Denying names

[ParrySmizBix]

Dear all,

Our daughter was placed with us permanently 7 weeks ago

She’s been settling well and lots of progress has been made in every aspect

Due to a split from her older sibling, who continues to live with the FCs, we have maintained frequent face-to-face contact with them

She’s been doing ‘role-playing’ with her teddies pretty much since she moved in. She assigns names of the FCs and their extended family and friends to the teddies, making up scenarios involving e.g. going out on day trips. She then won’t allow us to use any names other than those she’s assigned, sometimes for the entire day, e.g. when I’m not allowed to call my other half ‘dad’; he has to be called the FC’s name or she’ll become angry

Although we’ve been reassured by social workers that this is ‘healthy’ and her way of making sense of what has happened, I’m concerned that it’s impacting on my relationship with her. When I wake her up in the morning and say “morning X!”, she replies with: “no, I’m (FC 1), and you’re (FC 2)”, which is fine the first few times, but quite hard when it’s the very first thing she says to you and you’ve become hesitant to even use your daughter’s name!

I’ve tried exploring the story with her coloured pencils on paper, naming the need e.g. “I think you might feel you need to be in control today”, but it’s hitting a brick wall

I wondered whether other adopters have experienced this and how likely it is to continue. I’m trying not to be ‘hurt’ by it (I know how selfish that sounds), but the tiny number of family members and friends we’ve introduced to her don’t seem to interest her at all at this point, and her life seems well and truly still with the FCs

We were in this scenario, (older sibling still with FC's and maintaining contact, though our daughter responded quite differently. Her SW did alot of work on telling the story of what was happening with both siblings using photos of each individual, pictures of our cars and houses etc and physically moving them about in front of the children as she told the story of who was moving where and why. We then continued doing that every couple of weeks for the next 6 months or so until she became more verbal (she was 2 when adopted by us) and more able to chat about it. If you can use pictures like we were guided to, it might remove the bit of role playing where she assigns you each a role of one of the FC's, directing it to the photo instead? Worth a try!

For what it's worth, the ongoing contact has sometimes been challenging for us, but is definitely beneficial for both siblings and hopefully will continue!

It sounds like she wants to be able to talk about her FC and their family etc and has created this way so she can always refer to them. (Not for a minute suggesting you are discouraging her from talking about them!) I would try and bring them up in conversation in way where you are referring to them as themselves and not you (if that makes sense?)

So you could say things like “what lovely dinners did [foster carers name] make for you? shall we make that tonight?” So youre clearly talking about FC as a different person than you. And then it gives DD an opportunity to talk about FC in a positive way without having to engineer the conversation herself.

Have I read it right that she only moved in with you 7 weeks ago?

How frequent is the contact ? Seven weeks is no time at all but it sounds like she isnt getting the space she needs to move on from the FC.
How old is she ?

That’s very hard - it can be difficult not to feel rejected even though you know it’s not her rejecting you.

What’s the long term plan for her older sibling? Unless the plan is for her to move in with you, it’s unrealistic to keep close contact with her - there will be a reason for them not being placed together and in that case face to face contact should be planned and infrequent because your child needs to be able to move forward.

I think you need to revisit planned contact with foster carers and birth family at least until your child is more settled with you.

Like a pp has indicated, it does depend a bit on how old she is, also how long she was with FCs?

I’ve tried exploring the story with her coloured pencils on paper, naming the need e.g. “I think you might feel you need to be in control today”, but it’s hitting a brick wall I think you are naming the wrong need/feelings - I think it is better to name the feelings than name the need incidentally. Her "need" here I think is to both process the change in her life and also to deal with her feelings about it. Not to be in control. So when you talk to her about it (and what you say will depend on how old she is) you need to try to work out how she is feeling. For example "I think you are feeling very sad and confused today because your whole life has changed and you are missing FC1 and FC2 terribly, and missing [sibling]. You might wish to be back there [or anywhere else?] and wish that [sibling] is here with you. You might be feeling very worried about [sibling]. I am so terribly sorry about all this, it must feel awful for you and I can't take away the pain, but I can help make it better if you let me. You are here with me and I want to try to make this better." You will also need to find a way to help her process it, for example, how to tell her story in her own words, what has happened, how she feels about it.

I wouldn't change names as per her requests, but instead as well as doing the above I would explain very gently that you can't change names, that you name is your name. And be firm and gentle and consistent about this. And then go back to talk about how she feels.

face to face contact should be planned and infrequent because your child needs to be able to move forward...I think you need to revisit planned contact with foster carers and birth family at least until your child is more settled with you I think that this is wrong advice and will not help and may make her shut down further. If you are helping her process what has happened and how she feels and preparing her for each visit and doing anything else which has been recommended or which you can work out from reading up on contact (eg using the UEA post adoption contact site) - NB just to give context, in other countries specialist psychologists are involved with every single visit to make sure it works as standard practice, so yes, this is hard on adoptive parents. By keeping with it you are helping her maintain links while still process and build a new life with you.

It is likely to take time and there will be times when it goes away and then comes back and each time it comes back you will need to go through the same thing to the extent necessary.

your name is your name - not you name is your name

and if you are helping her process... then you are helping her maintain links etc

Sorry, I didn't read through before sending

Thank you everyone for all your valuable and insightful feedback; it really is greatly appreciated

I intentionally didn’t include her age in the post, and now realise this poses more uncertainty in suggesting solutions, so I appreciate your responses even more. She is under 5 but is verbal

The role-playing using actual figures to dramatise what has happened, and where people have gone, is a great idea and something we explored with her last week using her toys. It can be difficult sometimes to follow her story and whom she is referring to, and I know that her awareness of time is naturally very woolly, so it’s something we are doing repeatedly to revisit the story and make sure she’s understood

We frequently drop FCs into conversation with our daughter to support her attachment with them, asking questions and speaking highly of them at all opportunities, which is one of the frustrations as I don’t yet see it helping.

