What Caregivers Need To Know About Caring For Rescued Abused Children: Lessons From Yunnan
The knock came at 2:17 on a Tuesday afternoon, when I was folding clean cotton socks on my coffee table in Kunming. I’d been approved as a respite caregiver for high-needs kids for six months, but I still wasn’t ready when Lina stepped out from behind the social worker’s leg. She was seven, small for her age, her black hair matted at the ends, rubber shoes with holes at the toes, and she clutched a cracked plastic rabbit with one missing ear so tight her knuckles were white. She didn’t look up once as the social worker filled out paperwork, and when I leaned over to set a bowl of candied hawthorns on the table, she scrambled back into the corner and pressed her back against the wall.
The first two weeks were harder than anything I’d prepared for. She didn’t speak a single word. She ate only plain white rice, pushing away any vegetables or eggs I put on her plate. If I raised my voice even a little to answer the phone, she’d freeze against the nearest wall. The first time I dropped a wooden spoon on the tile floor, the clatter made her crawl under the dining table and cover her head with her arms, and she stayed there for 22 minutes I counted, even when I talked soft and told her I was fine, nothing was wrong. I’d read all the generic guidance online that said to show her I was safe, to hug her, to draw out her feelings, so I tried that once. I sat down next to the table and reached for her arm, and she bit me. Not hard, but hard enough to break the skin.
That’s when I threw out all the generic advice and started figuring out what actually worked, one small mistake at a time. The first big lesson was that you don’t need to push connection to build connection. I stopped trying to talk to her, stopped trying to initiate touch, stopped asking her how she felt every five minutes. If she wanted to sit on the bottom step of the balcony and watch the neighborhood pigeons for an hour, I’d sit on the couch inside where she could see me, folding laundry, not saying a word. If she came into the living room when I was reading, I didn’t pause or turn to look at her. I just kept doing what I was doing. I made a simple agreement with her: I put a blue bird sticker on the inside of her wrist, and told her if anything felt too much — too many people, too much noise, too much talking — all she had to do was touch that sticker, and I’d leave her alone, no questions, no explanations.
The second lesson was that small, unchanging routines are more healing than any big fun trip or fancy gift. Before she was rescued from her abusive home in a rural village outside Zhaotong, Lina had been moved between three different unstable placements in six months. No one ever did the same thing two days in a row, and she never knew when her next meal would come or if she’d be left alone. So I started keeping every tiny thing the same: her warm milk is always in the chipped blue cup, always set on the left side of the table, at 7 a.m. sharp. We walk the same route to the neighborhood vegetable stand every afternoon at 4, no detours, no unplanned stops to visit neighbors unless she nods first. For teachers who have a child like this join their class, that means don’t move their desk without giving them a week of warning first, post the daily schedule with simple pictures on their desk so they can check it anytime they feel off, and don’t force them to do front-of-class presentations or group work with new kids if they don’t want to.
When they act out — bite, throw things, shut down completely — don’t force apologies or big heart-to-hearts right away. A month after Lina came, a local volunteer came over to do art activities, and she kept asking Lina to draw her “happy place” even after Lina kept looking away. Lina crumpled the paper, threw it at the volunteer, and ran into the closet. The volunteer wanted to stay and work through it, but I just thanked her for her time, asked her to come back another month, then left a bowl of rice outside the closet door and went back to my book. An hour later, Lina came out, ate the rice, and sat on the balcony. I didn’t mention the incident for a week. If you have to say something, just one simple line is enough: “That got too overwhelming for you, huh.” No scolding, no pressure to perform niceness for other people.
It’s been eight months now. Last week, when we crossed the busy street outside the community garden, she reached up and grabbed my hand, held it for two whole minutes until we got to the other side. That’s the first time she’s ever touched me on her own. She still doesn’t talk much, only a few short words when she needs something. She still wets the bed three nights a week, and I just change the sheets quietly before I go to bed, don’t say anything about it. She still hides in her room when we have more than two guests. I don’t know what her future will look like, if she’ll ever talk about what happened to her, if she’ll be able to go to a regular school and have friends of her own someday. Some days I lie awake and worry I’m not doing enough. But yesterday, she left her cracked plastic rabbit on the couch next to me, while she went out to the balcony to watch pigeons. That’s enough for right now.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » What Caregivers Need To Know About Caring For Rescued Abused Children: Lessons From Yunnan