Question Six
Ana is having the greatest impact on her mother, Kat. This is because Kat feels like she is the only person in the household capable of taking care of all the necessary tasks to maintain the family’s lifestyle (Interview One, Interview Three). This includes working, taking Ana to child care, household chores, caring for her disabled husband, and discipline of her daughter. Ana’s behaviour at home, at the child care center, and at Cooinda Community Health Centre (CCHC) are problems Kat wants to remedy, but she is confused and feels she lacks control over external factors concerning Ana. Since she feels she is the only one who has any control or ability to handle the family’s current situation, every situation regarding Ana affects Kat deeply.
Whether Ana is at home, at the child care center, or CCHC, her behaviour has an impact on Kat. Ana has tantrums while visiting the hospital to see her father, getting in and out of the car at child care and CCHC, and when Kat tries to leave her at child care. Often, Ana’s behaviour when going to day care threatens to make Kat late for work. Also, during the interview at CCHC, Ana demonstrates hostile behaviour towards Kat when she does not get something she wants. In one case, Ana stated she wanted to see Ben, one of her playmates from child care; this request was impossible for Kat to fulfill since the family was at CCHC and Ben was not there. When Kat tells Ana she cannot see Ben right now, Ana responds by hitting Kat (Interview Three).
Kat responds by trying to present her family in the most positive way possible. She has extra responsibility for her family, and wants to show that she is doing her best to make her family members feel both physically and mentally happy. However, the belief she is doing her best causes her to deny that her family’s situation provides any cause for change in Ana’s behaviour. The letter from the Director of Care For Kids child care center (CFK) illustrates how different Kat’s view of Ana’s behaviour is from the report of the staff at CFK. Kat persists in believing that it is the other children at CFK who are the problem, not Ana who she believes is an innocent victim of bullying. During the interview with Kat and Chris, Kat states that Ana’s arm injury resulted from other “mean” children who pushed Ana off the playground equipment. However, according to the letter from the Director of CFK, “Ana deliberately disobeyed [a staff member] by playing on the outside recreational equipment without supervision” (Interview Three, 2009, Jamieson, 2009, ¶ 4). During the first session at CHCC, Ana is picking up things and either throwing them away or dropping them, behaviour which her mother ignores (Case Documents, 2009, ¶ 2). Being ignored appears to intensify Ana’s misbehaviour; this is a reaction Ana likely developed at home since Kat has less time to devote specifically to her while Chris was in the hospital or needing extra care at home. Indeed, the negative developments in Ana’s behaviour began at the time of Chris’s accident. Whether it is Chris’s absence at home or her visits to the hospital, Ana appears to be terrified of anything reminding her of the hospital, such as the ID badges of intake workers (Case Documents, 2009, ¶ 3). Chris himself seems to have been traumatized by his hospital experience, pointing out a loudspeaker, referring to it as, “like . . . hospital,” and saying he does not like it (Case Documents, 2009, ¶ 17). The terror Ana expresses regarding hospital-like items likely reflects two things; first, she is mirroring Chris’s example of being scared of them, and second, the hospital is one thing she blames for the separation and consequential anxiety she has endured from her father, whom she loves very much.
Kat tries to pacify Ana’s tantrums and aggressive behaviour by buying her things, trying to reason with her, or giving her favorite toys, which Chris admonishes her for during the video interview. He believes that Kat is spoiling Ana by catering to Ana’s whims during her tantrums or aggressive moments, rather than disciplining her. Giving in to Ana when she has a tantrum provides positive reinforcement to Ana to continue using misbehaviour as a tool to get things she wants, even with the adults and children at CFK. In one incident during the family interview at CHCC when Ana is not obeying her mother, Chris tells Ana that if she does not obey her parents, there will be no television for her today. Ana responds with immediate obedience to her father. However, this leads to an argument between Kat and Chris; Kat claims that yesterday, she and Chris agreed that the threat of “no TV” would not be used as a method of discipline for Ana (Interview Three). Though Ana responded immediately to Chris’s statement that there would be no television for Ana if she did not listen to her parents, Kat’s denial does not allow her to see that even this mild form of discipline is very effective in altering Ana’s behaviour. Kat will need to modify her own behaviour and stop her denial before Ana’s own behaviour can be effectively remedied.
References
Case Documents (2009). Narrative of Case Enquiry.
Jamieson, Margaret (3 Feb. 2009). Care For Kids Child Care Center [Letter from Director].
Interview One (2009). Cooinda Community Health Centre [Audio].
Interview Two (2009). Cooinda Community Health Centre [Audio].
Interview Three (2009). Cooinda Community Health Centre [Video].