I agree 7 weeks isn’t long at all. She won’t be starting nursery/school for a couple of months yet to allow further time to bond with us. Is she more likely to start referring to her life here when life begins to take place more frequently outside of our household, and she sees friends on a daily basis?

I think the most interesting thing is the range of opinions on what contact (if any) is best with the FCs and other siblings after placement, and how to strike the right balance between ‘they are still with you’ and ‘you are moving on’. My gut tells me that frequent contact with gradually increased time gaps is best (perhaps weekly, then monthly, before culminating in, say, twice a year), but the views here are clearly far from unanimous and worth researching further

Thanks for the advice on naming the wrong need, and I think you could be right in this particular context. Her general behaviour has been extremely controlling (as we would’ve expected from any adoptee), but as you said, on reflection I don’t think assigning names is necessarily brought on by a need to control; rather a need to make sense of things. Naming the need is still quite difficult because of her age (which I appreciate you didn’t know as I omitted it), but we’re working on it!

Finally I am grateful that people recognise it’s hard for the adopters as well as the adoptees!

It may not be relevant to yours and your dd's situation, but both my dc spend /spent along time insisting on using different. We spent months using the names of our next-door neighbours and and their daughter at my dd insistence. Today ds who's 3 1/2 would only answer to Fish. Could it be a combination of a small child processing an massive life event and a normal developmental stage?

Is she more likely to start referring to her life here when life begins to take place more frequently outside of our household, and she sees friends on a daily basis?

She’s more likely to refer to her life with you as she makes sense of her life with you. At the moment she’s recently moved to a new family, she’s had no choice over that move and is still seeing her old carers on a regular basis. She’s going to be very confused about where everyone (including her) fits.

My D.C. were 4 and 6 when they came to me, with an older sibling placed elsewhere for good reason. My DD would be older than your child but her sense of family, how relationships fit together and who was who was massively confused. She thought sisters cared for children (lots of young people caring for younger kids at foster carers), and couldn’t work out what mums and dads did or why she and her brother weren’t married. The very nature of the care system is confusing.

We did a lot of role play, both mimicking what happened with foster carers and “role playing” our actual roles in her life, or letting her role play being a mum or care taking in some way. Remember that children learn and make sense of their works through play, so do sign up for lots of play around how families fit together and work.

One thing that really helped was a dolls house, with lots of different figures to role play with. It gave us a good insight into her life in foster care (which wasn’t great) as well as helping us understand who took what role in her life, and the extent to which she cared for her younger brother.

This is one of those “go at the pace of the child” things. You can’t avoid her grieving process - she needs to feel the loss of the foster carers in terms of them caring for her (and the thoughts she might have had of them as mum and dad), she needs to be able to grieve her sibling relationship which will inevitably change in light of whatever plans are in place for his future. She can’t, and shouldn’t avoid those feelings and in the context of a loving primary carer will learn that feelings aren’t overwhelming and she has people to help her cope. Her role play is part of that process.

In terms of contact, yes you’ll find a wide range of views and the reality is no one size fits all - for some it’ll be the right thing to do and in other cases it won’t be. I’d work with the team around your child on that one because they and you know all of the variables.

It’s very hard on adoptive parents, make sure you have good support both professional and good friends/family and make sure you have time and space for yourself.

Sorry to butt in about something not really related to your OP but I saw your post that said she won’t be starting nursery for another couple of months. If she’s going to a school nursery personally I would imagine she’d be better off starting with the rest of the cohort because at the start of the year there will be lots of routines to be practiced whereas when she gets there a couple of months later she might be expected to just fit in and not be explicitly taught the routines. Plus all the other children will already know each other and she’ll stand out more as the new girl. Might it be better to start from the beginning of term but maybe do fewer days?

All 4 year olds are different but in case it helps, when mine were 4 they were very verbal about everything other than feelings, they still demonstrated feelings with behaviour and when trying to work out what was wrong if I got it right there would be visible relief at the moment I said it, like a release, and I knew i was on the right track and then able to say what was necessary to comfort/explain the situation. I don't remember them saying a single word at that time, but it was amazing the memory they had sometimes about conversations and as time went on it became more of a discussion.

This is a video by Dan Siegel, psychiatrist, about "name it to tame it" which I think was what "name the need" was aiming at, but goes into more detail and covers physiological changes, it is really good:

I agree that there are differing views about contact. In relation to research the UEA Post Adoption Contact's most recent version of the longitudional study which is on their website under "research" looked specifically at the question of whether or not contact with bio family had a negative impact on bonding/relationship with adoptive family and concluded that it did not, in that it was not the determining factor, and it is worth reading that sectionin full as it raised many interesting points, and it also included comparing situations when looking at what is likely to produce good outcomes for adoptees. The whole study which is quite substantial has a lot of interesting information.

Finally I am grateful that people recognise it’s hard for the adopters as well as the adoptees! I think that it is extremely hard for adopters, exacerbated by the lack of decent training and guidance and information and support - but by extension of this, the problems for adoptees - who are the child in the situation and reliant on the adopters - are very significant where their adoptive parents struggle.

Thank you again for all the feedback

That video is interesting and reflects some of the things I learned in a book called 'The Whole Brain Child'

Once again, very useful to hear all of your stories and be able to pitch how my DD is progressing

Did he talk about "naming the need" in the book, or did that come from somewhere else?