A little update

Ten thousand words later, I have all of my case studies written up and turned in. After all that writing, there was nothing left for the blog yesterday. That doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about things, though. 

In particular, I have been thinking about R. and her development. When she first came home five and a half years ago, her behavior was totally disorganized. We couldn't tell what was causing any of her behaviors and she couldn't tell us. She spent most of her time either disassociated or in a total reactionary state. There were times of pleasant engagement with her world, but they were fleeting. Everything seemed to be a trigger. When there is no cause and effect, it is extremely difficult to figure out what mitigation is needed. 

Over time, as she eventually began to feel safe and to trust us, her behavior began to organize slightly. There were the beginnings of some rhyme or reason why she acted as she did, but often they were just glimmerings. It definitely felt as though we were parenting by the seat of our pants because our bag of tricks was empty and no one else had anything to suggest, either. Controlling her epileptic seizures and her anxiety turned out to be the turning point. Without the seizures constantly in play... and her terror of them... she could begin to relax enough to make some progress on all fronts. 

These days she is organized enough in her behaviors and feels safe enough in our family that we can finally work on addressing some needs that, in the long run, are going to help her significantly. The biggest one, it turns out, is her interoception, or more precisely, her total lack of interoception. Simply defined, interoception is your ability to know how your body is feeling. In general, most people can tell when they are hungry or thirsty or tired. Children with poor interoception cannot do this. This is R. She cannot put names to the feelings she experiences in her body. Pretty much, she just knows she feels not good. Before, this 'not good' feeling would trigger her anxiety. This is one of the reasons, I think, that figuring out what was going on was such a challenge. We were looking for outside sources when much of the problem was internal. Since children do not come with indicator lights for tired, hungry, or thirsty, it can be easy to overlook. 

Our work this late summer and fall has been to help her learn what her body is telling her. Hunger is huge not only because it makes it difficult to think, but she has known periods of true hunger, so that is also a trigger. Plus, children with a trauma history tend to process protein extremely quickly, so need pretty constant high protein snacks. This is as true for R. as for some of my other children. Today felt like we had a little success in this department. I came in from teaching my riding lesson and R. was sitting in the way that tells me life is not very good and is going to quickly get worse if I don't do something. I suggested that her brain was hungry since it had been a while since lunch time. I then suggested that she go pour herself a glass of milk. Up until today, I have had to be the one to provide the snack because her thinking processes are too far gone. Today? She grudgingly got up, poured herself a glass a milk and drank it. I was just a few minutes later that she regained her ability to talk. It was the quickest and smoothest that particularly scenario has played out. 

I imagine that it is going to take quite a few more months of helping her identify hunger for her to begin to identify it herself. We have also started to help her tease apart other feelings in her body... tired, thirsty, pain... so that it is not just all one big jumble. Feelings are a lot less scary if you can put a name to them and know you can do something to make it feel better. It is slow work, but it also feels so positive because it feels like forward motion. 

The other positive is that she is starting to very much enjoy having picture books read to her and is much better at being able to follow the story. So much so, that I have decided the bulk of her school for the time being is just sitting with me on the couch and listening to stories. I'll get everyone started on their work, then she and I read stories together. And just like when I had older children and toddlers, where the older children really enjoyed hovering around the edges listening to the toddlers' stories, my current older children are enjoying very much listening to R.'s stories as they do their work. It's kind of a win-win thing. There is so much good that can come from books. Today, one of the books we read had a little girl who mentioned that she was feeling hungry and that was exciting because it meant that dinner was nearly ready. When R. was hungry at lunch, I reminded her of that part in the book as she was just beginning her creep towards meltdown as I heated up her soup. Moving her problem to the realm of a story helped her over the hump. 

Finally, one last little bit but this time about H. I don't know how many times I have fielded questions about adopting older children from parents who seem overly concerned about the possibility of their child 'catching up' by the time they are 18. I realize that is kind of a big deal age for a few reasons, but to hear some people talk, you would think that it's an expiration date. It is almost as though humans become incapable of learning something new past the age of 18. Bah. I had mentioned a couple of days ago that children had found the bin of Brio trains and that they were now in the loft. Well, for the past few days, H. has been transfixed by them. She has spent a good chunk of time each day designing train tracks that are fairly complex. There are so many good things going on while she figures out how to do this. In reality, they are not simple toys. Need I remind you that she is very nearly 19? Yet at nearly 19, she is still filling in some pretty serious holes in her childhood. It thrills me to see her doing this.