The Power of Play

We all agree that playing is fun! It's needed. Regardless of your age or gender. We all love to play. Some alone, some in groups; some together for a common goal, others play competitively; some with recycled cheap rubbish (and lots of imagination) others with super expensive gadgets.

But what if you don't know HOW TO play?

For most of us it's a silly question that we dismiss with a wave of a hand 'How can you not know how to play? Even poor African children who have nothing know how to have fun in the dirt. Everybody has an imagination! Surely every child has creative ways of entertaining themselves!' Surely...

My 2 boys came from the same home, experienced the same neglect, but have different personalities. One escaped the harsh reality by creating an imaginary world in his head where he is safe, happy and can think up all sorts of funny things to keep him entertained. The other one just shut himself down completely and used his body parts to fight everybody and everything. For him, this was play...

Fast forward to living in several foster carers' homes with left over broken toys from previous children and lots of new ones given for their birthdays, Christmas or just to 'keep them quiet'. During Intros we found out the boys' favourite past time was to watch telly, play on their tablets, play on their Nintendo DS or play with their Nintendo Wii. All activities designed to escape from reality, narrow your focus on a tiny screen, avoid eye contact or conversation with anybody else. To the last FC's credit the boys had lots of cars, toys, Lego, domino...etc but they hardly played with it and even then they just threw them around so naturally all were broken.

One of the hardest thing was (besides the many obvious) for us to get them free from their screen addiction. With a swift decision we removed all gadgets from their new room and replaced them with educational games, board games, we increased their Lego collection and introduced weekly crafty activities. We also played with them various sporty activities in the garden, did other fun stuff like snail races or comparing worms and now we are at a point where they don't even miss their gadgets. So, they can have them as treats from time to time. They are no longer a tool to 'give parents/carers a break' but rewards to acknowledge and celebrate when the boys achieved something.

When he is free to be a little boy and use his imagination outside of his head...
He made these 4 designs in 15 min!

To be fair we can't claim much credit for this. I must mention that we are one of the very fortunate adopters who could access Play Therapy from very early on. At first I didn't feel comfortable watching my child on the play mat with the therapist. They were surrounded by boxes of toys (doll house with figures, crafts, puppets, toy cars, soft toys, animals, dress up props and lots more) and the boys were so overwhelmed they didn't know what to do, what to play with first and ended up having meltdowns. The 'play lady' was fabulous and week after week the boys felt more confident, more excited and more animated during each session. I could not understand how 20 min of throwing puppets around would help them be less chaotic, more manageable, less violent, more settled.... simply put: How will playing help all four of us to survive this adoption???

Fast forward again a few months and suddenly we started to see the transformation! Goofs' (6) angry outbursts and Child on Parent Violence (CPV) subsided significantly. He was still getting all upset and worked up about the same simple issues like 'go brush your teeth', but he could calm down much faster without the need to hurt us or break something. I do not wish to over-simplify this complex issue and I am certainly no expert on this topic, but in short by allowing 'him to decide all the fun things we do in play therapy' and making it clear 'all feelings are OK on the play mat' he was able to work through some of his control issues while playing on the mat and week after week he was more compliant at home. I am still amazed and often jokingly describe play therapy as 'black magic'. He is rapidly turning into a sweet little boy who is no longer crippled and determined by the horror, trauma and loss he experienced so his fun, creative, kind self can come to the surface for all to see and love!

Snoops' (7) imagination is wonderful. These are his newest creations for his next story.
N.B.: all names are Trade Marked already :) 

Play Therapy slowly turned into Filial Therapy so it was no longer the therapist on the play mat but mummy and daddy. That really opened up ways for him to heal at a speed not even his therapist expected. With him, after 9 months in placement we are in a place where Attunement is no longer enough! I mean it in the best possible way! The therapist is training hubby and I now to practice Congruence, which is like an advanced level Empathy & Attunement combo - if I understand it correctly...

Last week we were given a few boxes of toys by a friend; most of them are age appropriate. There was a puzzle game for toddlers that I wanted to donate further thinking boys will find it 'childish'. (yes, I know... that's irony for ya). Goofs saw it and asked what it was. Before I could explain he started playing with it. I took the opportunity to do Play Tracking (a therapy technique, basically I describe what is happening, mention every emotion that can come up) and suddenly the miracle happened!

