Can You Keep a Secret? (20 page)

Comment (1):

Oh, Caitlin, I have been exactly where you are and it’s so frustrating! You want to do a good job and you’re doing everything by the book and nothing seems to be working. That’s the way it is with these children and you just have to hang in there. Two steps forward, one step back – your friend, Sandi Miller!

Comment (2):

I agree, Caitlin. It’s refreshing to hear somebody ‘tell it like it is’ with adoption. It’s not the fairytale everyone says it is and there can be some real challenges to overcome. But what you’re doing is amazing – giving a child a new chance at life – and you should be praised for it.

The (Alternative) Book of Benjamin

Hello again. The title of this post is ‘Don’t Make Plans’.

No, really, don’t make
any
plans involving your child – and especially not their schooling – until you’ve really got to know them. And if you do make plans, be ready to throw them out the window as reality hits.

I planned for Benjamin to attend a beautiful school nearby – let’s call it St Paul’s Nursery School – so he could start meeting other kids and learning English. It’s expensive – like $15,000 a year for three half-days a week – but they only take twenty children, up to the age of five, and the classes are held in a pretty building near the harbour, so it gets a lovely sea breeze.

According to the paperwork we got from the orphanage, Benjamin was four when we picked him up, and probably he’s about to turn five, so technically he should be going into what we in Australia call Big School or Primary School, but of course we were warned that children from orphanages tend to be developmentally delayed,
and may not cope well in a big school. So, just before we went to Moscow to pick up Benjamin, I went down to St Paul’s to meet the director. I explained to her that I’d been allocated a child and that he was already four years old, but he would be under-developed physically and emotionally, and he wouldn’t speak any English so we were keen to keep him out of Big School for another year.

She invited me along to Open Day, and I spoke to most of the teachers. I wanted to know if they had ever had an adopted child before. Also, what did they know about children adopted from the Russian orphanages? They were thrilled by the idea of taking Benjamin – such an interesting project! – and they all said they had never met a child they hadn’t been able to make welcome in their lovely little school. I was invited to ‘tour the facility’ and ‘meet the director’ – two things I don’t think my own mother did when we lived on Magnetic Island!! – and, sure, I was impressed. The director explained about the ‘nurturing environment’ and how good they were at letting children ‘express themselves’.

I sat in the room with the other mums, feeling like a giant in a little school chair. They gave out brochures with all the information: how they regarded each child as ‘unique’ and that all the children would be ‘nurtured’ to achieve their ‘full potential’. I went through all the guff when I got home: they had Mad Science, which sounded like a lot of fun, and the fire brigade came once a year to show off their truck.

There were photographs of children being allowed to handle bugs they’d collected from the garden, and photographs of happy children proudly showing off seedlings grown on cotton-wool balls. So, yes, it sounded lovely.

I was so happy when they said they could take Benjamin, but then, last week, I took him there. I’d agreed to sit through the first day with him. My heart was in my mouth. We’d been having so much trouble bonding – even getting his screaming under control – but I was hoping that once he got into school he would settle down, learn English and make friends. Maybe he’d even learn to sit still in a chair, something I hadn’t managed to get him to do.

I was expecting quite a lot from the teachers, in other words.

Well, it was a catastrophe.

Day one was wiped out by Benjamin’s decision to start talking. Bear in mind this is a child who has not said five words to me. He has only ever screamed. It started in the car, on the way to the school. Maybe it was Russian but it sounded like jibberish. He wasn’t talking
to
anyone. He certainly wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to himself, and it was a real conversation. He was making facial expressions and hand gestures, like a little Italian.

None of it made any sense, at least not to me, but then Benjamin wasn’t focused on me, or anyone else, he was focused on himself. I figured that by the time we arrived at the school he would have stopped the gibberish, and that he definitely would have stopped when the time came to walk – or carry – him up the path.

I was wrong.

