Knight in Shining Pajamas?

My 3 year old has just been initiated into an age old guild of young boys, Knighthood.  He is a brave knight, the protector of his family, invisible sword in hand, conquering dragons and lions and tigers and whatever other threatening animals dwell in the darkness up the stairs at bed time. His fool proof "armor" are his safari pajamas.   Having developed a general trust in the world and the people in it, established confidence in his own independence and will, he as come to the point at which he must develop initiative versus guilt.  He must develop his sense of purpose, his knowing that he is in this world for a reason and that what he does matters. He must move forward in his life knowing that he can try new things and fail, explore the world both imaginary and real,  and that he will be loved and supported while he does so.

A child in this developmental stage of life needs to be affirmed that he is powerful and capable and that his explorations into the world around him are important.  A child also needs to be taught that his power is his to wield in the service of others.  He has the ability to change things as well as the ability to help others.  He has the right to his emotions, but also the responsibility to experience consequences.  This is the foundation of an emotionally intelligent and compassionate soul.

If, however, the struggle for initiative is thwarted, a child may easily experience guilt in his life.  He may feel that he is worthless, doing things wrong, or not doing enough.  A child experiencing this guilt may withdraw for fear of doing something wrong or overcompensate and try to take command of everything.  The foundation of the child continues to be damaged when at every turn he's not allowed to touch things or talk to people in public or he's laughed at for not being able to competently do a task or he's corrected at every turn or he is allowed to do anything he wants without parental intervention or  he is told that his made up story is a "lie" or he is punished for crying or getting angry.

Children come into foster care with many cracks in their developmental foundation.  As each developmental stage builds upon another, guilt builds upon shame and shame builds upon mistrust.  Foster parents have the job of going back to re-examine the foundations, no matter what the child's age, and filling in the cracks.  Therefore a 10 year old might need to be held and rocked like a 1 year old, an 8 year old might need to yell and tell you "no", and a 14 year old might need to play pretend.  They need help filling in those cracks, building back trust and autonomy and initiative.

We all have cracks, that is part of being human.  And there is no shame in being a parent who has not built a strong foundation for their child.  We act out of our own brokenness and we don't know any better than what we have been taught ourselves.  Thankfully we have friends, family, teachers, foster parents and more to help us build where we aren't able, but that never replaces the role of a parent in the heart of a child.

The Childhood Affirmations Program, www.childhoodaffirmations.com, provides the following list of suggestions on concepts of how to encourage your 3-6 year old child.  Try your best to communicate that:

1) We enjoy having you explore who you are and finding out who other people are.
2) You can feel powerful and capable and still ask for help when you want it.
3) You can learn that behavior has consequences.
4) You can imagine things without being afraid they will come true.
5) We gladly give you our support and love.
6) All of your feelings are okay with us.

Build these affirmations in your child, no matter what the age.  Some of us adults still need them!

I Walk the Line

Every child is unique and tests boundaries in different ways.  Some test boundaries subtly, slyly slipping their toe over "the line" when you're not looking; others test boundaries within the letter of the law, standing toe to toe with "the line" but never crossing it; still others test boundaries boldly, stomping over "the line" while you stand there and tell them not to do so.  My younger son, born with a brave conqueror's spirit, can do all three.  His name does not mean "spear of God" for nothing!

At two years old, I have already seen glimpses of him at 16: rolling his eyes, stomping away, and slamming his bedroom door.  I've witnessed his defiance and direct rebellion in the smallest of ways, and I am thankful that in direct alignment to this warrior's spirit is a compassionate heart.  This brute of a two year old is also the cuddliest snuggler, the hugger and kisser, the one who gently rubs his parents awake in the morning.  I also take heart that my two year old is doing exactly what he's supposed to do and he trusts me enough to do it.

Between 18 months and 3 years of age children are finding their autonomy and establishing themselves as separate beings from their parents and siblings.  Now is the time for him to exert his will, his independence, his control.  It is also the time for him to find courage to be in the world, to speak his mind, to challenge what is put before him. He must express himself, but then he must learn self-control.  He must learn that there are consequences for his actions.  He must learn that there are limits to what he can and can't do, what is acceptable exertion of one's self and what is not acceptable.  The child must know that it is okay to say "no", but that saying "no" does not give him the right to hurt himself or others.

