It was a Sunday after lunch. The little boy was rolling around on the floor. He had called for Daddy, Mummy, the Kor Kors; "Help me!" he hollered. Before that, the almost 3-year-old had thrown off his shoes in protest. And all because he wasn't allowed to eat a piece of candy that had been given to him by a stranger. And it was not the only time a situation like this had taken place. A few days later, during a public talk, our little foster child was rolling around on the floor; he had insisted on a biscuit, and was upset when told he had too many and wasn't allowed to have any more. What do you do with a 3-year-old who seems to turn to tantrums and public outcries to get what he wants? The Lims - A Fostering Family. I recently completed a course on trauma by the US-based National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (NICABM), and I have realised that B's actions are mostly a trauma response; that he is responding in this manner because ...
"Do you think B has trauma?" The 11/1/2-year-old chose the long ride home from the Lunar New Year Reunion Dinner to ask this important and quintessential question, which was made in relation to the older foster child. "Definitely," came the reply from Daddy, as he drove the car. One for the road. Our foster kids for the season as they join us on a ride of a lifetime. "What exactly is trauma?" came the follow up question; and Daddy all but took a deep breath, before he launched into the following reply. "Trauma is when the body remembers something painful that happened in the past; when it responds in a way similar to how it did in the past, even though the event is no longer happening. So take for example someone in the past used a knife to threaten you and you responded in fear. And because you were young, your brain blocked out this painful memory in a bid to protect you. So even now when you see a knife, your body starts to tremble in a similar wa...