Transcript for
Supporting children who disclose trauma – part two
David Tully (00:01): If in turn we pay a bit more attention, and look a little bit more closely. Just slow it down, look at it a little bit more closely and understand the meaning they’re making of their own behaviour. They’re much more likely to engage because you’re not coming from a deficit, “Let me get you being bad. And here’s the way not to be naughty.” You’re interested in the way they’re making meaning in the world.
Narrator (00:28): Welcome to the Emerging Minds podcast.
Dan Moss (00:28): Hi, everybody. And welcome to this Emerging Minds podcast. My name is Dan Moss and thank you for joining me today. Currently Emerging Minds has been working in the third of a series of trauma online courses. And these courses are around supporting children who have disclosed trauma.
To help us to develop this course, we’ve worked really closely with David Tully, who’s Practice Manager at Relationships Australia in South Australia. For those of you who joined us last fortnight, you’ll know that David has a long history of working with children who have been affected by child sexual abuse, and domestic and family violence. This is episode two in this series of two podcasts with David, entitled, ‘Supporting children who disclosed trauma’.
(01:12): Just to let you know that, in this podcast, David does talk fairly explicitly about some of the details of the work with children who have experienced sexual and physical violence. Please just to be aware of your own emotional safety as you listen to this podcast. If at any point you find that you’re struggling with the content, please talk with a friend, colleague, your supervisor. Or if you need to seek help, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636, or SANE Australia on 1 800 187 263.
(01:47): David, really enjoyed episode one of your podcast. We began talking about how we can bring into focus power, in ways that help children understand the context in which their trauma was enacted. And in ways which help them to make sense of what happened, and to move away from self-blame and secrecy. Ways in which they could begin to see the decisions that they made to keep themselves safe, or to keep other people safe. Ways that they’ve, against the odds really, been able to keep vital connections in their lives. And the ways that they’ve exhibited resilience and hope.
(02:24): It was really fantastic the way you began talking about this. And the idea that children are never passive during their experience of the trauma. That there are actions and decisions that they make to keep themselves safe. So I wonder if today you could start by talking a bit about how you help children to remember some of the ways that they found to keep themselves or other people safe.
David Tully (02:47): Thanks, Dan. For me, it’s about reinvigorating what I call that autobiographical memory system. Some people go, well, we actually need to go back to some of those earliest memory systems. But if I’m generally working with a child or young person who’s got a certain late stage of language or development and can story aspect of their lives, I think then it’s really important that we help develop that story, provide a framework around that meaning that they’re making, to have those memory systems be able to reincorporate aspects of those stories. Because I think once it becomes meaningful to talk about, and those power relationships are clear, most people can talk about aspects of those memories.
(03:26): But we don’t need to know all the details, but those memories become part of what can be reincorporated back into that wider arc of their story about who they are, because they don’t feel like they’re weak, stupid, should have stopped it, dirty, horrible. That they can actually hold those memories, and also they can hold those memories against other aspects of self. So it doesn’t feel like they’re completely dominated by these really horrible memories of sexualised violence or physical violence or emotional cruelty or oppression or racism, or a whole range of other experiences they have. They can hold those experiences against other aspects of self as well.
Dan Moss (04:05): So when you are asking children deliberately about their particular responses to abuse or trauma, part of what you’re trying to do is to help children develop a new story, or even kind of to make new memories about what happened.
(04:19): Yeah. And I think it is actually using already what’s there, but drawing a story between those different memories. Because resistance and response is as real as the violence itself, and really important that we can believe that I think. Because if we start believing, we’ll start seeing it. And if we understand that children, young people, respond very differently to adults do, or even if we have a society that has really complicated through unhelpful beliefs around these issues, that we can then provide a framework where some aspects of self, that are left acknowledged or less understood, we can just draw threads between those different memories and different beliefs that some person has. We are leading something really solid, but it’s not my story. The story of resistant response is already there, it’s just been less acknowledged, it’s been painted over so to speak, but it’s actually there still.
Dan Moss (05:11): And through the telling of these stories, and creation of these new stories and understandings, is it your experience that children who are traditionally hard to engage, or ambivalent about being in a therapeutic setting, that they become more confident in telling these stories?