This time period is a trial for the parents, both those controlling and those lenient.  If you are too controlling you break the spirit, if you are too lenient you get run over.  Any way, you are exhausted.  Parenting takes time, attention, energy, and dedication.  For foster parents it can be even more difficult because you do not have the affection a parent is given and in most cases you don't see the little child.  You get a hurt and angry teenager on your doorstep, ready to prove they don't need you.  But somewhere in the middle is the balance between respecting the child's discovery of his own autonomy and teaching him healthy limits.

Without balance and respect, the child is confused.  His security in his independence is wavering.  He tests his boundaries in order to learn what is right and wrong, not because he knows what is right and wrong.  If he doesn't get a consistent answer he experiences shame instead of confidence.  He's unsure.  When he acts he doesn't know if he will be rebuked, praised, or ignored.  He becomes embarrassed or defiant.  A child who cannot be confident in his ability to express himself, feels shame when he is corrected, shame when he is singled out, shame when he is confronted.  He feels shame at the core of his identity because the message he receives is that he is not worth being corrected or not worth being paid attention.

As caregivers for children in foster care, our goal is to make children feel capable, lovable, responsible, and worthwhile.  This is our mantra.  Capable, lovable, responsible, and worthwhile.  We must go back.  We must teach the child that he is worth loving, that he is worth protecting, and that he is worth listening to.  We teach a child this by allowing him to express himself in safe ways, having conversations along the way, and drawing the line when someone's health and safety is threatened.  This self expression may show itself in clothes that you don't approve of or change in hair color or the word "no" (or much worse!) or rolling of eyes or not eating at meal times.  Don't be side tracked or thrown off the scent by focusing on the individual behaviors.  Don't get offended by behaviors that don't adhere to your values.  See them for what they are, a search for autonomy and self-worth, a testing of the limits, a journey out of shame.

Big Person in a Little Body

"Life Unexpected" was a TV drama over the last few years that detailed the life and family drama of a 15 year old girl reunified with her parents after a childhood spent in the foster care system.  Amid the drama and crazy relationships of soap opera proportions, there are beautiful nuggets of truth and redemption that keep one coming back to the screen.  Recently, I watched an episode in which Luxe, the main character, has a conversation with a high school English teacher.  Luxe is frustrated and hurt by the juvenile and mean spirited antics of some classmates and bemoaning the fact that she doesn't fit it.  The teacher points out to Luxe that the other kids are just trying to be grown ups, whereas Luxe is a grown up just trying to be a kid.

This is true for most of our kids in foster care.  How many times have we remarked that these little kids are dealing with adult issues?  This makes the job of parenting sticky, complicated.  Often, children in foster care have been there own parent, they've been the ones responsible for feeding their families, for protecting their siblings, for nursing their parents, for deciphering what it means to be loved.  After so much responsibility, it's a struggle to be told what to do, an insult to the overdeveloped independent spirit, a threat to take something away when so much else has already been lost.

Children do need boundaries and they do need parents.  Developmentally they are not equipped to handle adult situations or adult emotions, but they do because they are adaptable and creative.  Children are survivalists.  However, all this time spent doing adult things they miss out on the stages of childhood development and never learn how to do child things.  As teachers, we have to gently, respectfully, and creatively teach them how to be children again.  And we must start at the very beginning, the foundation of development, Trust versus Mistrust.

Teach the child in your home that she can trust you.  Do not say, "You can trust me."  It is likely she has heard these words many times before and they were not true.  You must teach the child in your home that she can trust you through your actions.  In every small way, earn trust.  This means lots of different things, but do not be deceived into thinking that years of reinforcement of mistrust will be wiped away by a few weeks in your home or because you know that your home and your family are trust worthy.  You must prove that you can be trusted, again and again and again.

