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The Metaphor
A fawn at the edge of the woods watches with a wary eye. Any sudden movement is likely to startle and send the fawn scurrying into the woods. If, however, you don't approach and be still the fawn may ever so cautiously move a step closer. Children who are hurting deep inside from invisible, but very real wounds are like a fawn on the edge of the woods. They fear being hurt again. They don't dare approach unless they are certain you will not add to their pain. As much as they desire the contact, it will not be easy to convince them. Basic trust in some of these children was never established. They did not experience early in life what all children need to develop a sense of security, safety, and trust. They did not experience being cared for, loved, protected and nurtured. Some children do not get this at all, others unpredictably and inconsistently. The moments of nurture and love may be interspersed with anger or cold indifference.
Children whose parents are addicted to substances may experience radically different parenting depending on whether the parent is high or sober. In violent and abusive families the child may experience a diverse range of parental response depending on the mood and tension within the family. Billy, when nine years old recalled, I could always tell whether we were going to be beaten that night by the way my father drove his truck up the driveway after work. If he was weaving from side to side, I knew we were in for it.
Other children may have been beneficiaries of love early on only to have their sense of trust and safety shattered by a traumatic experience or a series of such events at a later point in development. Divorce, death, unemployment, physical and/or sexual abuse are some of the stressors that could devastate a child and family's sense of trust. Having once experienced the well being that results from what the British Psychiatrist, Winnicott, termed good enough? parenting the loss is enormous.
Finally, there is a small group of children who experience life as a horror show. These are the repeatedly abused, often deprived and severely traumatized children who undergo multiple out-of-home placements. Their sense of trust is shattered. These are the children who typically make up the population of today's residential treatment centers. These are the children that I have known from more than thirty years of working in the residential treatment of children. For these children even allowing a modicum of closeness with even the most warm and friendly adult is taking a monumental risk. Understanding what is at stake for the child makes it easier to understand some of the extremes of their actions and underlying emotions.
A fawn at the edge of the woods watches with a wary eye. Any sudden movement is likely to startle and send the fawn scurrying into the woods. If, however, you don't approach and be still the fawn may ever so cautiously move a step closer. Children who are hurting deep inside from invisible, but very real wounds are like a fawn on the edge of the woods. They fear being hurt again. They don't dare approach unless they are certain you will not add to their pain. As much as they desire the contact, it will not be easy to convince them. Basic trust in some of these children was never established. They did not experience early in life what all children need to develop a sense of security, safety, and trust. They did not experience being cared for, loved, protected and nurtured. Some children do not get this at all, others unpredictably and inconsistently. The moments of nurture and love may be interspersed with anger or cold indifference.
Children whose parents are addicted to substances may experience radically different parenting depending on whether the parent is high or sober. In violent and abusive families the child may experience a diverse range of parental response depending on the mood and tension within the family. Billy, when nine years old recalled, I could always tell whether we were going to be beaten that night by the way my father drove his truck up the driveway after work. If he was weaving from side to side, I knew we were in for it.
Other children may have been beneficiaries of love early on only to have their sense of trust and safety shattered by a traumatic experience or a series of such events at a later point in development. Divorce, death, unemployment, physical and/or sexual abuse are some of the stressors that could devastate a child and family's sense of trust. Having once experienced the well being that results from what the British Psychiatrist, Winnicott, termed good enough? parenting the loss is enormous.
Finally, there is a small group of children who experience life as a horror show. These are the repeatedly abused, often deprived and severely traumatized children who undergo multiple out-of-home placements. Their sense of trust is shattered. These are the children who typically make up the population of today's residential treatment centers. These are the children that I have known from more than thirty years of working in the residential treatment of children. For these children even allowing a modicum of closeness with even the most warm and friendly adult is taking a monumental risk. Understanding what is at stake for the child makes it easier to understand some of the extremes of their actions and underlying emotions.
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David A. Crenshaw, Ph.D., ABPP is a Board Certified Clinical Psychologist, Director of the Rhinebeck Child & Family Center, LLC (website: www.rhinebeckcfc.com) in Rhinebeck, NY. He is the author/co-author of four books: Understanding and Treating the Aggression of Children: Fawns in Gorilla Suits; A Handbook of Play Therapy with Aggressive Children: Engaging Resistant Children in Therapy: Projective Drawing and Storytelling Techniques: and Bereavement.
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Keywords:
children experience trust fawn sense some