Your 10 Favourite Things: An exercise in understanding children in care.
Right now, take a moment to think about your 10 favourite things in this life as it stands today.
These “things” could be people, places, pets, objects, pets, etc, whatever you would consider your 10 favourite things.
Here is an example list:
- Partner (husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend)
- Children (human or furry)
- Parents
- Grandparents
- Best Friends
- House
- Car
- Etc.
- Etc.
- Etc.
Do you have your list?
Now imagine that a giant from another planet has just swooped down in his alien spacecraft and beamed up items 1 and 2 on your list. Those things are in the giant’s spaceship and you watch as he flies away to another planet and you will never – ever – see those things again.
They’re gone. For good. From the list above, this is your partner and your children… gone.
How do you feel?
Now imagine that the giant sent his buddy down to planet earth to your home to take away items 3 and 4 on your list – back to his planet, never to be seen again…
Now how do you feel?
Angry, alone, uncertain, fearful, jumpy and nervous perhaps?
Imagine this happens another three times until all of the items on your list have been whisked away two at a time, out of your life and to another planet…you will never see any item on that list again.
How are you feeling?
Sure, a giant alien from another planet taking away your favourite things is pretty unbelievable, but this is the reality of so many of the kids in care.
Sadly, the “aliens” look like regular adults to these children and it’s hard for them to discern the difference between adults who will provide for, protect, and love them, and the adults who will – yet again – take their new favourite things from them.
As mentioned a few weeks ago, I am completing the Adoption Education Program (AEP) which is a required course in order to adopt children either through the ministry or through private adoption.
The course so far has been powerful and confronting.
This one exercise has stayed with me for weeks, has touched my heart deeply, and is an exercise that I have asked my family of friends to also complete.
As I started the exercise and actually listed my 10 favourite things, which of course included people, I felt a sense of joy and pride at the time I’d taken to really think through who/what/where would make my top 10 list. It took me a little while and I felt a bit frustrated by the limitation of only 10.
Then I clicked Next.
The first two things on my list were taken away from me “never to be seen again for the rest of your life” I was bewildered, shocked actually, I felt duped by the time and effort I’d put into listing my top 10. I wished I could go back and change my list so that those first two people, the people I hold most dear were no longer on the list.
And then it dawned on me… there was another “Next” button and this was not going to stop here…
I clicked Next again.
Items 3 and 4 were taken away from me “never to be returned” and I started to get angry. Not only at the items being picked off my list, but also at the course for making me think about the 10 things I hold most dear only to then consider how I’d feel to have them taken them from me.
My attitude started to change, I was angry, I knew where then next “Next” was going and it made me feel like lashing out at someone.
More items were removed, again and again until my entire list was empty – devoid of all the things I hold dear.
I was furious. I wanted to “lawyer up” as an adult, and make them stop. Thoughts like “no one can do that to me, this isn’t really real, I would never allow this to happen” ran through my mind with each “Next” click.
The further down my list we got the more I wanted to punish the person taking thing from me, I wanted to hurt them – and anyone else – more than they were hurting me. I wanted to take their things away from them too, take their happiness away as they were taking mine.
I wanted to get even.
I wanted them to stop.
By the end of the exercise I found myself feeling closed off with an attitude of: “fine, take it all, I don’t care, you won’t get to me – nothing will. This isn’t even real…”
This isn’t even real…
The words that were a way of protecting myself from feeling the frustration of the exercise, reverberated in my brain, taunting me, until I stopped thinking about me and understood that this is how the children in care feel, how my future children will feel, maybe even right now.
I sobbed.
I sobbed for all of the children in care who have experienced this feeling, and for the children that will one day call me momma.
This exercise was not real for me, but this is very real for children in care.
They have lost everything, sometimes over and over and over again.
Their parents, their homes, their pets, their favourite blanket, the stuffy that made them feel safe at night, their siblings in some cases, the foster parents who loved them, the new hiding places or spaces that felt safe in any number of new homes, their friends, their neighbours, their schools and teachers, everything that ever felt familiar to them, all lost – taken from them, again and again, until they too felt “switched off” to the next loss.
It’s no wonder these little people are bewildered by each new home, no wonder they have outbursts and exhibit angry behaviours when moving into an adoptive (or foster) home, it’s no wonder that it takes an enormous amount of love and patience before the child will allow themselves to relax, trust, and attach to their new parents.
They have lost so much, felt so many emotions, felt so much anger and frustration at the people making choices in their lives and taking them from their favourite people, places, and things seemingly, through the eyes of a child, without thought or consequence.
These children have felt more loss in their short lives than many adults will feel in their entire lives.
It’s no wonder many of them have switched off to emotion, to trust, to love, and are living in a shell of disconnection from life. It is no wonder they are angry.
I was angry and it was just an exercise on paper. Nothing was taken from me in reality, I didn’t lose any of the things on my list, but I still felt the emotions even if on a microscopically small scale.
Imagine that through the eyes of a child when the reality is happening to them again and again.
Not on paper, in their actual experiences.
I found this exercise so helpful in connecting, even on a brief and minute scale, with the emotions that my future children will have felt for much of their short lives. This is an exercise I will keep in mind when we are united and when they exhibit behaviours that are angry or frustrated. It is also an exercise I will ask anyone in my children’s lives to complete, so they too will have the perspective of the child and perhaps understand their conducts a little better.
How do you ever replace all of the losses in a child’s life? How do you ever compensate for all of the hurts that they have been through? How do you apologise that you were not there sooner to give them the home, security, protection, and love they so deeply desired?
My hope is that love will be enough. That love, a safe environment, stability, security, protection, patience, kindness, and understanding will be enough.
Would that be enough for you?
Would you, could you, ever move past all of your favourite things (remember, including family, loved ones, pets, things, etc…) being taken from you again and again?
My hope is that somehow I can help them grieve these losses and move through to a place where there is an openness to new favourite things, new love, new hope, new possibilities –without ever negating the pain and loss of the past.
How about you? How did you find this exercise…?
Please let me know,
Warm smiles and Love,
Ali Jayne 🙂