Children's sense of time
Continuing our series from the American Academy of Pediatrics article.
This post deals with children’s sense of time, and how that specifically impacts children in foster care.
Placing children in care might deal with their immediate need for physical care, nourishment, comfort, affection and stimulation. But continuity of care is critical (continuity means continuous or connected). Children need to learn how to bond and trust, and that happens with a stable consistent carer over a period of time. So changes to their carer can be detrimental. Temporary care can, in fact, be detrimental.
And if a child is suffering the consequences of stress and inadequate parenting, then moving them from home to home only makes it worse. This reminds us of the Eggshells comment from Jen who writes about a foster child’s perspective at www.fostercareinamerica.com.
So how do adults deal with change and impermanence? Some restless souls like it. But most of us build on the self-reliance that we have learned, probably from stable and supportive parents and family circumstances, over the years. And we usually have the skill to anticipate and plan for a time when things settle down. We may well have experienced more settled times before, so we know what they look like.
But kids have few life experiences to draw on. They can’t pull out an experience and say ‘well, the last time that happened to me I handled it this way.’ They simply don’t have enough experiences in ‘the bank’.
And they are right in the process of discovering who they are. They don’t yet have a strong sense of ‘self’, not like adults do. It’s being created. A child in a stable family doesn’t have to be anxious about the fundamentals like nurturing, protection, trust and security. So they are free to get on with working out who they are. For a child in care energy is expended on the fundamentals. Who will care for them? Are they safe? Who will protect them? Who can they trust?
And think about how children focus. On the right here, right now. We have enough trouble getting the Camper to plan for the next hour, let alone the next month, year and so on (although the stand-out exception there is her birthday party. That goes into SWAT type planning at least 7 months before the date).
So because young children don’t understand the concept of temporary versus permanent, periods of time are largely incomprehensible to them. The younger they are, the longer the disruption – the more impact it will have.
This section of the report concludes ‘pediatricians should advocate that evaluation, planning, placement and treatment decision be made as quickly as possible, especially for very young children’. They are saying that the clock is ticking - every minute has an impact on the child.
When we hear workers say that their primary focus is on the ‘family’, we worry like hell for the individual children.
This post deals with children’s sense of time, and how that specifically impacts children in foster care.
Placing children in care might deal with their immediate need for physical care, nourishment, comfort, affection and stimulation. But continuity of care is critical (continuity means continuous or connected). Children need to learn how to bond and trust, and that happens with a stable consistent carer over a period of time. So changes to their carer can be detrimental. Temporary care can, in fact, be detrimental.
And if a child is suffering the consequences of stress and inadequate parenting, then moving them from home to home only makes it worse. This reminds us of the Eggshells comment from Jen who writes about a foster child’s perspective at www.fostercareinamerica.com.
So how do adults deal with change and impermanence? Some restless souls like it. But most of us build on the self-reliance that we have learned, probably from stable and supportive parents and family circumstances, over the years. And we usually have the skill to anticipate and plan for a time when things settle down. We may well have experienced more settled times before, so we know what they look like.
But kids have few life experiences to draw on. They can’t pull out an experience and say ‘well, the last time that happened to me I handled it this way.’ They simply don’t have enough experiences in ‘the bank’.
And they are right in the process of discovering who they are. They don’t yet have a strong sense of ‘self’, not like adults do. It’s being created. A child in a stable family doesn’t have to be anxious about the fundamentals like nurturing, protection, trust and security. So they are free to get on with working out who they are. For a child in care energy is expended on the fundamentals. Who will care for them? Are they safe? Who will protect them? Who can they trust?
And think about how children focus. On the right here, right now. We have enough trouble getting the Camper to plan for the next hour, let alone the next month, year and so on (although the stand-out exception there is her birthday party. That goes into SWAT type planning at least 7 months before the date).
So because young children don’t understand the concept of temporary versus permanent, periods of time are largely incomprehensible to them. The younger they are, the longer the disruption – the more impact it will have.
This section of the report concludes ‘pediatricians should advocate that evaluation, planning, placement and treatment decision be made as quickly as possible, especially for very young children’. They are saying that the clock is ticking - every minute has an impact on the child.
When we hear workers say that their primary focus is on the ‘family’, we worry like hell for the individual children.
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