He was completely involved in the conversation with himself. The lovely teacher at St Paul’s tried hard to get him to stop. She greeted him at the door, saying, ‘Well, hello, young man. So nice to meet you,’ but he ignored her, and kept prattling on. She looked at me, a bit perplexed, and I shrugged and said, ‘He’s probably nervous,’ but really, what would I know?

The teacher smiled and said, ‘Well, Benjamin, let’s come on inside,’ and he took her hand and allowed himself to be led into the building, but he did not shut up. She showed him the little cubicle where he was supposed to store his backpack, and then she led him into the little room with the miniature toilets, and on he went: jabber, jabber, jabber, and it was getting louder all the time.

‘Well, this is interesting!’ she said, but because they were all trying so hard to make this strange Russian child – this poor rescue case – welcome, they agreed to try and get on with things. It took some patience. We got there at 10 am, and Benjamin jabbered and jabbered until noon.

All the children were expected to take a nap at midday. The teachers took some small army cots out of the store room. They had blue canvas stretched over a steel frame. Everyone was supposed to take a blanket from the pile and choose a cot and lie down for an hour’s rest. It wasn’t easy to get any of the children down – they were all pretty lively – and some of the other children thrashed around quite a bit before they eventually fell asleep, but not Benjamin.

They lay him down. He got up. They lay him down again. He got up. One of the young teachers – she was so patient – kept saying, ‘No, no, no, Benjamin. It’s nap time,’ but Benjamin doesn’t respond to requests, or even to rules. The more they tried to encourage him the more he snapped and started howling. He howls like a wolf. The other children started crying and clutching their blankets, and what could I do? I had to take Benjamin home.

And so, day two.

As soon as Benjamin realised where we were going – back to St Paul’s – he tried to get out of the car. I’ve long given up trying to
drive anywhere without strapping him into a child seat. We can’t just use a seatbelt. He unbuckles himself and tries to get out of the car and it’s scary.

We arrived shortly before 10 am and I remember taking a long look around the inside of the school because, on some level, I knew I wouldn’t see it again. It was a beautiful school. The flags of many nations were strung up; there were photographs of the fun that had been had by children who had gone to the school in years gone by, none of which would ever star Benjamin.

First lesson on Day Two was ‘Movement with Amy’. Amy is a dancer and singer from the local area. She was wearing a yellow T-shirt, blue pants and red shoes. She stood at the front of the room, and the children were supposed to copy what she did. She held her arms out, horizontal, and asked the kids to balance on one foot and then the other. I stood right next to Benjamin, urging him on, trying to show him, trying to engage him. I might as well have been talking to a wall. All around me, normal children were laughing and falling over.

Benjamin stood and looked at the floor.

‘At least he’s not screaming,’ I said, and tried to smile.

Amy came over. Apparently when it comes to difficult children, she’s a miracle worker. She’s got a degree in child development and she’s read every book that’s ever been written on how to deal with difficult kids. She tried talking quietly into Benjamin’s ear. She was patient. She coaxed, but there were twenty children in the class and she wasn’t supposed to be working one-on-one with Benjamin. At some point, she had to give up and concentrate on the other kids.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Me too,’ I said.

‘Maybe he wants to try some other activity?’ she suggested, and so it seemed, because while I’d been busy apologising, he’d got up and taken down his pants and pooped on the floor.

Comment (1):

Dear Caitlin, I laughed and cried in equal measure reading this post. You really are a good mom, standing beside Benjamin for what are likely to be the toughest days of his life. I don’t think I’d have found the courage to turn up on Day Two, but you did and you should be very proud of yourself.

Comment (2):

I wasn’t going to comment, but honestly I can’t help myself here. Do you really need to shame your child by telling everyone that he pooped on the floor? Can’t you see that’s a symptom of his distress, not something that he’s doing wrong? I have been following your website for a few weeks now, and all you ever do is complain. Why don’t you think about what your poor child is going through, instead of whining about your problems? It seems very obvious to me that Benjamin has a condition that needs to be treated, something like autism or Asperger’s. You keep saying it’s to do with him being adopted but it can’t be. It must be more than that, and you must know it.

