How was your Christmas?
I’m not sure that a drama-free Christmas is possible for families raising children with significant early trauma. Because trauma isn’t something that lives in the past. When there’s significant early trauma, nervous systems are rewired, developmental paths are adapted for a life that’s expected to mirror those earliest days, weeks, and months. Self, others, and the world, are all experienced differently in the aftermath of abuse and abandonment. Sibling relationships are forever shaped by events that have long since been forgotten, and by the coping strategies they developed to get by. Adoption doesn’t fix any of that stuff. Foster care doesn’t fix it. Kinship care doesn’t fix it.
As replacement parents, many of our family stories can’t be shared. The things that we might want others to know - for our own processing - but also to help other parents on a similar path - they can’t be shared. The content of our stories doesn’t belong just to us - it also belongs to our children. Many of us have made the decision to protect the privacy of our children. We allude to things and we offer watered-down versions of events - with consent where possible - but most of our stories go untold. While that risks painting an unrealistic picture of adoption, foster care, kinship care (and painting an unrealistic picture can be more harmful than many realise), it's sometimes be a necessary evil.
So when I say we had a wonderful Christmas, and we really did, know that ‘the other stuff’ happened too. And some of it was a bit eye-watering. What therapeutic parents are great at though, is focusing on connection and co-regulation, accepting our own limitations, and starting over when things don’t work out as well as we’d hoped. And if we’re wise, we shift our goals away from fixing the fixable and we learn to focus instead on building the healthiest family relationships possible - offering that powerful mix of unconditional connection, no-nonsense challenge, ongoing guidance, and unwavering support.