Therapeutic Parenting: The Kind of Dad I Need To Be

Welcome to episode number eight in the Therapeutic Parenting Podcast from COECT, the Centre of Excellence in Child Trauma. COECT provides carers of traumatized children and supporting professionals with effective strategies to deal with challenging behaviours. Our aim is to achieve the best possible outcomes for families. I'm Serena Gaye, your host and today I'm talking to Ian Fog. The first man we've had on the podcast, which in itself is a cause for celebration because we tend to hear only the female voice when we discuss therapeutic parenting. The fact is that many fathers are involved in the therapeutic parenting of children and it's important to recognise their role in making fostering or adoption of their child ultimately a success. Ian is a computer programmer based in Gloucester. He works for the charity Christians Against Poverty, which helps people who are in debt. He and his wife have been fostering their daughter for the last two years and it's been a challenging time for them but as you'll hear they've struggled through the post honeymoon period, through compassion fatigue, secondary trauma and a grieving period to arrive at a much better place today. So welcome to the podcast Ian, it's great to have you on. Thank you and it's great to be here and to be able to talk to your aunt, exciting, to be the first dad here as well. Thank you. Good. So well, we've titled this podcast edition "Theorpeutic Parenting, the Kind of Dad I Need to Be". And look, I know there's a limit to how much personal detail you can provide, obviously, but can you give us an idea of your journey over the last two years? Yeah, certainly. So for us, my wife and I, we started fostering nearly two years ago as you said and we came into that having been married for 20 odd years with two adult kids, both of us working more a less full time at the time and we came into this thinking that we'd done a reasonably good job parenting our now adult children and felt that we had so many principles that we could bring from that into fostering. We also had quite a bit of experience working with people with significant needs in different environments so my wife manages a house for vulnerable women and so we came into it feeling like we were ideally set up for it. And I guess our journey over the last two years has really been going from thinking that we did know what we needed to do to suddenly feeling, I guess, quite on the back foot with things and having to put in a whole journey and get a lot of support to be able to get to the point where we feel more like we are the kinds of parents that we need to be for our daughter. When you first took your daughter in, how did it all work? So for us, we thought after watching a film that I would like to recommend Instant Family, if people haven't seen that, that's a great film and it really triggered in us a conversation that had probably been bubbling away for I guess 15 years or so of whether we would have more kids and would we want to foster and so we started, we went to a fostering information evening that our council was running and then we heard about a situation where a girl who's a part of the church that we go to had had to be taken out of her family and social services were looking to place her if possible with a family from church and so we got in touch with social services and within two weeks of first hearing about her suddenly she was living in our family and because there was this very, I would say tenuous link really because we both went to the same church, it got set up as kinship, I would say that really we don't reflect what most kinship carers will be because we didn't really know our kiddo until until that point because it's quite a large church and so she moved in with us very quickly. We will of course put a link to the Instant Family film so she moved in she moved in very quickly without you having a great deal of time presumably to find out about what had been going on in the past and so forth, were you at all prepared when she came to join you? It's funny because at the time we thought we were but as we look back on that time I guess one of the things that we were aware of was in hindsight it felt a really rushed journey I guess to try and tie things off quickly for social services so it didn't feel like there was really enough work went into building a relationship with us before that so that that that side of it didn't really feel well prepared and in hindsight we're well aware now that we really didn't know the kinds of things that we needed to know to be able to parent someone who's been through trauma in a really positive way for them. So here you have then a new addition to your family from talking to you earlier before the podcast recording began I know that you talked about this honeymoon period where for a while things seemed to be working well so tell us a bit more about that. So the honeymoon period that phrase is one that we use in plenty of different contexts to talk about this idea of a time where where things right at the start feel really easy and for people who've fostered or adopted I think many people will have experienced this where right at the start the way your child or young person appears that they may often appear very very pleasant very compliant it may be that they're a little bit withdrawn but it probably looks kind of like you hoped it would look going into fostering or adopting I think we we often come into this with quite an ideal eyes view of how it might look and for us we at that stage we felt like we were we were doing really well with it we felt that that the pleasant behaviour the compliant behaviour was because we were doing the right kind of things I remember going to training courses and hearing people talk about the situations they were facing and I'm sorry to say there was a part of me that I guess felt like we were nailing it almost when when maybe of this wounds and for kids like ours as we think about them coming into our situation it's easier for us to think about it from our perspective so because we know that we're safe and we can be trusted we expect that when this kid walks through our door they'll