Falling Through the Cracks II - The Meeting

My heart was racing a bit, palms sweating, "Will they listen to me?" "Will they believe me?" I started walking into the school with my Love and Logic™ resources for teachers. The binder I had compiled from articles I and others had written regarding attachment, attachment disorder, and the post institutionalized child was in the crook of my arm. Okay, two deep breathes, do your best, do not be intimidated, and ask for God's help to remain calm, on target, kind, and strong.

for California

The room was hot and uncomfortable for me and no one was there yet. This meeting was to be on my terms this time as an educated advocate for my son. First, the Instructional Support Teacher came in, then much to my amazement, the special ed teacher, the homeroom teacher, and the guidance counselor. At my request, this was to be a meeting between the IST teacher, the guidance counselor, and myself. I adjusted strategies and expectations.

When we settled in, I began, "I am here to teach, not to give interventions yet. Interventions come after the education. We must understand the post institutionalized child for our interventions to be effective. Please take a look at what my son's first four years were like." I referred to the first few pages of the binder where I had compiled pictures of Romanian orphanages and the orphans. The ladies looked on and I could tell that it sunk in a bit more that maybe Niki's behaviors were not completely his fault. Perhaps they were the residual effect of this beginning. There should still be consequences for inappropriate behavior but if we understand what is driving the behavior, we do a better job interacting with the child.

As we progressed, the homeroom teacher and the IST teacher consistently tried to steer the conversation toward interventions. I tried to be kind and firm and steer them back to the fact that they needed to become educated about this population of children before they could ever hope to understand and use the strategies I had compiled from different resources.

I explained that with the increase of children adopted from institutional settings and foster care, we are seeing more and more of these negative behaviors, neurological and physiological impairments and we are scrambling to find ways to help the parents find effective help for the children.

We are really in a new frontier and the first wave is to educate therapist and parents. We haven't gotten around to educating the teachers very well. That must change.

Next, we moved onto learning about the effects of impaired attachments, the unique characteristics of the post institutionalized child, the damaging effects of abuse, neglect, and trauma on the developing brain, and the effects of trauma on the child's physiological state.

The guidance counselor and the special ed teacher were on the same page. The IST teacher was getting there but still kept going back to the interventions. The homeroom teacher was still kind of hung up on being taught by a parent.

As I was leaving, the special ed teacher and the guidance counselor were the only ones left and they asked what I really wanted for Nik. I said, in a perfect world, I want an aide, an IEP, and the full extent of special education services. I told them that they had a choice. They had to care enough for my son to help him and push through a lot of the school district red tape. They had to realize that they needed to be educated about this population of children.

They have a chance to make a huge difference for my son with my help or they can continue to let him fall through the cracks.

I hope they choose to truly help him. We will have several more meetings to disseminate the information I have provided. I will pray that God will work in their hearts.

I would like to thank those of you who emailed me this week with words of encouragement. I would also like to say well done regarding your efforts to advocate for your children in the school.

For next week's article, please email your comments and questions to Nancy Geoghegan. We will include comments and I and Dr. Art, my co-moderator for the Attachment and Bonding forums will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Remember to visit Attachment Adoption.com.

God bless you and yours!

Nancy G.