Session 7/21

Topic B: Age 3-18

• Some children refuse to talk about the past at all in order not to get in contact with the difficult feelings.

• Some children practice “false cynicism”: whatever happens, they appear cool and take a spiteful attitude towards all invitations to being close to others. They may think: “I don’t care about you or friends or anyone else. Nothing matters to me, just leave me alone!” (see the avoidant attachment strategy in session 9). This attitude is understandable because it protects the child from experiencing a new loss and keeps others at a distance – losing them will not matter.

• Some children become overly dependent and are “always a good girl/boy”, they spend all their energy agreeing with caregivers. They try to avoid any conflicts and give up having an independent opinion about anything or disagree with caregivers: “Tell me what to do, I do not know myself”. They are usually afraid of making decisions because it may contradict with the expectations of others.

• Some children become “perfectionists”: they constantly try to overdo anything and focus on checking if they do things right. They are very afraid of making even small mistakes and not performing correctly. Any minor challenge or mistake they make, makes them desperate: “No matter what I do I’m wrong, I’m a failure, I am no good at anything no matter how hard I try. I am an idiot, I want to die” etc.

• Some children become constantly restless and stressed and appear to be more or less hyperactive. They cannot sit still and are never at rest, and may talk constantly in a very hectic way, making it clear that this is more than just an energetic child, it is a child who cannot relax for a moment and tries to keep the past out of mind.

• Some children become “hermits”: They isolate themselves in their room alone with their computer or toys and refuse to go out or invite peers. They dislike any social events or invitations and find a reason to say no. The underlying emotional idea is “If I do not make friends or socialize, no one can reject me again.”

• Some children survive by hating or being angry with their parents or others they have been separated from. This keeps away the pain of missing them.

Research also shows that if caregivers deny, ignore or try to make earlier loss a small thing, children will not improve in handling their own reactions and this can be destructive to their further personality development. For example: when children were adopted or in foster care in the past, this was very shameful and against social norms. This made the children feel stigmatized and they were often shocked when being old enough to understand that they were not allowed to be who they are. The result was that many children were severely traumatized and had very poor lives. One complaint in interviews with former adoptees and foster children is common: “Nobody ever talked to me about what was most important – the fact of having lost my parents”.

So your professional task is to work on creating a space where the child feels free and invited to have dialogues about what it has experienced in the past. This can happen through a number of activities.

You should decide how and when you will talk to the child about loss. Often, a good setting is when you do housework: For example: the child is sitting at the table drawing or doing homework while you are preparing food or: you are tucking in the child, sitting at the bed reading a bedtime story. These can be good occasions for conversation. Be patient – the process of creating safe and open dialogue may take weeks or years. Every time the child reaches a new stage of maturity and development, it may have to talk about this again and find new perspectives.

Watch this video with Peter, who lives in a SOS Children’s Village in Arusha, Tanzania. Peter talks about growing up in alternative care and how his caregiver has been and is a great support for his development and well-being.

• Look through the list in the paragraph above: “Immature strategies to avoid feelings of being worthless“.

• Find out which of the defences against feeling abandoned you see most often in the child in your care. When you and the child feel good and you have time, tell the child that you want to talk about how children react when they lose contact with important persons (mother, father, siblings or pets they were attached to).

• Describe the reaction you think your child has and tell that this is what many children do when they have lost someone important. For example: “Sometimes children have lost someone they love and they are afraid of losing someone again. So they refuse to talk to others and stay in their room all day. This is what many children do and I think it is very sensible – because if they stay in their room all alone and don’t make friends with anyone, they can’t be rejected again. I can understand this very well!“

• Or you can tell the child a “parallel story” from your own childhood: “When I was your age my mother and father were very busy and I was often left alone. When I tried to make friends with other children they often rejected and bullied me. So I decided to sit in my room all day – I didn’t want to contact others because I was sure that they didn’t like me or would reject me. When I grew up I found out that a lot of children do this, and I think it is wise – then they are protected from being rejected again“.

• You can read or invent a bedtime story for the child about an abandoned child – such as Oliver Twist (or another person from a novel in your country who the child can identify with). Along the way you can ask the child if it recognizes what the person feels and thinks.

• You can use dolls, drawings or clay to play with the child. Stories where the child is exposed to abandonment or loss of parents and finds ways to cope with the situation.

• With older children or teenagers: You can give the child a cell phone (or a camera with video function) and help it make a small movie or an interview about how it reacted to losing parents or others. If you have internet, you can help the young person find other young persons in foster care and communicate with them on Facebook or other media.

• If you have good communication with the child’s school teacher: ask the teacher to make a theme day or theme week about “Losing someone or something you love”. With the help of the teacher, all children can give examples of losing for example a grandparent or other person or thing, using drawings, theatre, etc. You can then discuss with the teacher how to help the child tell about losing someone.

Please write down how, when and where you may use one of these options, or design a new one, which this text might have inspired you to. Take notes after working with your plan: How did it go, how did the child respond, what was difficult for you, what did you learn from trying, how will you go on?