Greetings, foster mammies and daddies!
And welcome back to the Adventures of a Biological Foster Child in Ireland. I feel like we’re at a stage now where I don’t have to go through the whole rigmarole of hyperlinking the living daylights out of the opening paragraph, but JUST in case; I offer you one lovely hyperlink to the Homepage where you can find all the information you need about My Child and Fostering Ireland, including who we are, what we stand for, and how to subscribe. So without further ado, let’s get started!
I wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the amazing and eye-opening topics we have explored so far, thanks to the curious suggestions of you, the readers. Since founding this website and blog last October, I have had the opportunity to dive into my experiences with some really unique topics within the fostering community. These have ranged all the way from simple introductions between our biological children and foster children, to navigating placements involving child sexual abuse and other (sometimes scary!) issues. The feedback from every post so far has been so encouraging and teeming with more questions about these topics, so I’ve decided it is time to start revisiting a few of them over the next couple of weeks. And first on the list we have:
Trudy Trickster and her Traumatic Tales
The return
Trudy Trickster, as some of you may already know, is a quirky little shadow character I came up with for one of my posts before Christmas, which you can read here to refresh your memory.
When a child entering the foster care system has experienced some form of trauma, I like to imagine this trauma as a shadow named Trudy. Foster children don’t always understand why Trudy is there, following them around, and so they don’t seem to notice when Trudy conjures up tricks and accidents disguised as behavioural issues. However, sometimes Trudy gets creative in her conjuring…
Senan arrived on Patty’s doorstep as a quiet and adorably shy two-year-old. Both of Senan’s parents were struggling at the time, and for a while Senan had to live with another family while his parents worked through their struggles together. My family just so happened to have room!
Unfortunately, for the first two years of Senan’s life his parents weren’t able to give him all of the attention that a young toddler needs, especially when it came to cuddles. Senan had to learn to self-soothe, and he did so with the help of Trudy, who arrived with him at our front door as a dark shadow waiting impatiently to get her hands on some cunning traps. When I asked Patty how she knew he had experienced trauma through neglect, she told me:
The first night Senan stayed with us, I checked on him every ten minutes in his cot. Every time, he was awake but silent with his hands over his eyes. I knew then that he had taught himself not to cry.
And when Patty looked closer she saw Trudy Trickster lying beside him. It seemed she had come up with the game of silence.
If your memory is still fresh from my last blog post about Trudy, you will remember that she often causes behavioural issues and accidents on her child’s behalf. This time, however, Trudy had different ideas. Whereas Hayley (the foster child featuring in my last post about Trudy) harboured trauma brought on by abuse inflicted on her, Senan’s trauma stemmed from a place of neglect. And where we have two opposite ends of the spectrum, we have two very different Trudy’s!
Senan’s parents were so caught up in the struggles they were wading through that they had been unable to nurture Senan in terms of food, talking and physical affection. Because of this, Trudy Trickster made it very difficult for Senan to learn how to accept these things. When the time came for a toddler to talk and learn conversation, Trudy set a trap so that every time an opportunity arose, Senan would be too scared to take it. Because of this, Senan remained non-verbal for longer than average children of his age. When I became old enough to speak and realised Senan wasn’t interested in talking with me, I noticed Trudy’s shadow lurking behind every attempt at conversation, and I was having none of it. As an outgoing toddler who was simply infatuated with the art of talking (ask Patty, she thought I would never stop. She might even argue that talking toddlers could be a legitimate form of torture), I was adamant to show Senan how much fun it could be. I would chant the name of my favourite toy, my favourite Bear in the Big Blue House character, my favourite food.
Now, food was another thing that Trudy Trickster seemed to have up her sleeve. Because of Senan’s trauma, Trudy often orchestrated a lot of his issues around trying new things. The upside to this was that Senan absolutely loved things he had tried, like mashed potatoes (or spuds, as we call ’em here in Ireland. Do I have any non-Irish readers out there?). Spuds and chicken goujons were two things that Senan could eat himself sick on. He loved them to the moon and back, and every time a plate of spuds and goujons was placed in front of him on the table he would let loose one of the biggest and rarest smiles we had ever seen. Spuds and goujons were the two foods that Trudy Trickster couldn’t get anywhere near, and my private investigator persona noticed this. So, for a very long time, every time a plate of goujons and spuds was placed down in front of Senan I would say:
SPUDS!
And Senan would grin like crazy and dig in heartily. And I would dig in to whatever I was eating because I ate (and still eat) absolutely anything that was put in front of me, and every now and then I would repeat the single-worded chant to remind Senan of how amazing spuds were. Trudy would lurk in the background with her arms folded and a scowl on her face. Trudy didn’t like me, and I didn’t like Trudy! I knew I had the upper hand on her, when one day Senan saw his dinner and blurted:
SPUDS!
I will admit, I almost ruined the moment with the level of shock I experienced. Not one of us had ever heard Senan speak before, and I stupidly believed that meant he couldn’t speak at all. I forgot that he could listen, and so could speak more words than I previously estimated and would soon find out.
For a minute we looked at each other across the table, wide-eyed, a little terrified, but mostly beginning to bubble up with an uncontrollable excitement at this breakthrough. Patty was somewhere off to the side, crying with happiness no doubt (she’s a very weepy mammy no matter the mood), and I was getting onto my knees on my chair with a fork bundled into one fist. I raised the fork into the air, leaning over my dinner of spuds and goujons to proclaim this new verbal feast.
SPUUUDDSSS!
And then Senan shrieked the word again, and I responded with an even more vigorous one, and Patty jumped in from side-stage and joined the proclamation of spud-independence and the spuds were momentarily forgotten because Senan had spoken and Trudy Trickster, for a moment, was completely out of the picture.
I know I got a little carried away there, but I think the takeaway from this (should be spuds and goujons) should be that Trudy Trickster can go both ways; she can cause outward behavioural issues, but she can also cause ones that are quite hard to see, and maybe a little harder to understand. Just because a child you foster doesn’t scream and bash things up and have wonderful and colorful tantrums, doesn’t necessarily mean they are happy on the inside. I think, especially when your own children are young and full of love and happiness, it is important to let them conduct whatever little secret missions they are conducting (as long as they aren’t harmful!). Patty certainly questioned why I shouted the word spuds every time Senan and I were eating spuds, but she saw a method behind the madness, and in the end it led to something amazing.
Thanks so much for reading this week’s blog post, folks! I’m glad we got to revisit Trudy Trickster to give another insight into how she can appear in children who have suffered trauma. I like putting positive spins on these stories, too, because it is so important to give as much attention to the good memories as we do to the bad ones.
If you enjoyed this week’s post, but maybe you have a specific question that hasn’t been answered, don’t be afraid to drop in via the question portal. If I address your questions you will be completely anonymised! You can also like this post and subscribe through the homepage to get each new blog sent directly to your inbox.
‘Til next time,
Naoise
Naoise McGuinness 