What I Learned Caring For A Rescued Abused Child From Yunnan: Practical Tips For Caregivers
The first morning 7-year-old Xiao Mei came to my foster home in Kunming last March, she refused to take off her cracked rubber rain boots even though mud was caking onto my entryway rug. She hid half her body behind the social worker’s leg, and only peeked out when I turned my back to pour hot water into a thermos. She’d been rescued three days earlier from a remote village in northeastern Yunnan, where her only caregiver—her alcoholic grandfather—had beaten her regularly and left her alone for days at a time. Neighbors called the child protection hotline after finding her sleeping in a goat shed in the middle of a cold snap.
I’d had foster kids before, but nothing prepared me for how Xiao Mei moved through the first few weeks. She wouldn’t eat anything except cold leftover rice, would flinch so hard she dropped whatever she was holding every time someone’s phone rang loud. The first time I raised my voice a little, my 12-year-old son spilled a whole glass of iced tea on the couch, and I yelped in frustration. Xiao Mei immediately dropped the cookie she was holding and crawled under the dining table. I did what I thought any good caregiver would do: I knelt down, told her she was safe, I wouldn’t hurt her, and tried to pull her out by the arm. She bit my wrist hard enough to leave a purple bruise that lasted two weeks.
I used to think kids who’d been abused just needed more love to get better. After Xiao Mei, I learned that the first problem is that they don’t trust love. Every kind gesture can feel like a trick, because the only people who were supposed to care for them hurt them. I called the child protection worker who’d brought Xiao Mei to me, and she helped me unlearn all the wrong things I’d been doing.
The first change I made was stopping all forced comfort. I never reach for her without saying exactly what I’m going to do before I move. If I need to walk past her where she’s sitting on the floor building blocks, I say “I’m going to walk past you to get to the bookshelf, okay?” If I want to give her a snack, I put it on the coffee table a few feet away from her instead of handing it directly to her, and say “This is for you if you want it.” I started leaving a folded fleece blanket and a pack of her favorite lemon hard candy under the dining table and the living room couch, her favorite hiding spots, and never said a word about it. After three days, she came out on her own while I was folding laundry, and sat down on the rug three feet away from me to eat a cookie. That was the first small win.
When she started first grade a month later, her teacher called me to say she’d pushed a first grade boy hard enough to knock him over and scrape his knee, and wouldn’t explain why. I went to pick her up early, and didn’t scold her on the drive home. I just said “You must have been really scared when he came close to you, right?” She nodded into her seatbelt, and mumbled that he tried to grab her hand to pull her into a game of tag. I told her “Next time someone tries to touch you or get close when you don’t want them to, you can yell ‘I don’t want that! Go away!’ as loud as you want. If they don’t leave, I’ll talk to them, and your teacher will too. You don’t have to push to get space.” A month later, her teacher told me she’d done exactly that with another kid who tried to take her crayons, and it worked. No pushing needed.
I also had to adjust small, ordinary things around our house that most people never think about. I stopped slamming cabinet doors when I’m annoyed, because the first time I did that after Xiao Mei moved in, she hid in the back of the closet for three hours. My son used to blast his video game sound when he played after school, so we worked out a rule that he keeps the volume below 20 when Xiao Mei’s home. We keep a jar of the same sour pickles she ate in the village and a bag of white rice in the fridge at all times, even though the rest of us prefer noodles and fresh vegetables. We never make her try new food if she doesn’t want to.
A lot of new caregivers ask me what the biggest mistake people make with kids like Xiao Mei. It’s pushing them to “get over it” or “be happy” before they’re ready. We expect them to be grateful for being rescued, to fit right into our nice, happy homes, to act like every other kid their age. But they’re not broken toys that just need a little glue to be good as new. They’re kids who learned to survive in a world where every kind gesture was a threat. So you have to meet them where they are, not where you want them to be.
It’s been 10 months now. Last week, she held my hand for five whole minutes when we were waiting to cross a busy street near the market. She didn’t pull away. That’s the biggest win we’ve had so far. She still flinches when a motorbike backfires on the street near our house. She still won’t sleep with her bedroom door fully closed. We don’t know what’s going to happen next—there’s still paperwork going through about permanent placement, and some distant relatives have asked for visitation. But we’re not rushing anything. Some days are good, some days are hard. That’s just how it is.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » What I Learned Caring For A Rescued Abused Child From Yunnan: Practical Tips For Caregivers