The other day after Fudge got in trouble for something he did at school he said.

“ Mama, I wish that it was summer.”

“Why Fudge?”

“ Because I follow the rules better in the summer and it is easier to behave. “

“Oh buddy ,I am sorry that things are so hard at school, tomorrow will be a better day. “

“Mama, I don’t think it will be a better day because behaving is just so hard for me.”

I am a “good catholic mama”, I provide a healthy dose of guilt when my children transgress but with Fudge that is not usually necessary. He has enough guilt for the both of us. His sense of right and wrong is strong but his impulsiveness so often gets in the way of his morality.

It is a struggle to explain to other kids that even though Fudge knew it was wrong he was unable to stop himself. I worry about what other kids are going to think as he gets bigger, as his impulsiveness becomes more and more obvious to the other kids around him. I worry that he will lack the social interactions he craves because of his inability to think before he reacts. I know that he will learn skills and that with time things will get easier but that impulse, that quick reaction will always lie in wait looking for minute when he lets his guard down.

J. writes at Stellar Parenting 101 where she talks about adoption issues, life with her boys and getting out into the garden as soon as she can.

Calvin is sitting across the table from me as I write today. He is having a Mom imposed day off from school because I felt as though he would not be able to keep it together and have a successful day if he went to school. Staying home means doing work in workbooks, it is not a free day but it is a day when he does not have to deal with bullying, frustrations, disappointments  and having his buttons pushed because others think that watching him explode is so much fun.

I have been warning his school all year that this would happen, that one day he would blow up and hurt another child. He needs structure, he needs adults to step in a help him when he is overwhelmed, he needs adults to see that it is going to happen and do something before it does. The staff at his school heard me but they were not listening. They did not believe me, they did not think that this little boy was capable of such things and because they refused to listen to me a child got hit with a chair on Friday.

They are listening now.

Sadly it is too little to late. Now that Calvin has raged at school he has nothing to lose, he has no reason to try to keep it together.  All  the other kids in the school will have a great time watching that kid with the short fuse blow his top when they tease him on the yard.  Kids can be mean, few kids understand what it is like to be different and even fewer know what it is like to be  in the situation my children are in.

The staff believe that he is in control when he blows, that he choosing to lose his temper. They do not realise that he reacting from a place of fear, a place that is deep within his memory that he not thinking about it but instead just trying to protect himself from the perceived threat. We all know that the other child who is teasing him is just doing it to see the show but Calvin doesn’t know that. It triggers a fight or flight reaction in him that is so deeply ingrained within his being that it is automatic.

He has this deeply ingrained reaction because at a very young age he learned that the only person he could depend on was himself, no one else could be trusted. Sometimes the big people in his world took care of him and sometimes they did not, sometimes the fed him, sometimes they comforted him and other times they just left him to cry. Left him to wonder why no one was meeting his needs, why his cries were unheard or ignored when he clearly needed something. His brain was affected by this neglect, his brain did not develop in the same way of that a child who is cared for and has their needs met lovingly.

Then other adults came into his world and moved him away, separated him from his sister and placed him a foster home and told him that he would be safe and taken care of here. He visited with his Mom sometimes and sometimes he went to visit and she did not show up reinforcing his belief that adults could not be trusted. He started to misbehave at school and in his foster home, he was punished and made to feel as though he was a bad boy. None of the adults in his world realised that his behaviour was speaking volumes about what had happened to him, he was telling them but they could not hear him because they did not really understand his language

This went on for 3 years before Calvin was told that he was going to be adopted and that there would be no more moving around. Calvin did not believe us when we told him we would love him forever, that we would always be there for him. Why should he believe us, adults are not to be trusted

Everyone told us he was a handful, he had a lot of behaviour issues, had been suspended numerous times, refused to use the bathroom, was overly affectionate and could not be trusted to be alone. We were not suprised by his behaviour, no wonder he acted like that, his life had been one traumatic event after another. By 8 years old this child had more trauma than many people have in a life time.  

We have worked really hard to teach Calvin that we will take care of him and meet his needs, that we will never leave him no matter what he does, that he can be angry and tell us that he hates us and that we will still love him.  He is starting to realise that we mean it, that as his parents we can be trusted. He does not trust us all the time, he is still working on that but he has come far in the last 18 months.