The (Alternative) Book of Benjamin

Hello, and welcome back! To me as well as you. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything, but recent events have told me that it’s definitely time to post again.

I’ve decided to call this post ‘Nobody knows anything’ – and that includes me!

Benjamin has now been with us for more than three months, and although I’d like to say that he’s really settled and that he’s bonded with me, that just wouldn’t be true.

The truth is, his behaviour is extremely unpredictable and very aggressive.

After his failure to fit into the local pre-school, I suppose it got to the point where I decided to take him to see a specialist paediatrician, to have him checked over for any serious problems not associated with him being adopted. It took a little while, but I finally got an appointment with somebody who is supposed to be good – let’s
call her Dr Roth – and I was really pleased with the idea that a professional was going to take the time to examine him.

Given the problems I’d been having since bringing Benjamin home – thrashing, fighting, screaming, long periods of silence, no eye contact, no smiles, no cuddles, no willingness to follow direction – I knew it was going to be a stressful visit, but I was eager for answers so off we went.

Just like with so many doctor’s offices, there was a basket of toys on the floor in the waiting room. I remember, before we got Benjamin, that I used to cry when I saw kids at the doctor’s on their knees playing with the toys in the basket, wondering if I’d ever get a chance to have a child to play with the toys.

Now I’ve got Benjamin, but any fantasy I had about him sitting down to play quickly went out the window. I tried to encourage him. I put him down on the floor on his knees near the basket. There were wooden trains and books and building blocks. Benjamin didn’t go for any of them. He stayed exactly where I left him, on his knees with his chin stuck to his chest.

I felt embarrassed, so I picked him up and sat him next to me. We waited and waited. Another mother came in and her little boy got straight down to play with the basket on the floor. Unlike me, she said, ‘Don’t play with the toys, Will. They’ll be covered in germs.’ Then she picked her boy up and sat him next to Benjamin.

Of course, Will wanted to play. He was kicking his legs, trying to get Benjamin’s attention. It didn’t work, so he ducked his head and tried to get a good look at Benjamin’s face. Benjamin never looks up, he always looks down. Normally, there would be some mutual curiosity, right? Benjamin would look up, and they’d look at each
other, and they might be a bit shy at first, but then you’d get, ‘My name’s Benjamin! What’s your name?’

I’ve got the problem of Benjamin not speaking English very well. He is certainly getting better, but that does make things more complicated, because the way he looks – he’s not Chinese, for example – people expect him to be able to speak English. So, I have to say, ‘Benjamin’s adopted. We’re still working on his language.’ I’ve got no doubt that he understands more than he says, but the words I really want to hear – ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad’ for example – have not been forthcoming.

I tried to get him to engage with the other little boy, saying things like, ‘Oh, look, Benjamin. Another little boy. Look at his T-shirt! Do you know who that is on his T-shirt? That’s Ben 10! You’d like Ben 10, Benjamin. It’s nearly the same name as yours.’

It was all pointless. He didn’t look up.

Finally we were called in and Dr Roth was very excited to meet a little boy from a Russian orphanage. ‘Well, well, well, how wonderful, you must be over the moon,’ she said. ‘Okay, let’s have a look at this lovely boy of yours.’

Benjamin just stood there, like a statue, staring at his shoes. There were lots of interesting things in Dr Roth’s rooms – pink models of the human heart and so on – but nothing caught his eye. He was mute.

Dr Roth lifted Benjamin under the arms and put him on the cotton pad on the examination table. He immediately wet himself. You wouldn’t have known from anything he said or did, but we both saw the puddle spreading underneath him. I said, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Dr Roth, I sat him on the toilet before we came in,’ and she was very lovely, waving it away.

‘It’s alright, it’s fine, Benjamin,’ she said, and took him under the arms again, then lifted him onto the floor, and went about replacing the pad.

Of course I knew she’d be expecting me to change Benjamin’s pants and I was dreading it.