Here are some simple ways to SHOW that you are trustworthy:

1) Be where you said you would be, when you said you would be there
2) Keep your voice within normal levels, avoid any yelling
3) Serve 3 meals a day at regular times
4) Post your rules and consequences in your home and give the child a copy
5) Follow through with consequences consistently
6) Follow your own rules
7) Speak positively of the child both in the home and in public
8) Ask permission before you touch the child or enter her room
9) Explain what you are doing and why you are doing it
10) Apologize when you have hurt feelings or made a misstep

Children interpret what they see and what they're told through the mind of child without the benefit of experience or knowledge.  As a result they draw conclusions and connections that don't really exist.  We have to help them draw accurate connections between what we say and what we do and thereby teach them healthy ways of relating to the world around them.  A co-worker recently went to a movie with friends one night.  Meanwhile, her 6 year old son left a message on her phone that she was "neglecting" him.

A 6 year old is not neglected because his mom has healthy social life, but he might feel neglected.  A child from a stable family might feel neglected, but know in reality that he is not.  Trust has been developed.  But a child from an unstable family who has experienced more mistrust than trust, truly might believe a parent is neglectful.  It's our duty as parents to help a child understand healthy interactions and explain that  it is important for people to have family and friends and multiple support systems.  It is also important for people to take care of themselves and do safe things that they enjoy. And in reality it can be difficult to share people we love, but one way we love them is through sharing them.

Be Careful Little Mouths What You Speak

While sitting in the airport waiting for a delayed flight, I overheard a very loud exposition on people with mental illness.  The speaker, a fellow traveler, was marveling a group of young listeners with her experiences as a prison nurse and the appalling criminals she had met.  The oration included such radical statements as "all their heads should be cut off" and "people with personality disorders do not have a chemical imbalance like people with mental illness; they're sociopaths; they have a choice to do what they do."  I must address this situation because unknowingly this woman was impacting public stigma towards people with mental illness, a stigma that does not need help in the realm of negative impressions.

Kids in foster care are in the same position.  They do not need our help to look bad in the public eye, nor do they need our help to look pitiful or feel shameful or guilty.  Foster kids are often dealing with mental illness (depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, disruptive behavior, reactive attachment disorder) on top of having suffered neglect, abuse, and removal from the only family they have ever known.  Kids deal with big adult issues the only way they know how, and often this means reverting to the coping mechanisms they've learned from they're environment, coping mechanisms that allow for survival not necessarily for social norms.  Successful coping mechanisms may include stealing, fighting, drinking and drugging, sexually inappropriate behaviors, hoarding food.  The list goes on and on.

To many people these behaviors are quickly interpreted with moral judgments (ranging from our dear traveler's "they're sociopaths and their heads need to be cut off" to the more common this child is "lazy", "rebellious", "ungrateful", or "a tramp").  Our job, as foster care workers and foster parents, is not to fall into this trap of placing value judgments on behaviors.  It is our job to see past the behaviors and help the child identify the feelings that cause them. We must be extremely sensitive to our words, our offhand comments both in our home and in public.  More importantly we must guard our hearts for "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7).  We influence our community's perception of the children we have in our care.  How we talk about them in public or to our spouses impacts the hurdles they meet in the community.  We cannot help those whom we pity or objectify with our judgments.

I would like to take this moment to say that we all have a choice to do what we do, but we make those choices based on our perceived reality.  This perceived reality varies from person to person.  Your reality is based on chemical influences (internal or external), cultural backgrounds, and family grooming, personal experiences and what they've taught you to believe. Someone with paranoid schizophrenia may experience a reality in which people are constantly spying on them which will result in some very out of the ordinary behaviors.  Children who believe that they are worthless and cannot get attention any other way may resort to sexual exploits that are unsafe or far beyond their age level.  We all have our own struggles and our own personal realities that we respond to, whether that is believing you are fat or ugly or unlovable, whether it is believing you will be denied what you want, or cheated out of what you work hard for, or rejected when you reach out.  We behave in response to the things we have been taught and the things that we believe about ourselves.

For ourselves, for each other, and for our children we need to speak and believe a higher Truth.  A truth that says we are capable, lovable, responsible, and worthwhile; a Truth that is not based on our behaviors, but on how we were created.  We are created Good.