see us as people who are safe and can be trusted and so for our kids who are coming in and they've been through really intense trauma actually the thing that they've learnt in their life so far is that adults aren't safe adults can't be trusted they see us as a danger and so in these early stages they're being nice they're being compliant because they're actually trying to stay safe and so as we see what's really going on for the child it's very different from certainly how we approached it when we went into it and how long in your case did did this compliance stage this honeymoon stage last so for us it was about nine months I know for for some people it may just be a few weeks and I think the problem for us was nine months felt long enough to be too long to be the honeymoon period which is why we thought we were of course the weight was always going to be going forward by that stage of course you would have felt that because nine months is really quite a substantial length of time what do you think in a general sense can trigger a change in a traumatized child's behaviour from from appearing to be so settled to moving into a different phase so I think part of what happens for our kids is they get to a point where they begin to feel safer in the house they they begin to see us as people that can start to be relied on and so because of that they start to become more able to let us see some of the anger and the pain that's inside them effectively I guess it's a case of stopping pretending that everything's okay and they're doing fine and for for a lot of our kids it's absolutely justified that they feel anger and pain and that it's all bubbling away inside them because of how they have been let down by people in the past and for our kids they also are affected by their internal working model which really is the way that they see themselves and so part of what we see is the kids become able to let us see how they actually see themselves and it can be really challenging for us to actually realise just how how negative a perspective our kids can have because of the things that they've they've gone through and in fact I was reading a phrase by a lady called Marcy Pussie she she wrote up about how the love that we show can actually trigger our child's trauma because because of their internal working model they don't view themselves as being lovable and yet we're showing them love and so they can't accept that and so all these kind of things can lead to the the honeymoon period ending where we see we see the pain that's in them and the anger and we see things being done because of how they actually view themselves that makes so much sense doesn't it if you are a new parent a new carer listening to this what might you expect in terms of behaviors that you might find worrying or typical of this phase so I was just thinking the other day that actually I think our work-ids will be fantastic working in the military as weapons designers because they often have this skill to find any weakness you've got and to exploit it and the reason for it is that our kids in a past life in a past setting had to learn survival skills to be able to to stay alive potentially to to be able to to be able to get through each day and unfortunately those survival skills are no longer needed with us but they've they've outlasted their usefulness but but they're still there and so things like name calling for example if you think of what you'd least like somebody to say to you they may say that trying to say things to you because they know that it's going to push your buttons they know it's a thing that that you're sensitive about or precious about or care about and so some of our kids will really go for those kind of things or it may be it may be that you experience destructive behavior it may be damaging things or just making a mess and so certainly some of our kids as well as they are through the honeymoon period may become aggressive it may be pushing heating or or maybe just threatening to do some of those things but certainly that that can be a real a real symptom that that comes out at this stage as well it may be that you see a lot of refuse also about things as well refusing to do tasks get ready for things refusing to go to places and and really just just things like really big reactions to to things that to you may seem a really small request or a real small thing that that you said and then something else that we may see because of this internal working model that our kids can have that's so negative is we may actually see that our kids try and break the placements for example saying get rid of me phone the social worker tell the social worker you don't want me and it's actually not because our kids are trying to get away it's because they think that we will see what they're really like and we won't want them and so they're trying to preempt the thing that they fear is going to happen by making it happen now certainly for us we we we saw some things like loud music being played at night to to disrupt us being able to get to sleep and through the pandemic with both of us working at home a lot of the time we saw things like interruptions to our work but where where it was an intent to interrupt rather than just coming for a chat for example so all this is very contrary to you know the idealized view that parents will have when they take a new child in and it must have an impact on the unit that existed before the child came you talked to me about secondary trauma earlier and how this influences a relationship can you can you talk more about that now then yeah it was a really it was a really challenging time to be honest in the in the early stage of this because there was so much stuff hitting all at the time so suddenly you're going from feeling like work and family and we're involved in church and all the kinds of things that are going on for us feeling like everything's fitting quite well to suddenly when everything changed quite quickly suddenly feeling right on the back foot or almost I guess at the limit of things that we can handle and so suddenly you're having to make decisions and deal with things that are going on in your family that you just aren't