One face from my fourth grade class that will never leave my memory is that of a boy we nicknamed Cry Baby James. He was one of those kids with brown hair and pale skin and very large freckles. I remember this specifically because his face would go white when he would start to cry, and his freckles would stand out like islands in a white ocean.
And crying was something he did a lot. The kids in the class would find opportunities to be mean to him, and then he'd start to cry, and then they'd softly chant "Cry-baby James" over and over. Sometimes he would start to cry without anyone prompting him to do so, which was icing on their cake. I never understood why he would do this, when it was clearly not in his best interest. I did feel sorry for him, but my egocentric nine year-old self didn't have a clue what to do about it, or care enough to intervene on his behalf.
But now I get it. Now that I have a child who cries. I don't always know why she cries, when it clearly is not in her best interest. I do know that traumatized kids have difficulty controlling their emotions, and tend to have emotional responses that are typical of children several years younger than their age. Since our foster kids look older than they are, their behavior seems even more "behind" than it actually is. On Sunday when she was crying because of...?having to be prompted when she read the scripture in Primary?...I told her to look at all the other girls her age who were sitting reverently listening to the talk--couldn't she try to act like them? No, she couldn't.
So, what to do about this? The key is to prevent these kids from becoming even more traumatized while they are receiving therapy to try to heal from the initial trauma. Which brings us to my favorite topic: homeschooling. I'm not currently able to homeschool these kids, but if we are able to adopt them they'll be out of the government schools in a heartbeat--no more trauma! Will they interact with other kids? Every day, but it will be under the watchful eyes of all the kids' mothers. And if there's one homeschooling benefit I'm sure of it's that it produces children who are NICE--in 20 years I've never heard a mean comment come from the mouth of a homeschooled kid.
Homeschooling is a self-selection process. Sometimes people judge all homeschoolers because they've known some who are "weird" (and there are no weird kids in public school??) If you took the time, you would probably find that those "weird kids" are being allowed to work through their issues (autism, learning disabilities, mental illness, whatever) in an environment where they are safe from the cruel environment of large-group, same-age negative socialization, aka "school."
