Everyone loves a birthday; whether it’s your
own and your nearest and dearest spoil you rotten, or whether it’s someone else’s
and you can spoil them rotten. Birthdays are fun.
For Little Miss and Mister Man birthdays aren’t
generally fun. Birthdays are massive stress points. Birthdays are a time for
worry and anxiety; for bad memories and guilt; and an overarching reminder of every
confusing stopping off point in their twisty-turny life so far.
The
Worry
The lead up to a big day often sees an increase
in bad behaviour as the kids try to resolve in their heads the difficult
paradox of wanting everything but believing they deserve nothing. It’s a
paradox that I’m sure most adopted children go through as, rooted at the heart
of almost every emotional decision, is the belief that if only they had been
better behaved they wouldn’t have been adopted. If they had been better maybe they wouldn't have been neglected. For them, the reality of abuse
and neglect is somehow their fault; it was something that they deserved;
something that they brought upon themselves. It is important to make sure the
child knows that they are not responsible. They won’t believe you, but it does
help for them to hear it.
The
Memories
Adopted children have very conflicted memories
of happy times. They will remember birthdays with their birth families. Quite
often, although not in all cases, special events led to increased amounts of
abuse and neglect. The peculiar circumstances around these days can often lead
to increased amounts of abuse and neglect and kids will remember a time when a
birthday was not a time for celebration but one of misery, disruption and
disappointment. These memories are as much a part of the child’s psyche as any
other and all we can do as parents is to listen to them if they want to talk
and reassure them that whatever happened was not their fault, and they are no
longer at risk. They won’t believe you about that either.
The Day
Little Miss does not like chaos (unless she’s
causing it, of course). She likes order and certainty. Given that she has very
real and vivid memories of uncertainty and chaos and the negative affect it can have on her life I can fully understand why she
hates it so much. It does make surprises difficult though. She loves and hates
surprises. She loves the feeling of being surprised but hates the fact that she
didn’t know about it; that people were doing something behind her back. Surprise journeys are completely out of the question. They've had too many negative surprise journeys to ever feel positive about getting into a car unless they know where they're going. Unplanned weekends, with their lack of school and long
periods of unplanned free-time, are bad enough. Birthdays are about a billion
uncertainties more than she’s willing or able to deal with. I hate to think what would happen with a surprise birthday party!
Uncertainty is the enemy of a relaxed and
stress-free child. This holds for all children, not just adopted ones. Children
love routine and certainty and hate chaos and uncertainty. Birthdays, for
better or for worse, are a break from that stable routine. The normal daily routine
is thrown out of the window and in it’s place is this new and different thing
that they don’t know, don’t understand, and in the case of Little Miss
especially, have been worrying about for weeks. The best thing to do is to try
to structure the day as much as possible; to leave as few things to chance as
possible. Write it down. Go through it with them. Let them know what you're planning if something doesn't go wrong. The more planned something is the less chance there is of something
prompting a meltdown, but realise that however well planned you are, there is always something that can promote a meltdown.
Stress
Negotiating around a birthday can be like
practicing bomb-disposal on a nest of vipers! A very cute and cuddly nest of
vipers, but still! One wrong move and the bomb goes off (or the vipers bite
you? To be honest I’m getting confused by my own metaphor here) and what could
and should be an enjoyable day turns into an exercise in damage limitation. The
stress of feeling like you could cause a meltdown at any moment can lead to
parents not dealing with incidents as well as they possibly should. The child
stresses the parent and the parent stresses the child. The whole thing is a
self-fulfilling prophecy; you expect the meltdown and your expectation
contributes towards that meltdown. In these circumstances it’s best to try to
remove yourself. It’s as important for parents to practice the same calming
techniques we ask of the child. How are they supposed to remain calm if we don’t?
Reassurance
The most important thing is to empathise and
reassure. The most dangerous thing you can say to a child around a big event is
to tell them that they’ve ruined it with their behaviour. Imagine how a kid feels to be told that
they have ruined Christmas, or a
holiday, or a birthday? How much do you think that will contribute to their
worry and stress next time one of those events rolls round? Imagine how they feel. Understand how they feel and reassure them that
you have enjoyed the day and that it’s been very special, it was them that made it special (because of course it was) and don’t even mention
the bad behaviour.
When it comes to getting through big event days
like birthdays the best thing to do is to make as little fuss of it as the
child can deal with. It can feel completely alien to not go over the top, especially in
our house, but the children will let us know when they are comfortable enough
to do that. In the meantime, we’ll have some nice, quiet, placid birthdays.
I
now have a pair of noise cancelling headphones. It’s going to be a very quiet birthday!
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