I Just Want You to be Happy
We'd had Lacey for three weeks and I was having a tough time connecting with her. It seemed like we were on different frequencies. I had (daftly, I'll admit) attempted to hug Lacey one evening after seeing her hug Aubrey. This did not go over well. Fortunately, Lacey talked to Aubrey about it who mentioned it to me.
So I decided to try to establish at least the foundation for rapport. I sat down with Lacey at our dining room table; a small, round wooden table big enough for two adults or one small puzzle. Lacey looked out the window onto what is sometimes the Alaska Mountain Range but was now just a looming fog.
"Lacey, can you tell me a bit about what foster parents have been like in the past?"
She looked out the window, "I dunno."
My fault, the question was too broad.
"I know Aubrey and I have several rules. Have you had rules like ours before?" At the very least, I'm not unaware of the fact that we expect more in the way of respect and structure than may be considered average.
"I dunno."
I tried again: "Lacey, Aubrey and I..."
Lacey cut in "Just want me to be happy?"
Bingo.
Frankly, I was surprised to have discovered the disconnect so easily. Rectifying it would be another issue entirely.
"No," I said, "you can pursue happiness on your own. Aubrey and I want you to be strong."
"Strong?" Lacey looked at me as if disrupted by the thought.
"Yes, strong. Look, you're not always going to have an easy life; you're not always going to be happy. But you can make yourself strong enough to handle most of what life throws at you."
That I was addressing someone who, as a teenager, had experienced far worse than most adults was not lost on me.
"Lacey, when hard things happen, we can be resentful that they happened to us, or we can
learn from them and become a stronger person."
"But some people don't have bad things happen," Lacey said.
"Well, it's true that some people have fewer bad things happen to them or things that aren't all that bad. But, that doesn't mean they don't have bad things happen at all."
"Then I wish less bad would happen to me," Lacey said."
My heart ached for the pain Lacey had already endured, to say nothing of things to come.
"Fair enough," I said, "there's more than one thing in my past I wish I could erase. But we can't choose our luck. Sometimes we make choices that lead to bad things happening, and sometimes we just get dealt a shit hand."
Lacey looked at me like I didn't understand, and the simple fact is: I didn't. The horrors burned in her mind were unfair. There is nothing a child could do to deserve such hardship.
I needed to connect with her if I was going to be able to help her at all.
"Lacey, the things that have happened to you in the past were not your fault."
She looked up at me. "But you can choose how you respond to them. You can become bitter; you can resent what happened and the people who hurt you. Would that help?"
She looked at the floor. I knew she didn't want to be here now; she probably didn't want to talk to me at all.
"No..." she said, almost in a whisper.
"Do you think bad things might happen in the future?" I asked.
"I dunno," she said.
"Fair enough," I said "we can't know what will happen in the future. But do you think it will all be good?"
"I dunno."
I was losing her. Lacey might stay with us for months, or maybe just weeks. I felt it vitally important to strengthen her for the life she would return to, and I was running out of time.
"What about your little sisters?" I asked.
She looked up at me, eyes drawn in pain.
"What if something bad happens to your little sisters? Would you want to be able to help them?"
"Yeah..." she said, but I could sense she felt that was a stretch. That I was disconnected and just trying to make her feel better.
"Ok,” I said, "Aubrey and I are going to teach you how to fight."
Lacey looked at me with vague disbelief.
I should mention here that, as far as fighting goes, I am well-versed in no form whatsoever. Aubrey, on the other hand, has significant formal training and firsthand experience from working with both children and adults who have what are generously called "behavioral issues." Many of her patients were close to twice her size. She has, more than once, come home from work with a black eye, having avoided more serious injury. She now teaches "de-escalation" (read: self-defense) classes at the largest hospital in Alaska.
And so, Aubrey set about to teach Lacey how to get out of conflict and hold her own when necessary. I served as a literal punching bag so Lacey could practice striking, as well as some escape maneuvers that were not pain-free.
In addition to defense against the dark arts, we took Lacey on hikes, bike rides, and ice skating, and played basketball with her. We pushed her a little farther each time. A hike just outside her comfort zone; just a little farther than she thought she could go. A mountain bike ride that was just a little bit tougher with just a slightly bigger hill than she thought capable of accomplishing. These efforts had a clear effect: Lacey has become perceptibly more confident in herself, a dimension that is quite separate from the superficial self-confidence for which many well-meaning do-gooders advocate.
Self-confidence, as promoted in popular culture, consists of vague and trivial reassurances: "Believe in yourself," "You got this," "You're perfect just the way you are." All too often, these aspirational quips are overstated or downright false.
It is only through experience that one earns true confidence. If one has seen oneself perform sufficiently at the level expected, the need for shallow Instagram quotes is then nullified.
Play provides the arena necessary to practice with one's strength, balance, and social skills. Through play, children learn to control their bodies, command their strength, and when and how to handicap themself to facilitate fair and enjoyable play for all involved.
Those who fail to push their body through pain, exhaustion, and perceived limitations, will never know the true capabilities they possess. If a cyclist has never ridden more than 20 miles, how can she know that the pain she feels on a 50-mile ride isn’t a heart attack? If a boxer has only ever studied theory, how can he possibly understand the delicate craft of balance when he is inside the ring?
It is through pushing one's perceived limitations, through working with one's own body that one earns the confidence necessary to stand up when force is needed and to do it in a way that is balanced and effective. Sitting in class all day, then coming home to scroll provides no mechanism for the embodied learning that both boys and girls require to excel in the game of life.
Furthermore, play affords parents, especially fathers, the opportunity to coach their children through fun, engaging, and sometimes painful lessons. Most fathers can easily outrun, outride, or outclimb their children. But by playing the games and choosing to handicap themselves to create a level playing field, fathers demonstrate the ability to play any game with any partner.
One afternoon before the temperature had dropped sufficiently to facilitate outdoor ice skating, Aubrey and I took the family to the roller rink in Anchorage. The establishment is torn straight from a twelve-year-old's birthday party in 1986. Leather roller skates, a once-brightly patterned carpet, cheap wood paneling, and poor lighting contribute to an atmosphere that straddles a line between hilariously outdated and heartbreakingly nostalgic.
After Lacey and I warmed up to the differences of four wheels underfoot instead of a single blade, she started a game of tag with me. On roller skates, we are reasonably well-matched, and so the game persisted for the better part of an hour. As games tend to do, this one ramped up iteratively until we were dodging and zooming through skaters and across the floor.
In the final desperate minutes before closing, Lacey was looking to score one last tag. In a high-speed chase, I feigned left and shot right, coming around behind a slow-moving father-daughter combo. With a now-unhindered view, I could see that my considerable momentum and complete lack of braking ability precluded all but two options: the wall or the house referee. Thinking quick and moving slow, I dodged right and avoided neither. I collided with some force into the referee and would have thrown her bodily into the wall were it not for Lacey's superior closure rate.
Lacey intercepted the wreck just in time to wedge herself between the referee and the wall at the moment of impact.
The referee pulled herself together and, seemingly embarrassed, jetted off. I turned to check Lacey. She was crumpled on the floor, giggling uncontrollably.
Pain and loss are indelible features of life. The ability to remain poised during such hardship makes life less bad. More importantly, one's ability to remain grounded during trials directly benefits those close by. Physical play and the confidence it brings are central to one's ability to weather a storm.