Reflections On A Young Child

Do not miss the chance to say that you are special and you are loved to people you encounter every chance you get. You may never get a chance again.

In the last few weeks, I have been remembering a child and family I treated in the early years of my social work practice.  a young father had recently purchased a home in an affluent neighborhood. He felt that he and his family were being looked down on my his neighbors. He live in Macomb County, Michigan. The father was an auto worker. At that time he made between seventy and one hundred twenty thousand with overtime. At that time I was in my first or second year after graduation in social work. I was the only Black therapist at the agency. The father got me as a therapist. He verbalized that he was concerned because he had moved into an affluent area and he and his family were being treated differently. The school wanted to put his child in special education.

I did the usual things. I took a social history and did a genogram. I began to make an assessment. The father wanted me to help him make a decision about whether to allow the school to place his son in special education. He shared with me that he would take toy, games and animals to the school so that the other children would like and accept his son. He was worried about the way his son was treated at the school. He wanted his son to fit in with the other children. I felt his pain. I remember this case for that reason. Unfortunately I was a young therapist then. I wish now that I had been more of a social worker and less of a therapist. I was trying to improve my therapist skills at the time.  As a young social worker, I would have tested the child or had him tested or assessed. I would have talked to the school counselor and gotten consent to see his assessment scores. I would have intervened to see how I could have made this child’s school experience better. I would have gone to the school and made my own assessment by observing the child in the classroom setting. I realize now seeing myself more objectively that I was not reaching out as much as I should. I wonder now if there was something about the setting or me that changed me when I became a therapist. Being a therapist should not have made me take off my social work hat. I failed this child and this family. I have ofter wondered what happened to this child. They did not come back to me after this session. I did not properly engage them in treatment. I needed to see the whole family to make a proper assessment. I did a cursory assessment. The child had the basics. He could read, write and he liked and was good in math. There was a lot to work with. I never knew what happened to that child. They never came back to the agency. They needed help. I wonder now if this child is one of the Trump supporters who feels left out and angry at the government and society. Could I have done more? Would they have allowed me to do more? I will never know. I know me as a person. If they had continued, I would have helped this family and this young man.  I was just developing my “you are enough” philosophy at that time.

Michigan is hurting now. People are reading “fake news” and do not think. My own Black friends said they could not vote for Clinton despite the risk of Trump appointing a Supreme Court Justice. Michigan is a right to work state now and is being run light a dictatorship. The Republicans have taken over and people are suffering on all levels. The pensions of all workers are being attacked.  People are angry and are blaming others for their condition. They do not view their similarities and differences correctly. People are allowing themselves to be divided. This is a tactic to distract from the fact that the money is still in the hands of a few. The corporations are not willing to share the profits with the workers. The people at the top are getting richer. If we fight among at ourselves, we do not focus on the true enemy and the real problem. I think of Root and how young he was. He was following one of these hate groups or had a mental illness which exacerbated his problems. Was he one of those children who did not fit in. Did he hear race hate speech at home? I think of this young child who was feeling hurt because he and his family did not fit into their affluent community and were feeling pushed aside. Did I miss my chance to say to this young white boy, “you are love and you are enough.” Is this child one of the Trump supporters who feels left out and angry at the government and society? Could I have done more? Did I do what the democrats did and miss the chance to focus on everyone and the economic impact of all citizens. We should remember this is a time like the beginning of the industrial revolution. We are in a state of change. We do not need to fight among ourselves. We need to show compassion for each other and try to help each other improve our lot. There are similarities between the coal miner in Virginia and the workers in the northeast. We need to see the similarities and stop fighting each other. This distracts from the fact that our air and water are being poluted and we may destroy the lakes, rivers, ocean and streams with polution such that no one survives. Removing regulations to protect the environment for jobs may be a short term solution for jobs and more oil but in the long run may have a longterm goal of destroying the planet as we know it. Fracking causes earthquakes. Who can forget the fires that lasted over a month in the gulf  with oil spilling and no one could stop it. The impact of that is unknown at this time. Trump and Pruitt only care about money. They will destroy the planet to improve their financial positions or that of the oil companies. Their goal is to keep us fighting each other so that we do not focus on their conduct and its impact on our democracy and the planet. We must stay focused on all their distractions. We should stay focused on the constitution and the rule of law.

I think of this child that I never saw again and missed my chance to say, “You are loved. You are enough.” We have got to refocus and not be so divisive and look for common ground. We are all in this together and we should not forget it.