by Angela Hart
When I told Jonathan all this he was quite upset and started thinking back over the times he’d told Keeley off.
‘How could we not have worked this out?’ he said. ‘It was obvious, really, wasn’t it?’
‘Everything becomes clear in hindsight,’ I said. ‘Besides, I don’t think we have done anything wrong. It’s one thing understanding the root of the bad behaviour, but we can’t ignore it or not discipline her, can we?’
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘And besides, we’re making some assumptions here, as we have no medical proof backing up this theory. I guess all we can do is carry on doing our best for Keeley, bearing all this in mind.’
The leaflet Sandy gave me was useful and gave us further food for thought. It described a method of caring for children called PACE. This was totally new to me then, more than ten years ago, but is a well-respected model for caring for troubled and difficult youngsters that I’m now very familiar with.
PACE was developed by an American parenting expert called Daniel Hughes, and is a way of interacting with the child to make them feel safe. The acronym stands for Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy, and it focuses on the whole child, not simply the behaviour, with the aim of helping the child to start to look at herself and let other people into her life, so that she can begin to trust others.
In a nutshell, PACE encourages the carer to connect with the troubled child in the way loving parents bond with babies and toddlers. For example, when you play, you should use a soft, light tone of voice, focus on fun and try to delight in just being together, as you would with a very young child. Jonathan was particularly good at being playful and did it naturally, like when he hid behind the tree in the garden and surprised Keeley. I was better at enjoying an activity together, like making the bonnets, but from now on, armed with this insight, Jonathan and I resolved to both up our game as much as possible.
The acceptance element of PACE is focused on making sure the child knows you accept them for who they are deep down, no matter what outwardly bad behaviour they display. Thankfully, I think we’d done quite well with this, always telling Keeley it was her behaviour we were upset by, not her as a person. We’d have to carry on reinforcing this idea whenever we had the opportunity.
Next, curiosity is concerned with encouraging the child to reflect on their own actions, and to learn how to talk about why they have behaved in a certain way. Crucial here is that carers must not be judgemental.
Finally, being empathetic is about the adult actively showing the child that they care about their feelings, which lets the child know they are not alone, and that they have support and comfort on hand when they need it. Hopefully we had been doing OK on this score; empathy is a basic tool of fostering, but again Jonathan and I would make sure we used it more often from now on.
To our relief, we read that if combined and followed well, the four elements of the PACE model can help troubled children, including those with attachment disorder, to bond and interact with others. This was welcome news. With or without a diagnosis of attachment disorder, Keeley could be helped, and help her we would.
Looking back, we were perhaps more optimistic than we should have been. Despite being armed with this helpful leaflet, and Sandy’s support, the information we had was scant and we had an awful lot to learn. In the weeks to come I scoured the library and the Internet for any more information I could find on caring for children who had gone through early life traumas or suffered emotional abuse as babies and toddlers. There was a fair amount of material available if you looked hard enough, but it wasn’t an easy task. Thankfully things have improved dramatically, and research continues into how an abused or troubled child’s brain is formed and functions.
Jonathan and I are still learning, all the time. Back then we had to try to muddle through as best we could with the resources available to us and, unfortunately, we didn’t always manage very well.
16
‘We are out of our depth with Keeley, aren’t we?’
Calls from the school telling us Keeley had been in trouble for a variety of reasons started to steadily increase as time went on. Giving cheek to the teachers, bullying a younger child, throwing food at another little girl across the lunch hall, pinching and kicking in the playground – the list of Keeley’s misdemeanours went on and on.
Each time I’d try my best to connect with Keeley, often using the PACE method to encourage improved behaviour, but my efforts weren’t always rewarded.
‘You must not have been feeling very happy when you threw the food in the lunch hall,’ I’d say, attempting to be as empathetic as I possibly could, to show Keeley that I was open to hearing her side of the story. ‘Do you know why you were feeling unhappy? Do you think you can tell me why you felt so unhappy you wanted to throw food at another little girl?’
‘She’s a cow, that’s why!’
‘Please don’t say that, Keeley, it’s not kind. I would prefer it if you could tell me how you were feeling when you threw the food.’
‘I was pissed off, Angela. Isn’t that obvious? Are you thick?’
‘Please don’t be rude to me, I don’t like it. I want to help you. I’m sorry if you weren’t feeling happy in the lunch hall. I don’t like to think of you feeling unhappy. What were you thinking about?’
‘She’s a cow! I told you! Durgh! That’s why I did it!’
It was very frustrating to have Keeley answering back like this but I took comfort from the fact that the PACE method, and our years of experience as foster carers, meant we had the best chance possible of making positive progress with Keeley.
I felt confident that I was doing the very best I could in such difficult circumstances, and I reminded myself often that this was not Keeley’s fault, and that I had to try to understand her, not judge her.