prepared for I was saying before we felt like we came into this with principles and approaches that would would really help us get right through this and suddenly realizing that the things we did weren't working and we had to find new things and so when you're in a high stress environment and trying to chart a new course while on the back foot it's really hard because there is no space to sit back and plan it all and think it all through sometimes you're just in the spur of the moment try this try that and and sometimes what maybe one of you tries the other person won't have done and so very quickly you're in a situation where in this intense time you're both trying to figure out what you think and so for us there was definitely a time where we really struggled to find a way of handling things that we were both happy with and so also when you're dealing with these things like I talked about the loud music at night to disrupt our sleep so when you're dealing with those kind of things and you're in bed and this stuff's going on you know you've got to get up at six o'clock in the morning you know you're not happy about something that's happened and it can feel almost like it really takes over so it was a really challenging time for us and I'm pleased to say we we we found ways through all that but it definitely it definitely puts a load on that we never expected when we came into this and and quite apart from the stress that it puts between two parenting individuals there's also the question of compassion fatigue isn't there which you must have had first experience of can you describe what that is sure so compassion fatigue is really where you get to a point where you almost can't feel any compassion anymore you lose the ability to be able to to care and it it comes from being in a situation where where there's there's too much pressure there's too much going on you're not getting enough self care to be able to help yourself through it and really it's your it's your brain and your body trying to shut down I guess to protect itself and and it was something that we had some experience of as well in those kind of early stages because there really was so much that was going on at that time and again I'm pleased to say there are ways through it but it was yet another thing that that really added to the stress because we were we were dealing with the escalation but then we were we were trying to focus on married stuff to find a way of getting to a more agreed approach on things and then also dealing with struggling to even feel the care as much as it was really needed and how long would you say this compassion fatigue phase lasted for you I would say that there was probably a period around about a month before we we saw a real shift in that but the compassion fatigue really was was the thing that that made us step back and reach out. Before we talk about the reaching out and and where you went to get help and how helpful that was there is also the point about grief which you mentioned to me and I wondered why you felt grief at all in this situation what were you grieving for. For us certainly part of it I guess was a grieving of what we thought it would look like grieving the the loss of that I guess idealized family image that we thought was there and part of it for us as well I think was was grieving the loss of the parents that we thought we were going to be so coming into it probably expecting that our love and care would be enough to to bring a really prompt healing and expecting by nine months in it sounds crazy saying it now but expecting by nine months in that our kiddo would be in a really strong place and those those things from the past really wouldn't be having such such an impact and for us it was having to recognise that actually there is no quick fix here and the way we thought we would bring about change isn't going to happen in that kind of quick way to far more long term journey for her and for us to see those things been worked on. So let's now talk about strategies to cope where was ultimately the most effective protocol for you when it came to it when you decided you had to reach out. So for us through last year I would absolutely say that COECT was the place that that really saved us last year it gave us a foundation to stand on when it felt like we had nothing and for us as well we were going through a scenario where there was some real challenge is going on with social services at the time where we were feeling unsupported there and also just with everything going on with the pandemic with our local authority effectively stopped training and support groups and there was nothing until we we reached out to COECT and so the kind of things that that we got for it, COECT started doing all their training online and so every Thursday night there was another free online training session for us that the training was excellent on there the consultancy that you can get from COECT being able to phone up and talk to someone who's an expert and talk through your specific situation was invaluable for us they're also support groups as people may may know them in wider fostering circles or they're called listening circles through COECT but groups where you can get together and talk with other people who are going through the same kinds of things as you again is really valuable and then for us as I explained we we were in quite a tough place with social services and really feeling like it was us against this huge organisation and feeling like we were quite powerless in it really and one of the things that COECT were able to do was give us someone to advocate for us and so suddenly to have someone who was an expert on our side really was a turning point for us as we went through last year. Fantastic and are you able to pinpoint any particular strategies that helped you in the home as opposed to with your dealings with the social services? So one of the training courses that we were able to do with COECT was around de-escalation techniques which was a really useful one for us to be able to have strategies to help calm our kiddo down when she was escalated and struggling was really useful because before that we we just fell out of our depth