|
Our History
Case
studies >
Meira and her mother - Henya
Children - Meira
Meira
Meira arrived at Tzel Koratainu at
the age of seven after the Welfare authorities had determined
that she needed to be in a controlled institutional setting.
No existing facility was willing to take her. We decided to
give her a chance.
Meira was a very wild and aggressive girl,
not used to discipline of any kind. Like a street-child, she
had no borders or sense of responsibility. A new immigrant
from the former Soviet Union, Meira's mother, Henya, had left
her husband behind when she came to Israel. There was evidence
of physical abuse toward both Meira and Henya by Meira's biological
father and possibly sexual abuse of Meira by a grandfather
who had been left behind in the USSR. In Israel, Henya moved
in with a man for whom she had been doing some cleaning. They
lived together for many years, had a child together, and enjoyed
what seemed to be a very good relationship. However, neither
of them was capable of managing Meira.
On arrival in our home, Meira had no respect
for anyone's property or person. The other girls found her
difficult to deal with. In times of conflict, she simply acted
out, aggressively demanding her way and attacking them if
she did not get it.
Meira had not attended school at all over
the past several years. Suspended from school so often, she
was finally dismissed and spent the last two years completely
unsupervised in the streets of her poverty stricken neighborhood.
We registered Meira in second grade due to her age, but in
a special education class due to her particular behavioral
challenges and her inability to read. In time, she was moved
back to the first grade due to extreme anti-social and difficult
behavioral problems.
Much of our initial work with Meira involved providing her
with the skills to cope with her emotional needs and with
situations of conflict. Meira participated in a long therapeutic
process that involved identifying her reactions to difficult
emotions and using behavior modification to help her adjust
to more socially acceptable means of responding to her world.
We enforced borders that offered her security and helped her
understand how these borders did not restrict her but in fact
helped her through the challenges of her life. In time, Meira
adjusted to the rules and regulations of the home and developed
more balanced relationships with everyone around her.
She remained, however, resistant to any
situation that placed responsibility upon her. Within herself,
Meira wanted to remain a "little girl", especially
as regards her school situation. She was completely unmotivated
in learning and wanted only to play. In class, Meira remained
involved in her internal world, carrying on dialogues with
herself that prevented her from working. The teacher felt
the child had been through too many emotional crises and recommended
professional psychological intervention to get to the root
of Meira's need to remain a young child.
During her second grade year in school,
Meira went through a tremendous trauma. Her stepfather, who,
for Meira, had been a de facto father for many years, was
attacked by creditors, set on fire and burnt severely, eventually
dying of his wounds. Meira had been a witness to the event
and suffered greatly for some time after the fact. She mourned
him for many months, crying continuously and being unable
to go back to her mother's home due to the atmosphere of mourning
that permeated it and the photos of her stepfather that decorated
the walls. Meira seemed to be afraid that she herself would
be harmed as her stepfather was. It took close to a year for
Meira to get out of her mourning and begin to relax.
Meira's second grade teacher reported
that Meira was a good girl who, due to severe emotional trauma,
lacked any motivation to learn and therefore remained stuck
at a first grade level or lower in most of her school efforts.
Meira, she wrote, had a strong need to receive constant affection
and positive support. The teacher maintained that Meira was
capable but carried too much emotional pain to be able to
progress at school.
Meira benefited greatly from her time
in our home. The aggressive wild young child had learned to
control her behavior and benefit from the rules and regulations
imposed in our home. Her violence and aggression to others
was replaced by an ability to be warm, especially with younger
children, and to develop intimate appropriate relationships
with those around her. She learned to care for her physical
appearance as her self-image improved, showing greater confidence
in herself and her worth. Meira developed a strong sense of
morality, making good choices when faced with decisions between
what was right and wrong. Despite her continued academic gap
relative to girls her own age, Meira began a process of slow
but definite progress. Although she never really conquered
her desire not to go to school, her classroom behavior settled
as she developed a trusting and caring relationship with the
teacher.
Had Meira not joined us in our home
she would have been sent to a mental institution which would
not likely have offered her the same opportunity to heal from
her trauma. Meira desperately needed a close family relationship,
especially after her stepfather died. The effort she had put
into changing herself in our home made it possible for her
to rejoin her mother at the culmination of our program.
Mother - Henya
Henya's mother had died at her birth and she grew up in
orphanages in her native Russia. At a fairly young age, she
married a man,  Meira's
father, who proved to be very abusive, physically and emotionally,
and whom she left behind in Russia when she made aliyah to
Israel. In Israel, she moved in with a man, Gregory, for whom
she had had a job cleaning house. The two of them had a good
relationship and together tried to raise Meira, her little
sister and the child born to them. However, neither of them
was able to cope with Meira's wild behaviors and total lack
of discipline, leading to Meira's referral to an institutional
setting.
Henya began attending the Mother/Child Healing Hostel in efforts
to heal the rift that had developed between her and her child.
We found Henya to be a capable mother who, due to her institutional
background, had never experienced the real pleasures of living
in a happy family environment. As well, she had never enjoyed
any luxuries or "special treatment" in her life.
In our home, Henya was able to experience the joys of family
living, observe modeled interpersonal relationships and behaviors,
as well as enjoy some of the smaller pleasures of life. In
one workshop in which we pampered the mothers with facials,
Henya shared that she had never put any cream or lotion on
herself before. This simple act of self-indulgence opened
her to sharing simple pleasures with her daughter who so needed
a relationship based on more than just everyday physical care.
For her own healing, Meira desperately needed to rebond with
her mother. Being allowed to do so in a controlled and enjoyable
environment allowed them to rebuild their relationship in
a relaxed yet solid manner.
Some five months before the completion of the Mother/Child
Healing Hostel program, Gregory, the man with whom Henya had
been living, died through bizarre and horrible circumstances.
Gregory had borrowed money and, due to a change in the terms
of repayment, was unable to pay it back. The lender seemed
to have Mafia connections and, in an effort to assert his
claim to the money, had Gregory taken to a secluded place
where he had kerosene poured over him and was set on fire.
Gregory spent one month in hospital after this incident but
died due to the severity of his wounds.
Meira was greatly disturbed by Gregory's
death and needed her mother all the more so to help her reestablish
her sense of family and support. When the other girls in the
Loving Children's Home rejoined their mothers in their family
homes, Meira went home again to live with her mother. Together,
they have worked to rebuild the family that had been so torn.
|