I’d found online, using my extremely slow and temperamental dial-up Internet that is laughable by today’s standards, a complex description of how the brains of children with attachment disorder function differently to those of children who have grown up in a loving and nurturing environment. This was pioneering research back then and I don’t think I fully understood what the weighty scientific document I stumbled across was describing. All I knew was that it confirmed what I’d already gleaned from Sandy and my other reading: Keeley’s brain had potentially not developed in the way it should, because of the emotional abuse she had suffered at such an early age.
Today, I understand that instead of processing information rationally in the front or ‘thinking’ part of her brain, in an emotionally abused child like Keeley the information goes straight to the middle of the brain, tapping into old memories and stored reactions. This means, for instance, that if another child shouted rudely or aggressively at a child with attachment disorder, instead of thinking, ‘why are they doing that?’ or ‘should I tell an adult?’, the troubled child is likely to automatically revert to how she reacted to being shouted at when she was very small. Back then her default position was probably to defend herself by shouting, fighting back or getting very angry, frightened or upset, and so that is how she reacts as an older child too. Put simply, an emotionally neglected child’s brain might not be wired to handle situations rationally, which is why bad behaviour often ensues.
I didn’t give up, even when Keeley was very rude and dismissive.
‘The teacher’s feelings were hurt when you called her a rude name. Why do you think you did that? Can you tell me how you were feeling when you used that rude word?’
‘I don’t care!’
‘Look, Keeley, I’d like to help you stop swearing, because it gets you into trouble, and I don’t like to see you getting into trouble.’
‘It’s not my fault! She hates me! She’s a bitch! She’s a cunt! He’s a wanker.’
If Jonathan tried to talk to her it was even worse. She blanked him completely, trying to pretend he wasn’t even there. On one occasion I attempted to at least get Keeley to acknowledge Jonathan was sitting a
t the table with us, and wanted to talk to her.
‘Where is he?’ she said defiantly, pretending to look straight through him. ‘I can’t see him? Jonathan who?’
He took it in good spirit, considering, and the next time Keeley ignored him like this at the dinner table, Jonathan took a serviette out of the dresser and wrapped it around his face, putting a pair of sunglasses over the top.
‘What are you doing, Jonathan?’ Carl said.
‘I’m not Jonathan!’ he laughed. ‘I’m the Invisible Man.’
Carl and Phillip burst out laughing. They all knew the character from the television show and Jonathan’s impression was very funny, but Keeley studiously refused to crack her face.
All of these incidents and responses were recorded and passed on to Social Services via my daily notes, and Sandy assured me that, where appropriate, this kind of information was then handed over to Keeley’s therapist. I wished I could talk directly to the therapist as I felt we could have helped each other to help Keeley, but I also understood and fully accepted that any therapy like this is confidential. A child needs to know he or she can talk openly and without fear, in order to achieve the best possible outcome.
Sandy had written in Keeley’s file that we had discussed attachment disorder, and that she had provided me with information about PACE, but I was still never given any feedback or specific detail about Keeley’s mental health. I have no idea if the therapist even read the Social Services notes, and certainly nothing seemed to improve in terms of Keeley’s behaviour; in fact, it got worse still.
One day Jonathan and I went to collect Keeley for her therapy session and found, once again, that she had been sent out of the classroom. This time it was because she had sworn at another little girl, torn a page out of the child’s workbook and stamped on it. Keeley was red in the face and looked fit to explode when she was asked to wait in the school office while we trod the now familiar path into the deputy head’s office for another ‘quiet word’. Once more I found myself reassuring Mrs Tiller that Jonathan and I would talk to Keeley and do our best to help her control her behaviour.
‘I’m trying all the time to show Keeley that I understand life has been hard for her in the past, and I’m doing everything I can to help her improve her behaviour, but it’s a slow process,’ I said, feeling really quite inadequate.
‘I do understand, Mrs Hart,’ Mrs Tiller replied, ‘and of course I am not criticising you.’
‘I know,’ I nodded, although looking back, I can see that I did feel some personal responsibility, and Jonathan did too. We were Keeley’s foster carers after all, and we weren’t making progress in helping Keeley behave better, so it was very difficult not to be self-critical.
On the journey to the therapist’s that day Keeley studiously ignored Jonathan, which was something she was doing more and more often. It was extremely irritating, and I felt sorry for Jonathan as he always made an effort to entertain her, however badly she treated him.
‘Shall we play a game?’ he’d say, smiling. ‘Shall we put some music on?’
Nothing worked, but he wasn’t easily put off. Often he told a joke, or he told a daft story against himself, but Keeley didn’t respond at all. On this day, as I often did, I pointed out that it was upsetting to Jonathan to be ignored like this, and I told her that if there was a reason she didn’t want to engage with him then she must tell me.
‘I’m here to help,’ I said. ‘It would be much nicer if we could all get along. What can I do to make the situation better? I don’t like to have an atmosphere like this in the car. It would be better for everybody if you stopped ignoring Jonathan.’
‘Can you sit in the back with me?’ she asked.