with that and they they do a great two-part course on that so that was really helpful they also helped us understand about about really looking at the emotional age of our kiddo rather than rather than treating them according to the biological age being able to see the emotional age that is being displayed in the moment and parenting according to that so it can be quite strange with a 17-year-old body but is struggling with a much younger age in terms of how she's behaving and it really helped us see it for what it was. They also taught us a lot about about really I guess seeing the cause behind the behaviour rather than seeing the symptoms and so it really helped us think about learning to ignore the words that are said. I think for quite a few of us we were parenting ourselves in a way where we learnt that rudeness is almost the worst thing that you can do in the home and four kids who've been through trauma rudeness can be a really common thing but the key for us I think is he's understanding where that comes from it comes from the trauma and so if we can see the cause that's there and we can show empathy for that for that cause suddenly we approach it in a very different way. So for us words like "I hate you" we actually realise after a while that it didn't mean "I hate you" it meant I'm struggling with what we're talking about here or "I won't do it" doesn't actually mean "I won't do it" but it means I'm scared about that thing and I'm looking for some kind of reassurance and so I was learning to look beyond the words beyond the behaviour was really really significant for us. So now that you've had this block of time to put into practice the strategies that COECT can provide you with and you did you have said to me that your family is in a better place today but do you now feel that you are the kind of father that you need to be not just want to be but that you need to be? That's a great question and I would say I'm more the father that I need to be and sometimes I think we can we can put this pressure on ourselves to be to be perfect rather than being good enough as a parent and we can be ourselves up but certainly where we are now I feel like I feel like I am enough of the father that I need to be to be able to to be the support that our kiddo needs from us and that's been a really hard journey to get here but I feel like now we're able to give the the support the containment that our kiddo needs for her to be able to still be herself. It's so interesting that you come at it from the point of view of your own personal development being the key to making it all work rather than forcing her to be the one to change. I think that's a very interesting angle on it but I know that you're personally doing what you can to help other fathers in the same position. Tell us about that. Sure, so I mentioned last year we went through quite a tough time and part of what happened partway through that was I began to feel like I was better than I was being told I was and so I wanted to do something to to prove that to myself I guess initially and also I wanted to do something that would help me journal more of my thoughts about the kind of dad that I want to be and I need to be and so I started an Instagram account and just started posting stuff. I literally didn't tell anyone. I didn't even tell my wife about it at first and I just started doing this thing as a journal for me and it's called therapeutic dad. It's on Instagram and at first it was just there were two people following me for quite a while but over time more and more people have been followed and it's been really nice to be a part of a community where I feel like I can give something out from what I've learned through others investing into me but equally that it's a community where other people can encourage and support me as well and I'd really recommend trying to get to be a part of communities like that both online and in person. I will definitely be putting a link to that in the show notes so people can find that. So to end up then Ian, do you have a message of hope for fathers in the same place as you were? Absolutely. I want to encourage people that it is possible to get through and although we may not come into this with the skills that we need there are people out there resources out there that can help. So COACT absolutely sign up for that. It's the best four or five pounds a month. I think you'll you'll ever spend to be able to feel supported and on the journey and we all come into it with our own. I guess our own hang ups, our own weaknesses but if you can get a circle of people around you who can hear your journey and encourage you with it give you helpful advice. Things like the consultancy line at COACT, these things can get us to a better place and I'm really pleased that even though we're not in a perfect place we're in a place that is more stable, more consistent and for us gives us hope for the future and I want other people to really find that for themselves too rather than just battling this alone. It's almost impossible I think to just battle this alone but there is a way through it. First of all to get us in a better place but also through applying therapeutic parenting to see the brains of our kids literally being rewired and bringing a long term healing and life change to them too and they're worth it. Indeed they are. Thank you Ian. Thank you for taking us through your journey and ending you know on a really upbeat note. Thank you it's been a pleasure to be with you. To find out more about COECT and to access help please visit www.coect.co.uk or head straight for the Facebook page where you can get answers 24/7 including at weekends and on public holidays. The Facebook link is either at the end of the Daily Bulletin emailed by COECT to you or it's in the show notes to this podcast episode. The podcast is listed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and many others. Signed us on one of those sites and you'll also find the subscribe button to press to automatically receive this podcast every week. We'd love you to leave a review for the podcast on one of those sites. It'll help other people find us and find all our helpful advice. Bye for now!