Michael beamed and Charlotte’s eyes danced as she bounced up and down in her baby walker.
‘Too loud, Willie, too loud,’ said Jay, as he suddenly smacked Willie hard on the front of his head with a maraca.
‘Jay, hitting is not allowed. If someone hits someone else, then the music has to stop, OK?’ Jay’s face fell.
‘Willie, you’ve got a huge bump on your head. Come with me and we’ll get some ice for it. Doesn’t it hurt?’ I said, surprised that Willie wasn’t crying.
‘That’s nothing,’ said Mae. ‘He’s been hit much harder than that.’
One of the reasons I thought it would be good to get the children involved with music is that it’s a powerful tool in helping damaged children to overcome trauma. I’ve since learned that when you make music it lights up the medial prefrontal cortex, which is just behind the eyes and which links music, memory and emotion, and engages many different areas of the brain, including visual, auditory and motor areas. While still in the womb babies are able to respond to music, and learning to play an instrument at a young age has been shown to have a significant effect on the brain. So even something as simple as singing, dancing, shaking maracas, banging on a drum or clapping along to music is beneficial to a child’s well-being. It just takes time – but watch out for those maracas.
• • •
I used to lie awake at night to make sure the baby was breathing properly; she was so tiny.
Whenever I couldn’t hear her breathe I’d get up and go over to her cot just to make sure she was OK. Charlotte was a quiet baby, slept well and was easy to care for.
I’d look in on her brother Willie and he’d be asleep with one arm behind his head, which was so cute.
The children all caught measles and the doctors were worried about baby Charlotte and admitted her to hospital. I stayed there with her. Charlotte kept slipping and falling when she stood up in the metal hospital cot as it seemed to slope for some reason, so I took her into the bed on the floor that I was sleeping in. Fortunately she recovered but we both left hospital with a horrendous gastric flu we had caught there and which we passed on to almost everyone else when we got home.
When Jay’s speech improved he told me about the bad man who had hurt him.
The horrific abuse inflicted on young children, often by their own families, never ceases to shock me. I’m just glad that this little family was brought to us in time to stop it escalating and damaging them even more.
Later discovering that one abuser had put a gun to another young child’s head while forcing them to submit to sickening abuse made me overwhelmingly grateful that social services had got these five children to safety. Yet that abuser was never prosecuted. Due to the difficulty of young children giving evidence in court, people all too often get away with crimes against them and are left free to continue with their abuse.
Mae, Jay, Willie, Michael and Charlotte had more energy than any children we had known. Many might have classed them as hyperactive; we saw them as lively, energetic and mischievous. Our love of the outdoors gave the children an outlet for their energy. They loved life but not boundaries and initially swung on and pulled down curtains, pushed earth from plant pots into DVD slots, and Jay once pooed in the book of
Pooh
.
Gary used to play guitar and sing to the children. Baby Charlotte loved this and used to try to jump and dance in her baby walker.
Once, after coming home from a long day at the fair I told the children that they couldn’t take the life-size blow-up aliens that we’d won into their bedrooms but in the morning the aliens were there large as life in their bedrooms and Jay said, ‘Janis, the aliens just walked up the stairs all by themselves and when we told them they had to go back downstairs, they wouldn’t; they just stood there.’
‘Of course they did, Jay,’ I smiled.
Looking after the
‘Too loud, Willie, too loud,’ said Jay, as he suddenly smacked Willie hard on the front of his head with a maraca.
‘Jay, hitting is not allowed. If someone hits someone else, then the music has to stop, OK?’ Jay’s face fell.
‘Willie, you’ve got a huge bump on your head. Come with me and we’ll get some ice for it. Doesn’t it hurt?’ I said, surprised that Willie wasn’t crying.
‘That’s nothing,’ said Mae. ‘He’s been hit much harder than that.’
One of the reasons I thought it would be good to get the children involved with music is that it’s a powerful tool in helping damaged children to overcome trauma. I’ve since learned that when you make music it lights up the medial prefrontal cortex, which is just behind the eyes and which links music, memory and emotion, and engages many different areas of the brain, including visual, auditory and motor areas. While still in the womb babies are able to respond to music, and learning to play an instrument at a young age has been shown to have a significant effect on the brain. So even something as simple as singing, dancing, shaking maracas, banging on a drum or clapping along to music is beneficial to a child’s well-being. It just takes time – but watch out for those maracas.
• • •
I used to lie awake at night to make sure the baby was breathing properly; she was so tiny.
Whenever I couldn’t hear her breathe I’d get up and go over to her cot just to make sure she was OK. Charlotte was a quiet baby, slept well and was easy to care for.
I’d look in on her brother Willie and he’d be asleep with one arm behind his head, which was so cute.
The children all caught measles and the doctors were worried about baby Charlotte and admitted her to hospital. I stayed there with her. Charlotte kept slipping and falling when she stood up in the metal hospital cot as it seemed to slope for some reason, so I took her into the bed on the floor that I was sleeping in. Fortunately she recovered but we both left hospital with a horrendous gastric flu we had caught there and which we passed on to almost everyone else when we got home.
When Jay’s speech improved he told me about the bad man who had hurt him.
The horrific abuse inflicted on young children, often by their own families, never ceases to shock me. I’m just glad that this little family was brought to us in time to stop it escalating and damaging them even more.
Later discovering that one abuser had put a gun to another young child’s head while forcing them to submit to sickening abuse made me overwhelmingly grateful that social services had got these five children to safety. Yet that abuser was never prosecuted. Due to the difficulty of young children giving evidence in court, people all too often get away with crimes against them and are left free to continue with their abuse.
Mae, Jay, Willie, Michael and Charlotte had more energy than any children we had known. Many might have classed them as hyperactive; we saw them as lively, energetic and mischievous. Our love of the outdoors gave the children an outlet for their energy. They loved life but not boundaries and initially swung on and pulled down curtains, pushed earth from plant pots into DVD slots, and Jay once pooed in the book of
Pooh
.
Gary used to play guitar and sing to the children. Baby Charlotte loved this and used to try to jump and dance in her baby walker.
Once, after coming home from a long day at the fair I told the children that they couldn’t take the life-size blow-up aliens that we’d won into their bedrooms but in the morning the aliens were there large as life in their bedrooms and Jay said, ‘Janis, the aliens just walked up the stairs all by themselves and when we told them they had to go back downstairs, they wouldn’t; they just stood there.’
‘Of course they did, Jay,’ I smiled.
Looking after the
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