‘Why, Keeley?’ I replied. ‘You know I always sit in the front.’
‘Because I feel sick.’
‘Do you mean you feel travel sick?’
‘No, just sick.’
‘Do you want us to pull over so you can get some fresh air?’
‘No, I just want you to sit with me, in case I’m sick.’
I sighed and told Keeley I didn’t like sitting in the back of the car, as I do have a tendency to suffer from quite severe travel sickness myself if I can’t see the road directly in front of me.
‘You can still look out the window when you are in the back,’ she retorted in a very rude and surly tone of voice. It really annoyed me.
‘I really don’t want to sit in the back,’ I snapped, rather too harshly. Looking back, I was feeling at a low ebb after talking to the deputy head, but nevertheless I should have been more patient. Now I felt even worse for talking to Keeley that way. Jonathan put his hand on my knee reassuringly, and he took over.
‘Look, if you think you are going to be sick, tell us and we will pull over,’ he said sympathetically, but Keeley didn’t reply to him and simply let out a loud, disappointed and very exaggerated sigh.
Twenty minutes later Keeley vomited all over the back of the car. Of course I felt horribly guilty and partly responsible for having taken such a dim view of her worries about being sick. I had honestly thought that she had been trying to manipulate the situation, using her supposed sickness as a way of getting me in the back of the car and cutting Jonathan off even more than she already had done. I’d been wrong, and now the situation had escalated, which I mentally cursed myself for. Keeley was as white as a sheet, clutching her stomach and groaning.
‘Oh my God, Keeley, we’ll pull over and sort this out,’ I said. ‘Are you OK?’
She was covered in sick and staring at me blankly.
‘Can you hear me, Keeley? Goodness me, whatever have you eaten?’
Jonathan took the next available turn off the bypass we were travelling on and thankfully we pulled into a supermarket car park moments later. I used some tissues from my handbag to clean up Keeley’s face, while Jonathan sprinted into the store to buy a bottle of water and a packet of wipes. I kept talking to Keeley, telling her not to worry, reassuring her that she would be feeling much better soon, but she was still silent and staring.
‘Jonathan will be here soon,’ I soothed. ‘We’ll get this mess cleaned up. Do you want to get out of the car?’
Keeley slowly shook her head.
‘OK, well just shuffle along the seat then, Keeley. I’ll open the window and . . . oh, my goodness!’
I looked down at the pool of vomit on the back seat and the floor of the car and squinted in shock.
‘What have you eaten, sweetheart?’
‘Nothing,’ she muttered.
‘But what is that blue stuff. Keeley, it’s Blu Tack! Have you been eating bits of Blu Tack?’
She nodded.
‘I stole it. From Miss Fraser’s cupboard,’ she said, suddenly brightening up and looking and sounding victorious.
‘But why? No wonder you’ve been sick! Oh my God, why did you do that?’
‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘Because I wanted to? Dunno. Sorry.’
Jonathan arrived back with the water and the wipes and I left him to clean the car while I took Keeley into the toilets inside the supermarket, where I managed to change her into her PE top and wash away the bits of sick that had got into her hair. While I was doing this I noticed several sections of hair that were shorter than the rest. It looked very much like she’d been at her hair with a pair of scissors again, but this was something I’d have to tackle later.
‘Honestly, Keeley, I can’t believe you’ve eaten Blu Tack. You must have had lots of it. Didn’t you realise you shouldn’t have been eating it?’
‘Yes, but . . . I didn’t care!’
‘You didn’t care? Why on earth not? Why would you make yourself sick like that?’
As I spoke I was aware I wasn’t handling this situation very well. I shouldn’t have been critical or judgemental and I should have focused on Keeley’s feelings and gently encouraged her to open up about why she had done such a thing, but I really wasn’t in the mood. It had been a hell of a day and I felt at the end of
my tether.
‘Dunno,’ she repeated. ‘Sorry.’
‘OK,’ I said, forcing myself to stay calm and not mishandle the situation any more than I already had done. ‘What’s done is done. Now come on, let’s get you to your appointment. Do you feel well enough to drive on?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Will you sit in the back with me though?’
‘Yes,’ I said through gritted teeth.
This was not a good situation and I was feeling uncomfortable, out of sorts and irritated. We completed the rest of the journey mostly in silence, and when Keeley went in to see her therapist I felt like crying.
‘This is a nightmare!’ I said to Jonathan.
‘I know,’ he said, shaking his head.
We sat statue-like for a while in the waiting room, neither of us knowing what to say or do next. Normally, Jonathan would have reassured me that things were going to turn out all right, that this was just a bad day and we’d look back and maybe even laugh about it before too long, but he didn’t. He looked worn out and his brow was furrowed with worry.
‘We are out of our depth with Keeley, aren’t we?’ I said eventually, my voice several octaves deeper than normal, as my throat was so tight with worry and upset.
‘I hope not,’ he said unconvincingly, ‘I mean, things can’t get any worse, can they?’