(05:29): Yeah, because often these children, young people, have developed stories about them being damaged goods, or just a naughty kid, or unable to sit still and you know, there’s all that. And some of that… there’s a context to that, I’m not completely saying that it’s not about the impacts of trauma, but I think through that active engagement, and understanding some of what they’re doing is not just dysfunction, is actually their way of making meaning, and protesting about stuff that they think is not fair and okay in the world, there’s a much more active process that they’re engaged in, as opposed to being this very passive, “I’m going to give you three techniques to sit still in the classroom.” And some of that’s useful, but that knowledge that maybe they’re protesting about, a maths teacher’s a bit of a bully… not having got maths teachers per say
Dan Moss (06:16): So this understanding for a child of their own ethical beliefs or preferences, or even hopes around particular relationships, this might be quite new to a child to be actually asked to consider this.
David Tully (06:30):Yeah. And if you think about, if you’re dealing with a child, young person, who’s not just experienced say sexualised violence or sexual abuse as a child, but they’ve experienced other sorts of discrimination, it might be because their family is from a poor background, or they might be because they’re experiencing racism or other forms of discrimination, that child, young person, is already feeling quite marginalised in their experience anyway. And nobody’s really then tuned into how actively they’re making meaning of that world, and their acts of protests and response that could be looking problematic through another lens.
(07:07): If we tune in and pay a bit more attention and look little bit more closely, just slow it down, look a little bit more closely and understand the meaning they’re making of their own behaviour, they’re much more likely to engage in that. Because you’re not coming from a deficit, “let me convince you, you’re being bad, and here’s the way not to be naughty.” You’re interested in the way they’re making meaning of the world. And then we can question whether some of those things are achieving that or not. Because not all resistance response is always effective, but at least we understand the meaning that they’re making in that behaviour. They’re much more actively engaged in the process, as opposed to just us telling them stuff.
Dan Moss (07:42): Thanks for that David. I want to now talk to you a little bit about your current role now in Relationships Australia, particularly around working a lot around perpetrators, and perpetrators of family violence, and doing some work with their children. So how have the kind of principles of resistance and response, how have those aspects of your work been useful, or not useful, for you in your current role?
David Tully (08:08): Well, I think it’s really quite critical when I’m dealing with adult men, particularly around their parenting, engaged in practises of violence and abuse, that we’ve helped them reposition the way they make meaning and sense of children, young people’s, behaviours not being naughty, but they might be resisting responding some of their oppressive parenting practises through to violence. It’s really important that we can help men tune into that sort of experience as well. And for me, there’s a couple of layers to it, but one of the really important layers, I think is very much worth experiencing, is when you’re trying to help someone understand power relationships, understand power relations between adult and a child and young person. I mean, one experience we as human beings all we universally carry, is we all were a child and young person once in our lives.
(08:53): But then actually hold some of those memories of what it like was, to be a child or young person be marginalised or oppressed by adults. It’s almost not to the same degree, but most of us have had that experience. So helping them tune in to understand some of their developmental context, some of the parenting practise they were exposed to, or they had to make meaning of their own life through, can be really, really helpful for them to tune into children’s, young people’s, experience. There’s really obvious things about that size and strength thing, which can take the men through in terms of understanding, what’s it like if you deal with a kid who’s six or seven and you are an adult, the idea of say you are six foot tall and they’re three foot tall. Imagine somebody who was 12 feet tall yelling or being angry or just storming through the house, how would you feel?
(09:35): But it’s also that much more nuanced stuff, about understanding from that developmental context, that what children can often take responsibility and blame for, in this context, their dad’s behaviour as well. And a lot of the men can actually recognise that through their own experiences of doing that with their own dads, stepfathers, whoever… that they, for a long time, thought they were responsible for their dad’s or stepfather’s abusive behaviour. And then we do… some question before connecting through difference around understanding that, you’re sitting here and telling me that you, as a child, are really clear that, that shouldn’t have happened to your mom, but you felt that maybe you should have stopped it, and you should have been able to sort of stop your dad doing that to your mom, but you’ve come to realise that that’s not possible as well.
