If you care for children or young people who have had traumatic experiences, the relationship you build with them can be lifechanging in their healing journey. Sometimes that relationship can be confusing to navigate, as children and young people who did not have the opportunity to form nurturing relationships during their early childhood often find it very challenging to build and maintain healthy relationships.
Tip of the iceberg (what we can see)
Despite all your efforts to invest time and attention in your child, you might feel like they are trying to avoid the relationship with you. Perhaps they are using aggression or other behaviours designed to keep you ‘at a distance’. Or you might notice your child or young person seems preoccupied with relationships and acts overly ‘clingy’ towards you.
What is happening underneath the surface?
Children who experience consistently loving and nurturing care develop beliefs that they are good, capable and worthy. This helps them approach new situations with the confidence that relationships are supportive and worthwhile. On the other hand, children harmed by their caregivers can develop negative beliefs about relationships. They often learn not to rely on others as they assume future relationships will be similarly unreliable or unsafe.
Strategies to promote healing
- Take care of yourself
Caring for children who have experienced trauma is usually both rewarding and exhausting. Think about your support network: Do you have friends or family to talk to about the hard bits, or who can help you in practical ways? Have you considered joining support groups, seeking counselling or connecting with other carers? Ask your support worker or kinship care worker about opportunities to link up with carers.
- Give the child your attention and communicate openly
Sometimes parenting advice involves not giving children attention for ‘doing the wrong thing’ (for example, sending them to their room or giving them the ‘silent treatment’ until they apologise). For children and young people who have experienced trauma, these strategies can confirm their fears that relationships are unstable, caregivers are unreliable, and they are alone. It is natural that you will have times when you are upset with the child and might need a moment to yourself, but make sure you clearly explain this rather than leaving them to guess. You could say something like, “I need to take a moment because I’m upset. But I still care about you, and we can talk more in a minute.”
- Listen to the child and be a source of safety
Take the time to listen and talk to your children regularly. They will often slowly begin to talk about what’s going on underneath the surface and what they need. Responding in ways that are empathetic and caring will show them they can rely on you to be their ‘safe base’ when they feel upset.
- Respond based on their needs - not their age
Often children and young people who have experienced harm have delayed emotional development, so it is important to adjust your expectations to ‘meet them where they’re at’. Over time and with reassurance, they will learn that they can depend on you.
- Offer relationship repair
Every relationship has tough moments or ‘ruptures’, but when repaired, these can help build stronger relationships. Relationships can be repaired by acknowledging something difficult has happened, showing affection and care for the child or young person’s experience, apologising and forgiving.
Other strategies include:
- noticing what makes the child feel special and cared for, and
- being patient with progress.
If you and the child in your care have different cultural backgrounds
Concepts of relationships are culturally informed, and your child’s cultural template may differ from your own. Understanding this will help you build a culturally safe relationship.
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people, connection to culture, Country, kin and family are highly important. Helping the child to maintain these relationships may help strengthen your own relationship with them.
If you’d like extra information, training or help to understand how your child’s cultural background might affect their world view, speak to your support worker.
Free training on trauma responsive care
DCP and the Australian Childhood Foundation have created training for carers on understanding trauma and supporting children. Visit bit.ly/acftraumatraining to register
Read more about strengthening relationships with children and other topics in the Iceberg Model trauma-informed guide on DCP’s website.
This story is part of Issue 12 of Caring Together, the Department for Child Protection's newsletter for foster and kinship carers. The entire newsletter, and previous editions, are available here.