School
transitions for Children with Early Neglect and Trauma
By Gail Hardman-Woung, LCSW
Transitions
can be exceedingly difficult for our children. By now, you have
survived the initial transitioning back to school. In fact you
may be surprised at how well it went. In many cases the first
week or two of school can go well
as our children are excited to see friends and meet their new teacher.
However, even children who are eager to return to school can
sometimes have difficulty adjusting. Many of you may be feeling
the familiar frustrations that homework can bring. Beyond having
a new teacher, many kids have new schools, standards of behavior and
social and academic pressures. As a mother of four children
(three adopted) I am on the back end of much of this. My
adoptions were completed 14 years ago. However, I do remember the
difficulty of these transitions. How I wish I knew then, what I
know now.
Transitions affect all children, but for our
children they can be even harder. A study released this summer
(Becker-Weidman, 2009) found that children with early trauma and
neglect, who were chronologically 9.9 years of age, were socially and
emotionally only 4.4 years old. This comes as no surprise to many
parents. How difficult school must be for our special needs
children. If a twelve year old has lived in a healthy family for
three years, they have had three years of normal social and emotional
growth. For many this means just three years of intimacy, love
and experience living in a family. In these ways, they can only
be three. Last week an eleven year old boy came into my office.
After a lengthy tantrum he explained through teary eyes “I
shouldn’t be in sixth grade, I should be in third. I don’t know
what they are talking about.” This boy has been in a safe family
for six years. Socially, emotionally and academically he is six
years old.
Transitions for younger children can bring on
more bedwetting and tantrums. These behaviors are in response to
the transition and the feelings of powerlessness. They generally
represent temporary regression and are simply the child’s way of saying
I am scared and I don’t like this. More than once, I have heard
young children state that they believed if they were bad enough, they
could return to their previous classroom.
A sense of belonging is central to building
self-esteem. It is hard to imagine how this can happen in an
environment where many of our kids are forced into a role of
pretending. Pretending that they get the joke; pretending that
they understand, pretending that they fit-in. In our home,
children came home had a snack, relaxed a bit, and then it was time for
homework and a chore. I can only wonder how much less storm or
shutdown I would have received, had I had a better sense of their days.
Had I realized how emotionally exhausting school could be for
them. It is no wonder so many adoption books point to anxiety as
the underlying concern.
So what do we do in the face of stormy or
difficult behavior? I know what I did. I tightened up and
got stricter. I restricted video games and television. I
imposed charts and penalized kids for backtalk. I did what
educated moms do (no wonder we have the highest rate of disruption), I
took control of the situation. In other words, I firmly stated
without words, I don’t get it, you aren’t good enough, and I don’t know
where you belong. Thank God my children have forgiven me.
My way was ineffective. It brought
control battles and damaged relationships. My oldest daughter who
was nine when she came home, learned to hate school. Today, I
recommend less corrections and more connections with our children.
I recommend joining with your child and helping them to
understand that you are the go to person
in their lives. When we join with our children providing support
and encouragement, it is then easier to teach study skills and time
management. Although I still encourage a high structure
environment, this environment MUST be accompanied with compassion and
high nurture.
Erick Erickson divided life
into stages with essential tasks. The first stage being the
development of "basid trust" vs. "mistrust". That is why it is so
important for us to go backwards and pick up the lost pieces before we
move our children forward. Erickson believed the second task is
"industry vs inferiority". He felt that we need to master this
early on in order to have the confidence to engage in the world and
lead a productive and enriching life. We can help our children
become solid and secure by letting them know that we understand that
they sometimes feel lost and behind. We can help them to
understand that they belong. When this happens, many of the other
problems take care of themselves. Last month at the Attach
Conference in San Antonio, one of the speakers said something that
really resonated with me. He said "the kids we work with are some
of the loneliest kids on the planet".