(10:22): What does it now tell you about what your child, Tim, has gone through at the moment as well? It was like, yeah, he must be really confused about whether he should be stopping it or not, I haven’t really thought about it like that, but I just don’t want to be like my dad, this is horrible, I think I’m now turning out like him as well. And we say something like “well, do you think your dad would’ve been sitting here thinking about your experience, like the way you are thinking about Tim’s now?”
(10:49): You’re actually stopping enough to think that maybe Tim’s being really, really confused about whose responsibility is it, his mom’s being hurt and he’s being yelled at as well. “Do you think your dad would’ve done that?”. “Oh no, he wouldn’t have.” I’m just being like, “what do you think you now need to do, that you’re starting to think about Tim’s experiences?” So we can then take them through a more action-type conversation. But through that, connecting through difference, through understanding their own experiences of abuse and violence as a child, as a way of positioning about how now they want to be a dad moving forward, can be a really grounded and also energised way of dealing with men who are using violence in their relationships.
Dan Moss (11:30): Okay. You’re talking to me a little bit about therapeutic processes with the fathers in this case. What about at Relationships Australia, where you are in a therapy room with the child who still has a great sense of connection and love for his or her father?
David Tully (11:45): Yeah.
Dan Moss (11:49): But is also being affected by his use of violence, which he or she sees either perpetrated on the mother or towards themselves. What sort of therapeutic interventions are important in that case?
David Tully (12:00): Well, I think the most important thing is understanding that experience of being subjected to violence and abuse or domestic violence or trauma, is again, understanding a relational context. This is not just some random stranger who’s come to the house and assaulted his mom. This is somebody who’s got a strong connection, his sense of story of who he is, his sense of place in the world, maybe connection to culture, a whole range of different things, also comes through this person who is his dad as well. So, first of all, understanding that. If we go in with just “let me convince you what a bad, terrible, horrible man, he’s a monster or he’s horrible” approach, it doesn’t allow the kid to carry that relational context, but also start to question some of the dad’s behaviour at the same time. Often, if we come in without understanding that developmental context, we can then try to convince the child of stuff and they can’t have both.
(12:53): Sometimes it can be a bit like, okay, we need to talk about some of the wrong things your dad did, but you wanted to tell me some of the really good things about your dad as well, like he takes me to footy, help me build my go-kart. And all those things are true as well, so it’s good I understand some of that stuff, so it must make it really hard to talk about it, when he’s doing the wrong thing as well. Do you think that, if I understand he’s not just always a bad man, does it make it harder or easier to talk about when he yells at Mom, or he yells at you, or when he’s hurt your mom?
(13:22): Because if I understand that, maybe we can do some more work about when he’s not doing the okay thing as well. And if we can be clear that, when he’s not doing the okay thing it’s not your mom or your fault, it’s his fault, do you think you’d be up for talking about that? I think by acknowledging some of those other things, that developmental context I call it, that relational context, it allows that more complicated conversation to occur, where a child, young person, doesn’t feel like they need to protect that person. That’s one of the really honourable little things about children, they look after adults, they try to protect those relationships as well.
Dan Moss (13:57): And going back a little while to where you were talking about an interest in children’s response, often where a family member is using violence, the children might react or protest to that violence, in ways that can have the child be seen as oppositional, or a naughty kid, or lots of different negative connotations.
David Tully (14:17): Yeah.
Dan Moss (14:18): How do you, in your practise, help children move beyond those kind of descriptions?
David Tully (14:22): I’ll give you a really practical example of that. There was a child who had broken a window in the house, for instance, so you just start with naughty kid breaking a window, need to emotionally regulate, work out, stopping that behaviour. If you take the camera back, and there was a whole other layer to what was going on, that child was doing things that once he saw his dad’s pattern, and he understood his dad’s pattern, his dad’s working-himself-up pattern really really well, that he knew his dad had come in, he knew he was in one of those head spaces, he could tell that he was starting on mother, niggling her, just picking faults in the mom. So he’s then started to be naughty, act up to try to bring that energy that he could see going towards his mom, across to him as well.
