I sometimes forget she also adopted) and stupidly asked her with surprise “what are you doing here?”!  I caught up with some of the lovely adoption twitterati (although their flower/ trainer/ sunset profile pictures don’t make it easy to recognise them, and I ignored a few for which I am sorry), and chatted with many others in snippets or more.

It was hard to wrench myself from the warm enveloping hug of being with a tribe of understanding. As I sat on the train home, I summed up the day with my final tweet:

Today was my first conference – would I recommend it? Hell yes!

The conference was a clarion call to adoption warriors from all parts of society. Adopters, adoptees, teachers, heads, virtual heads, governors, parents, pupils, local authorities, agencies, post adoption support and Adoption UK to work together to create an educational system where all looked after or previously looked after children get the support and help they need to reach their potential.

Joining The Battle Hymn

In the few days since the conference, I have heard phrases and ideas echo through my mind. I have thought about how best to support my children, their teachers and school. I have implemented new approaches and tools at home, with more ideas to be instilled when I get the time to read the slides again. I had a talk with Bubbles about her recent anxiety (chewing through cardigans) that cemented our bond, then used that conversation for a meeting with Bubbles’ teacher, which went well.

I am not the mother I was when I arrived on Friday night, I feel engaged, supported and inspired in a whole new way.

Adopters need a voice.  Adoptees need a voice.  And with the help of Adoption UK and other organisations, all these voices will be heard, and not just in a superficial “that’s nice” way, but in a deeply, heartfelt way such that change happens, such that systems and education evolve. Because the future of these young lives depend on it.  The schools and teachers must educate themselves, such that their policies and procedures embrace adoptees and include them, recognise their specific challenges, steering away from the teeth-gnashing “all children do that” denial of the uniqueness of their early experiences, and help them achieve their potential.

We all deserve to the best version of ourselves. 

I became a warrior that day.

Singing the battle hymn of the adoptive mother.

At the conference, I became part of a choir – four hundred voices chanting in unison, raising our voices to the heavens, to Parliament, to whomever will listen, to the media and more, until the current educational approach to adopted children looks as dated as hitting children with a ruler in Victorian England.

It’s time for change. Will you join the choir and have your voice heard.

I am in. Bring it on.Facebooktwitter