For years I ran a therapeutic childcare. Back in the early 90s when so much of the brain research came into childcare training I changed how we were working with and accommodating many of our children who were diagnosed with various mental health disorders. I had noticed long before that many of the same kids had health issues.
As a matter of fact my staff and I knew many times a divorce was coming even before the other parent. We could tell there were family problems from the children’s illnesses – especially ear infections in infants and toddlers.
I started having my staff model breathing techniques. We began teaching children how to breathe and relax and then talk. I taught parent’s what we were doing especially with the breathing. Before this time I had nebulizers lined up in my office. We did so many breathing treatments it was unreal.
After we implored much of Dr. Beckly Bailey’s techniques, (www.http://consciousdiscipline.com/) especially deep breathing from the diaphragm, we began to see those nebulizers disappearing. It was amazing because kids that had been on breathing machines and inhalers were able to run, jumpy and play for long periods without having an asthma attack.
Of course we worked with many of the parents. We helped the weak distraught and abused mom get free from the abuser. We helped some get help through their churches. We called the police more than once when a parent would show up drunk or stoned. We told them and the other parent and grandparent in advance we would carry through on that promise. We turned some into Child Protective Custody and then we begged DHS workers to leave the children in our care.
One time I even went to my senator to get the state foster care worker to allow the child to stay in our program. I felt it was important for this RAD child that we had bonded with over 3 years to remain in our care when his mother was hospitalized. Made that worker so angry that she had to pick the child up that 6 year old child and drive him to our program every morning. But we had a lot invested in this precious little boy and I was not about to let a state worker send that child into a tail spin!
There are many avenues people in childcare can employ to help these children. Society is missing a big part of the picture when we leave childcare and early childhood programs out of the mix in treating these situations. Many of these children live in childcare. It can be their safe place in an unsafe world. They learn quickly that if they can just make it through the night that calmness and peace will greet them the next morning at their second home. At the place where loving and caring adults love them and protect them while they teach them life skills.
I know because we did it. Today on my Facebook I have many of these kids who grew up in my childcare. They will find me and say, “Miss Linda is that you? I want to tell you about my life. I owe you and your staff so much for helping when I was a child.” I’ve had them chat me on FB about the death of their parent and then call me and say, “You are the only person I knew that I could talk about my dad. You were there when he started down this destructive path. You held me together during that time.” This from a young woman I hadn’t seen in years. She is now married with 5 little boys of her own and doing great as a mother and wife. She wanted the change. She wanted to break that destructive pattern. Her little brother wasn’t so blessed though because we lost him at 21 to a drug overdose.
Didn’t mean to write a book it’s just that there is so much to say after having run my program for 26 years. See the Kids & Divorce blog at http://blog.dc4k.org
Linda Ranson Jacobs
blog.dc4k.org
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