Try to envision yourself being dragged out of your home by people you don’t know, to be put into some stranger’s home with strange sounds--it even smells different. You are pulled away from the only life that you have ever known, thrust into a life of intense boundaries, rules, and expectations.
Try to feel how angry you would be and how you would want to unleash this anger on everything and everyone around you. These strangers that pulled you out of your house are trying to be sympathetic with you and work through this trauma, but they have a job to do-- keeping you safe, even though you did not know that you were not safe.
Try to understand that this anger that you have has been manifesting within you for years because of the unsafe environment that you were growing up in. The problem is you didn’t realize this environment was unsafe, because this is what you grew up in. This is the only life that you ever knew and to you this is normal… doesn’t everybody live like this?
This is part of a scenario that happens every day across our country. Parents create environments for their children that are harmful and unsafe. Children are removed from their parents, separating them from the only structure that they ever knew. We then expect these children to act like nothing ever happened. We expect a little crying and sadness, but never the screaming and especially the over the top temper tantrums where the child is cussing at you and everyone around you. Although hitting, kicking, spitting, and biting should be expected, it is often not, and then the children sometimes “connect” with their little assault.
People who care for children need to understand that the onslaught is not a personal attack against you. They are not angry with you. They are really angry with the ones that should have made for them an environment in which they could grow up feeling safe and secure. You are the one that is closest to them and you are the one that is going to receive the brunt of their aggression and anger for all of their hurts, fears, and disappointments that have riddled their young life.
This is what we call their “Lieutenant Dan Moment.” In the movie Forrest Gump when Lieutenant Dan was up on the mask of the ship screaming out at God for all of the injustices that he felt he had received in his life, a shift took place. He was able to get angry and scream from the depth of his soul, ridding himself of all of the pent up garbage that had accumulated and had never been dealt with. The Lieutenant was able to do this with his best friend--someone that was totally non-judgmental and knew that his friend needed to purge himself. After the incident Forrest made this profound statement, “Lieutenant Dan got himself right with God that day.”
Children in care for the most part don’t have the luxury of the Lieutenant Dan moment. If a child acts out and appears to be out of control, they are rushed off to the doctor where they are immediately put on medication to try to eliminate these outbreaks, so there won’t be a disruption in placement. The child’s anger is squelched by keeping him in a drug induced stupor. This does not teach the child how to deal with their anger, it only masks it. The anger is still there.
A child in our care came to a point where he could no longer hold this anger in. He misses his mom, and is angry because she did not take care of him. His feeling of loss and abandonment overwhelmed him and when it got to a point where he could no longer contain it on his own he blew. The other children quickly removed themselves from the area, and I let him vent. When he was done, I went up to him, looking him in the eye and asked, “Do you feel better now?” His reply was, “Yes I do.” I told him “Understand that what you have just done had you removed from your other placements, but you are not going anywhere but here. You have to get the garbage out, to make room for the good things that are waiting for you in life. This is your home, we are going to get through this together.” At that point he grabbed onto me, telling me over and over again “thank you, thank you.”
It is our calling in life as foster care givers to help these children heal. If we are not up for the task, who will be? The only alternative for these children is a group home, juvenile detention center, or the state hospital, where they won’t heal, they’re just housed. Every one of these children at some point in time in their own way will have their ”Lieutenant Dan” moment. Allow them to do that, be ready for it and help them heal. If not you, then who?
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