Goofs felt free to regress to a younger age and he felt safe enough to start talking about his past - for the very first time! We obviously knew most of the horror, but not from him! While his fingers were busy he was in a happy chatty mood. He talked about his birth dad, what happened, HOW HE FELT during those times. The puzzle was complete, but he felt safe to stay in the 'zone' so I ventured into asking about his time in Foster Care, the constant change, his feelings around meeting us, Intros, his initial aggression and CPV and its roots! It was such a weird experience: He is 6! His emotional age was 3-4 at that moment. His words were as of a grown up!

Allowing him to regress and enjoy toddler toys immensely

He described the nervousness he felt, he was unsure if 'this will work out this time', 'can I trust you', 'will you be nice to me', 'will I get punished for not knowing your house rules' , 'can we stay here forever or is this just another stop'. I tried my best to stay Attuned and not switch back into 'teary mummy mode' so we discussed how all those were understandable feelings and that no child should experience that and alike. After about 15 minutes of very intense therapeutic parenting he switched back to a 6 year old and asked what's for dinner. He reached his limit for the time being.

Last night I called him 'my son' without even thinking twice about it. He turned around and asked: 'From now on, can you please call me MY SON and not my first name please?' When I said of course he jumped into my arms and said 'You are my bestest Mummy ever!' Sounds like the 5th time might be the charm??

3 months into Placement...

I have not been blogging for a while and I am sure most of you can relate to me when I say it wasn't because nothing post-worthy happened or I had nothing to say; just the opposite! So many things happened on so many different fronts that my head is still spinning so this post might be a bit of rambling. Blogging sometimes helps me to organise my thoughts and feelings and I am hopeful it will do the trick again...

So, today we passed the 3 months mark - exactly twice the time the boys have spent with their previous adopters before they have given up on them. Is it a success? The SW seems to think so. Most of our friends agree. The boys are still too young to appreciate what a 3 months time period really means (for them a 5 minutes time-in is already 'fooooooreeever'). For us? Well... we are still alive. The boys are still alive. They still live here. Success?

It is impossible to capture what we have been through in the past weeks so I will not even attempt to do that. I was debating with myself while in the bathroom (yes, that is the only place I can get a few minutes of peace, though they still shout 'muuuuuuuuuum' through the door every 15 sec) what structure should I use for this post and for starters I thought stats with comments will do.

Number of times 'Muuuuuuum' was shouted in the house: 135*24*30*3.

The plus side is that both boys refer to us as Mummy/Mum and Daddy. Just the other day we were looking at some of their old photos, all 24 of them! Let's just pause for a second and imagine your 6/7 year old child and the number of photos you have taken of them over the years. Now throw away everything from the first 3 years, select one standard photo with a birthday cake for each year (never mind the different people who stand around them each time), pick a picture with each school uniform and classmates, pick 1-2 blurry shots where their other siblings are there too and a few happy moments from 2016 and THAT IS ALL YOUR MEMORIES. (for those in the know, their Life Story Books are still not done so here is hoping we will have some more pictures later)

But I digress; back to us looking at their pictures. There was one blurry picture of their birth father. Goofs was telling me the misadventures of that one photo and the fights he was in to keep it. So, that was 'dad'. Snoops was confused and asked 'which is daddy? This one (pointing at my husband) or that one (pointing at the photo)?' Umm, yeah, about that, kid... We agreed to refer to the man on the picture by his first name and hubby remained 'daddy'. This is convenient for us, it will make everybody's life easier in the future, but it also stripped away another piece of their past.

Number of pictures taken of them - mostly by me: ca. 1000.

I know it does not make up for the missed past, but maybe with time they will appreciate my good intentions. Out of these we used 24 to fill 2 big picture frames and put them on the wall next to our pictures - apparently nobody has ever done that for them before!

Number of meltdowns in the house (because that is the place both boys feel safe to have one! When others are around or we are out and about they are terrified and 'save it' till it's safe): 23*30*3

This also means some of our friends probably think we are liars or constantly exaggerating about how difficult our daily life is, because they only see 2 little angels...