(15:08): And then the dad getting angry with him, shutting the room when he broke the window, to get out the window, for instance. That just gives you a bit of a story about this kid, is he just being naughty or is this action resistance response? And what does it say about that child, that they’re willing to take that risk of bringing harm to themselves? Think about this, a smaller person, Dad’s bigger and used violence before, because they wanted to protect their mother. There’s something quite honourable in that. And if we can’t honour those stories, and we just don’t slow down enough to bring the camera back a little bit understanding children’s behaviour, we miss a chance to (A) honour something about amazing quality of that kind, has a loyalty protectiveness, courage, a whole range of different qualities, but also we miss out on the way they’ve been active, not just passive in dealing with what’s going on as well.
Dan Moss (16:01): Yeah. That’s a really powerful story, David, thank you for sharing that example. Within that, was it possible, do you think for the child to make new meaning of that story, of breaking the window?
David Tully (16:12): Yeah. You’re counter it with a whole bunch of other stories the child’s already been told about his behaviour. But I think once you slow it down and you could ask… even if the child’s really struggling, you could then say, “well, imagine if a friend of yours told you that same story, what would you say to your friend?” “Oh, they’re really brave, and they’re really smart, they’re really clever.” So why is it hard to acknowledge that you are brave, smart and clever as well? Sometimes people have a lot of sympathy, or even understand, that power relationships, when they look at other people’s experience, not their own. Sometimes it can be really hard for a child, when they’re being a young person, to be labelled as being naughty, bad, off the rails, to accept some of this.
(16:53): But I think they’re very… he was very open to hearing that. He didn’t suddenly go, I’m brave, smart and courageous. It’s not the point. Sometimes those questions, you could tell that was something about another core meaning, about who he was, that we started to develop. And later on, there are other things you can collect and connect, “is that one of those other times when you did some sort of thinking, or you were courageous and you are brave.” You can connect up the little the Lego blocks of different meanings and stuff like that, but you’ve started at least a base to actually connect the other bits of meaning or story or Lego blocks as I call them, connect them up for that child and person.
Dan Moss (17:33): David, thank you so much for the benefit of your many years of practise and supervision, experience today. Just one last question, because I know that within your role, you continue to supervise and mentor lots of practitioners working with children around sexual and physical violence. If you could leave us with maybe a couple of the most important messages that you tend to support these practitioners through in your practise.
David Tully (18:00): I think very importantly, similar to what we do with clients, is that practitioners find ways of actually resisting responding as well. There’s obviously a really aspect of the story, where you’re hearing story upon story of children being harmed, being hurt, being oppressed, being marginalised, there’s a lot of that’s the reason why people knock on our doors often, is because of that experience that sort of oppression. And it can be very easy as a practitioner to feel bogged down in that, and you can’t shift and move that stuff. So, as well as tune into resistance and response for our clients, we need to also notice the really interesting, smart, clever, brave, courageous stuff that we do as therapists, as counsellors or as youth workers or as case managers, whatever our role is to help children, young people, manage some of those experiences of oppression as well.
(18:56): The other thing I think is really important, that whole work, all that feet on the ground stuff, as practitioners as well, that how do we keep ourselves rounded as we’re moving through these stories with children and young people as well. And for me, that’s also why understanding that it’s not that I just had these magic answers, that I can just sprinkle magic dust over all these situations and they completely disappear. But if I can help actually provide a framework, where a person starts to notice their own way they’ve resisted and responded, that’s a really worthwhile experience as a practitioner as well. Walking out in the shower to where there’s nothing else I could have done, I did definitely rolling around their head. And if we don’t have the boldness to create some space to sort of… there’s unhelpful stories, beliefs, meanings to be. No thank you, Dan.
Dan Moss (19:43): So that concludes the second of our two-part series with David Tully, discussing supporting children who have disclosed trauma. If you’re really interested in accessing this online course that we have done, please visit our website on www.emergingminds.com.au, where you’ll find the Supporting Children Who Have Disclosed Trauma online course, but also a number of other trauma-related online courses, podcasts, webinars, and practise papers. Thank you very much.
Narrator (20:17): Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au to access a range of resources to assist your practice. Brought to you by the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health led by Emerging Mind, the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health is funded by the Australian government Department of Health under the National Support for Child or Youth Mental Health program.