Even though he is starting to be able to stay regulated and in control at home it is hard for him to maintain that control when he is not with me. He uses me as his anchor, he knows that I will see when he is becoming disregulated and help him gain control by talking to him about what is going on. That is why school is so hard for him, there is no one to help keep him regulated because all the staff wait until the behaviour occurs rather than watching for the signs that the behaviour is coming.  Once he is disregulated he goes to that fear place in his memory and reacts from there, he does not stop to think, he just reacts because he is scared that no one will keep him safe and so he must keep himself safe at all costs.

This is attachment disorder, this is what happens when children are neglected and experience trauma. Calvin is not alone, there are many children who are just like Calvin.

I wish that the world understood attachment disorder. I wish that the world understood the profound effect that neglect that has on a child’s developing brain. I wish people would listen to those of us who have taken the time to learn about attachment disorder and choose to parent children who are affected by this preventable damage when we try to explain our children to them.

J. blogs at Stellar Parenting 101 where she talks about raising two wonderful boys and all the challenges that go along with being their mom.

Yesterday while my partner and I were purging some of our huge book collection and he pulled out an old university textbook, a book I have not thought about for a long time but seeing it got me thinking about the intersection of the book topic with my life today.

In my 4^th year of University I took Social and Political Ethics, it was not really a class that I wanted to take, the content did not really interest me but I needed another Ethics class and it fit into my very complicated schedule. The most memorable moment that semester was that the first class was on 9/11, we stayed 10 minutes, got the syllabus and headed out to go back to the TV’s to which we were all glued for the rest of the day.  The semester went on, I learned things I didn’t know anything about and I began to questions many of the intersections between social policy and political ethics. I began to learn that things were not always as straight forward as they seemed and that at 23 I still had a lot to learn about how the world worked.

So what does this have to do with parenting, why am I rambling on about a class in university that I didn’t really like?  Where is the intersection with parenting? I mean besides the fact that I still have a lot to learn about being a parent and it is not always all that I thought it would be.

Someone needs to write a thesis on the social and political ethics of being a parent of a special needs child, a child who may not understand the consequences of their choices. I constantly find myself stuck between a rock and hard place when talking to others about my kids and the choices they make.

 There are so many fine lines between being an advocate and being overprotective, between helping out and helping up, sometimes I feel as though I have no idea which side of the line I should be on. I try my best but there is so much to learn and what I think is right or appropriate is forbidden in someone else’s eyes.  I do not think that I am the only one who struggles with this but yet it is not something that we talk about.

Fudge recently got in trouble for stealing, someone brought a Nintendo DS to school and was playing it at recess. Fudge asked for a turn and don’t get one.  Fudge decided to take matters into his own hands and took the DS so that he could have a turn. He got caught and busted for stealing. His teacher berated him for stealing at school,  as did we when he got home because we were sure that was what had happened.  I mean he told us the truth and it was obvious that he had intent and followed through on what he wanted, if only it was that easy.

I later heard from his therapist, who witnessed the event that indeed that was not the case. Fudge took the DS but it wasn’t really stealing, not in his eyes. In his eyes the other child was being unfair, he wanted a turn and so he took one, end of story. He did not believe that he was wrong, instead that the other child was wrong for not sharing. I think that if he had not been caught he would have returned the DS after he had a turn, his goal was not to keep it just to have a turn.

My friends with neurotypical kids thought that Fudge got off easy, that his consequence ( no Halloween candy but he did enjoy the chips and wrote and apology letter)  was not extreme enough to prevent him from doing it again. Where as other friends thought that we were too harsh and that we should have been more forgiving given that he is not neurotypical.

 It is an ethical dilemma that has all sorts of implications for Fudge but at the center of all the implications is a little boy who really just thought that someone was being unfair.  As his Mom I now struggle with how to help him through this one, how to guide along the fine line of what is right and wrong, through the gray areas that I am only beginning to understand myself. Yes stealing is wrong but borrowing is different, you need to ask, you need to listen, yes sometimes other kids don’t share... The list goes on and at the end of the day I struggle with how to help him and how to navigate the fine line that I find myself walking as well.

I am hopeful that I can learn to walk this line with some grace and accuracy, wish me luck.

J can also be found at Stellar Parenting, where she talks about her imperfections and life with 2 boys.