Number of night terrors: 3*30*3.

Yes, that means we have them almost every night, often 2-3 times a night. Poor little boys developed a sad rhythm; Snoops would wake up screaming around 9 pm; by the time we get to him he is sitting up on his bed, face and pillow wet from a flood of tears, but he himself is not awake. We put him to bed, stroke his face till he settles down. Around 11 Goofs would cry in his sleep, which wakes Snoops up who comes to our room to complain about his brother and demand that we 'make him stop'. Again, I go back to help both boys to settle by stroking 2 faces with my 2 hands simultaneously. Usually around 3-4 am we get a loud knocking on our door; it's always a gamble which boy is there. Either Snoops wet his bed (and here I mean soaked it through completely as they both wet themselves every night but the magic DryNights pullups usually keep it all in) and he can't sleep until we change him and the bedding or it's Snoops again sleep-walking while crying.

Number of useful help/comments we received from professionals regarding the point above: ZERO

Number of fist fights and bruises on bodies (combined score of all 4 of us): 100+

Goofs is a very aggressive little boy with massive control issues and according to the play therapist he wants to punish every adult for his parents' mistreating him. CPV (child to parent violence) suddenly became a daily reality for us. I remember when a friend of mine was talking about it I seriously struggled to believe him, not what he said per se, but the helplessness he felt every time. Now I fully understand it and imagine MY friends going through the disbelieving bits. When Goofs attacks my husband (usually for something simple as 'brush your teeth') we all feel powerless. Me watching this little piece of xxx hitting my husband, his brother as he is just stands there being confused, Goofs as he doesn't do it because he is evil and wants to hurt somebody, but because he feels his control is taken away and his natural flight/fight mode kicks in and also mu poor hubby, who could stop the kicking/punching/biting with one swift hand movement... That would probably diffuse the situation, confirm in Goofs' mind that 'all adults are evil' and it would cause this adoption to break down as well. Naturally, we don't do it. But we can't do either what the play therapist suggested 'why don't you just keep your cool and in a calm and controlled manner tell him you love him and reflect back to him that he is sad and afraid now that is the reason why he behaves this way.' Riiiiiiight! :(

Goofs is also jealous of his brother who seems to have a slightly easier way of settling into his new family and again, his way of dealing with the situation is to punch his brother whenever he has a chance. His latest proof included slamming the car door onto his brother's hand - it's only by God's grace that Snoops' hand is not broken!

Number of play therapy sessions: 1.

20 min with each boy. Nothing to say at this stage except we are sure we will be seeing her face for the next many many years...

Number of times the 'A' word was mentioned: 200+

I am not referring to the general ones, rather to the 2 most common themes: 'Are you ready to put in the adoption order request?' and 'Mummy, when can I have my passport with my new name?' Naturally the first one is from the LA and SWs who keep reminding us that the placement is 'past the 10 weeks mark and is progressing so well that this is the next obvious step'. The second one is much much harder to dodge! The truth is, we don't know when; we don't know if ever (and yes, I appreciate what I am saying here and all the implications). We also don't know what should change that would make us say 'Now we are ready!'  

Number of times we were told 'we are doing sooo well': 3-4*30*3.

Depending on our mood and on the number of fights we already had that day our response varies between 'thanks', 'if only you saw the other 95%, which is usually ugly' or just a quick eye-roll then smile and exit left.

Number of arguments between hubby and me: uhumm.... loads!

They usually start from having slightly differing views on how to raise children, which I suppose is a daily struggle in any birth family, too. But agreeing on how much therapeutic tolerance is too much when he is stealing your money, when he is knocking down your favourite flower pots on purpose, when he threatens to call the police with an allegation because you told him no bedtime story tonight for bad behaviour... Let's just say we disagree a lot and add to this mix a healthy portion of lack of sleep and work related stress and you can understand our predicament...

I have so many more numbers to share with you and hopefully in time you'll get to hear about the number of happy moments that lasted at least 1 hour - I promise as soon as this happens I will write about it!