‘Here you go, nice and clean,’ she said, smoothing the new sheet out, and then she turned to see me trying to get Benjamin’s shorts down. We’ve had such trouble with his toileting that I’ve taken to carrying spare clothes and underpants and even Pull-Ups in my purse, and we went through the normal drill, where he wouldn’t stand with his hands on my shoulders like a normal child, and he wouldn’t lift one leg so I could get his shorts on and off. He just stood in the middle of the room with his head hanging down. After I finally got his shorts off, he stood there with his uncircumcised penis – the longest, thinnest penis I’ve ever seen – hanging limp in front of his spindly legs.

I gritted my teeth and held out a pair of corduroy shorts.

‘Come here, Benjamin,’ I said, ‘let’s get these on,’ but he wouldn’t lift his legs. I was already down on my hands and knees, but I shuffled closer, trying to coax him into the pants.

‘Let’s lift your feet into here,’ I said. I was holding the shorts out with the waist open, like a bowl, but Benjamin didn’t make a move to step into them, and in the end I had to lift each of his feet and get him dressed that way. The minute I’d pulled them up, he peed in them again. I saw the stain spreading on the front of his pants and I bit my lip, trying not to cry.

Dr Roth stepped in and said, ‘Okay, this is obviously very stressful for him,’ and stripped him out of the shorts – he didn’t
resist so much with her – and put him up on the examination table, naked from the waist down, with his head still down and his chin still stuck.

‘Look at me, Benjamin,’ she said, trying to lift his chin, but Benjamin would not look up. Dr Roth looked in his ears and took his pulse and tried to look in his throat. It must have seemed so strange to her because he simply didn’t react – or interact – at all, except towards the end when I saw his little stomach starting to suck in and out, and I knew what was coming: he was about to lose it.

The scream when it came out of his mouth sent Dr Roth flying back towards her desk, saying, ‘Oh, wow!’

I could imagine the people in the waiting room looking up from their magazines and exchanging worried glances with each other. There was a knock on the door. It was the receptionist, saying, ‘Is everything okay?’

‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ said Dr Roth. She was trying to calm the situation, but Benjamin would not be calmed. He was a kicking, wailing, screaming, drooling mess. He knocked the skeleton model off Dr Roth’s desk and writhed around on the floor, and it got so bad there was nothing I could do but carry him out – still naked from the waist down – and put him back into the car seat. Dr Roth hurried behind us, saying, ‘Okay, okay, we can do this another time, Benjamin.’

I strapped him down, closed the car door and leaned against it, facing away from Benjamin. I knew without looking that his face would soon be purple with anger.

‘He’s very upset, isn’t he?’ Dr Roth said. ‘I mean, as far as I could tell, from that brief examination, there’s nothing physically wrong
with him – he’s probably too thin, but I’d expect you to be able to correct that over time – but very clearly there’s a problem with his emotional development. I mean, if his behaviour today is normal – that sullenness, that uncontrollable screaming – well, it may well be that Benjamin is still suffering trauma from being raised in the orphanage, and he may be having some difficulties bonding with his new family. My suggestion is: take him to see a psychologist. Or even a psychiatrist. There will be a way through this. It’s going to take some patience.’

A week or so later, I received her bill: $300, to tell me nothing I didn’t already know.

Comment (1):

Oh, Caitlin, it’s Sandi here, I only read this post today – we’ve had a few issues of our own, helping Masha settle in to her new school – but I wanted you to know that I’m thinking about you – all of us in the group are thinking about you – and please let us know if we can do anything to help. God bless you! And little Benjamin.

Comment (2):

I was reading this post and nodding my head, thinking, yes, yes, yes!!! That’s exactly what it’s like. We as parents go to get help and end up with a bill to pay! Of course it’s going to take patience. Blind Freddy could see that.

Comment (3):

We have walked this road and we know it’s not easy. I realise it’s hard to accept, and I can see how hard you are trying, Caitlin, but
your doctor is right. Our children haven’t grown up with a sense of attachment, and we are only just starting to understand how that affects their development. If you don’t get onto it early, it could get much, much worse.