Put on Your Armor, Part 1
Do you slip into stilettos to run a marathon?
Would you slather on sweet-smelling lotion before slogging through the Everglades?
Have you ever heard of Mt. Everest climbers leaving all the sub-zero gear at base camp?
A little closer to home:
Do you take Monopoly money to the market, leave your gas tank on empty before a road trip, or forget to feed your kids (or your animals…or yourself) for three days?
Of course not. How ridiculous.
Every day, all day long, we plan our day and prepare for those plans.
How is it, then, that we invite children who’ve experienced trauma into our homes with so little preparation?
In a perfect world, a good social worker will thoroughly understand the child’s case and recommend training or reading material for the caregiver weeks ahead of time.
We don’t live there.
We reside in reality, where wonderful social workers are buried in paperwork and policy, or are overburdened by the number of cases they’re assigned. They’d love to provide training and make recommendations but simply have no time.
Or, as was our case, the workers are less than stellar, burned out, close to retirement and just wants to clear their desks with the least possible effort.
The responsibility, then, falls to us.
We must prepare to become experts in order to defend our children.
What excuse do we have for ignoring available information?
Read. Learn. Recognize. Advocate.
Think someone else might like this?
Posted on July 9, 2018, in Adoption and tagged advocate, armor, battle, Ephesians 6, expert, marathon, Monopoly money, psych, put on the full armor, Russia, social worker, The Motherland Calls, trauma, Volgograd. Bookmark the permalink. 9 Comments.
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ThanksLove ur videos ❤️❤️❤️helpwithmath
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Interestingly, my children experienced your “closer to home” examples in their biological home. I’m out case, we did prepare ahead of time. We didn’t fully understand what was happening until we read Karyn Purvis, Basel Van Der Kolk and Deborah Gray etc. Even with that information, even with good support, even with tools we still struggle. We couldn’t keep our daughter safe at home despite knowing the “whys” of her behavior. My husband and I went through so much additional training and education we could give the lectures. We didn’t do the blanket training provided by DCF. We went strait to the experts and attended Dr. Seigal’s seminars and Heather Forbes’ classes. We did the eight week “Circle of Security.” We did it all. It doesn’t change the fact that our kids are violent. They are hurting. My point is that this kind of parenting is hard. It just is.
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I completely agree. They all have great-sounding ideas and programs but none have been a solution.
I’ve pulled some info from most of those sources as well as information from Ainsworth. What pieces did you find to be helpful (even a little)?
I need to start making a list of the things that actually seem to bring some improvement. Right now, I think the only thing that brings ACTUAL change for us is the twofold realization that we will never leave them AND that they want to stay. Our girl seems to have embraced both and is doing much better. Our guy…well, you know. The last four weeks have been better for him than the entire last year, and he seems to want to come home (this is new) so I’m hoping that maybe we’ll start an upswing. I’m always leery of celebrating (I’ll save that for when they move out of the house…if they’re doing well at that time, I think I’d feel okay to relax into knowing they made it. Until then, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop waiting for regression.)
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So very true!
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Been keeping you in my prayers ! Hugs for strength, wisdom and endurance!
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XO
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