I recall one of our children being so overwhelmed by the novel experience of gifts hidden in wrapping paper, gifts that he struggled to believe were really intended for him – that within a few hours his heap of treasure was demolished and his new bike was only just retrieved in time and locked away in the garage to prevent him destroying that too.
We make sense of such experiences as best we can – both for our children and for ourselves. A friend of mine who set up her own children’s home and has a reputation for caring for the most complex and traumatised children would often buy two of the same present for a particular child’s birthday or Christmas during the first two years he was with her because she knew he would end up destroying his gifts the first time round. Children who have been so horribly rubbished, hurt and humiliated in birth families can’t conceive of a good reason why these presents are for them – and it panics them.
In our family the richness of Christmas was intentionally diluted by being spread over three days with different routines and rituals on each of the days – and presents also spread over the festive period. The focus was on ensuring the children enjoyed it in whatever way was accessible to them, bearing in mind that they were likely to have shifted yet further into survival mode as they encountered ways of celebrating that were alien to them.
I talk about children being in survival mode a lot when I’m training – and I know what I mean by it – but I suspect it is quite different for the child or young person experiencing it. I had reason to reflect on this last month when I was in a fairly inaccessible part of Wales when Storm Darragh struck. The electricity went off at 4.30 a.m. on the Saturday morning and didn’t return until the early hours of Monday morning, the wi-fi was off because the mast was ‘down’ (whatever that means), and water was just trickling out of the taps as it is pumped using electricity. Added to which two large trees had fallen across the road out of the bay so even when the winds and waves abated on Sunday I couldn’t escape until the tree trunks had been cut into sections and lifted over to the side of the road by a mini crane.
I was very cold – no open fire or stove in my home - but had enough food and also matches and candles – though how people read and wrote by candlelight in earlier centuries amazes me. Even putting my book in a semicircle of four candles on the kitchen table didn’t provide enough light to read easily! I was on my own with my dog – and the phrase ‘survival mode’ came into my head more than once. But it was completely inappropriate, I realised.
I didn’t feel particularly unsafe, nor did I have that terrifying sense of being the personal target of someone’s viciousness who was more powerful than me. There was a sense of being small and insignificant - listening to winds raging, along with the crashing of colliding bins and buckets during Saturday night – but I knew I would be alright.
I observed that I carry that sense of safety inside my head – and it protects me from the terror overwhelm that I have witnessed in our foster children at times. You and I have logic and reason that we can call upon – and it usually serves us well in such situations since it was developed when we were infants, warmly cocooned by a protective parent who ensured that risks and hazards were always limited and manageable. So our default position is optimism.
So, in the face of adversity, let us retain and spread our optimism and share it generously among our children and among those communities of adults where hope and optimism may be in short supply.
