-Post by Foster Mom
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| Drawing by M |
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One of M's best qualities is how joyful she is. It's one of the main reasons we love being around her. A concern of ours is that that she may be compartmentalizing the fact that her whole life recently got flipped upside down. M never really went through the stages of grief, which is the "normal" way to process a traumatic event. Being taken away from her parents and living in a "random" home should bring up some emotion, other than happiness. Significant grief responses which go unresolved can lead to mental, physical, and sociological problems. M hasn't displayed any unhealthy tendencies yet and we hope she never does.
So one of the things we are working on this week, is expressing healthy emotions. During
homework time, she drew the above picture. I asked her to tell me about it....
"This is a boy who is really sad because he misses his mom."
"Are you feeling sad too. Do you miss your mom?" I asked.
"I said it's a boy, not me. This isn't about me." M said.
A picture really is worth a thousand words. This drawing softened my heart and I got to see beneath her mask of happiness. The boy,
clearly not M, is sad...and has too many fingers. ;)
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4 comments:
Keep her drawing and talking about her art - It can be very helpful and safe for her to express herself through her art. Thanks for caring for a child!
You are so amazing! The fact that you have her confronting her feelings through art is absolutely AMAZING! You are both doing such an incredible job with her and we are so honored to be your friends!
I love her picture...looks so much like the pictures my girls drew when they were younger. I also love her answer....so 5 year old like. lol
It is amazing how resilient children are. Keep giving her the ok to talk and to draw and express how she feels. From my experience fostering the fears and memories etc come out a little at a time when they feel safe and ready.
I found you bc you followed me on twitter. It's funny because my husband and I are just beginning to think about becoming foster parents.
How wonderful that you are doing art therapy with her!
My 4yo son is nowhere near drawing faces with emotions so drawing doesn't take us very far. We read a lot of books about emotions and such. Maybe reading her books about different emotions or reading her books about a child who is very angry and/or sad about losing something might help her find a way to process her grief. Another thing I do with my 4yo is make up stories that reflect whatever problem he's going through. "Once upon a time there was a marshmallow who was very sad because his little brother kept knocking down all his legos..." (My son likes stories involving marshmallows, hehe.) Sometimes I see if he wants to help the marshmallow decide how to deal with the problem. "What do you think the marshmallow should do when his brother knocks down his legos again?"
Anyway, I look forward to reading your blog and learning more about foster parenting.
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