New arrivals: Honeymoons and explorations

Thom Garfat

Oh, the honeymoon. That time when all is sweet, the days float by like gulls on a salt sea wind and the nights are cosy. Ah, the end of the honeymoon. That time when reality and fantasy collide and the hard knocks of real life assert themselves.

I have been hearing about “the honeymoon period” in residential group care for a long time now and I never did quite get it. What is it? Do some people think this is a marriage? That the kids placed in our programs are somehow “wedded” to us. Or is it that, as we so often do, we have projected (well, someone has) from our own lives on to the lives of kids in group living, and we think that marriages are times of strife and struggle which begin right after the honeymoon? I don’t know, of course, but it has always seemed a little strange to me – calling it a honeymoon period, I mean.

Now I do realise that there is a time when youth come in to group living situations where things often seem “easier” than they are after the youth has been there for a while. And I know that there is a period of time when we tend to be more gentle with one another, not pushing as hard, not digging as deep. But when we use the term “honeymoon period” we are usually referring to the behaviours of the young person as in, “Oh, she’s just going through the honeymoon period, or, Well, here we go, I guess the honeymoon period is over” and both of these expressions (and many others) seem to imply that the honeymoon period is just about the young person, not about the staff.

But my experience says different I think. So, I offer a few thoughts here. The first is that while we call it a honeymoon period, we might be more accurate to call it an exploration period.

When a young person first comes in to a program she doesn’t know what to expect. New people, new rules, new physical space. Everything is new. And you know how it is when everything is new. You don’t know how to act. You don’t know what is safe or not safe. Who are the friends, the allies, where are the dangers, pitfalls and traps? So, you proceed cautiously until you “get the lie of the land” and know how to be in this new environment. So, during this period of time, perhaps young people are exploring, rather than honeymooning. And if we think of it this way, it gives us some ideas about how to be, ourselves, with young people who come in to our programs. We can help them explore, guide them through the morass of the unknown, and maybe in doing so set the foundation for a relationship of help and trust. So much better, I think, than standing back waiting, worrying, anticipating what will happen when the honeymoon is over.

Which brings me to my second point: I really think that a lot of the “honeymoon period behaviour” we see is a result of our own tenuous actions towards the young person. We don’t know her so we tread gently; we are unsure how to be so we move to our neutral therapeutic place and reach out tentatively, exploring, like her, the unknown territory. And because we move gently, we avoid any provocation which might cause a reaction.

So, if this is correct, here we are, us and the young person, exploring the territory together, reaching out to see how the other will respond, finding out what is safe, how we can be here, what works. It is the “dance of the unknowns” and it continues until one of us pushes a little more, moves to test the reality of her perceptions, reaches beyond the superficial safe place we establish in the early stages of relationship development.

And in this, it is all so normal. Think about how you establish relationships with new colleagues, new neighbours, or new friends. Don’t we go through the same process? Encounter, exploration, engagement, and testing. We explore who this new person is; we explore how they are with us; we explore whether or not we are interested in taking this relationship to a different depth. We test. We move closer and move back. We explore.

So, all I am suggesting is that when we engage in this dance, we need to be aware that it involves both of us “me and the young person. We move in and out, establishing a rhythm of encounter which is particular to this relationship, and which is likely different than other relationships. She steps forward and I decide how to respond. Do I step forward too? Do I step back? Do I stand where I am? Does she lead and I follow? Who leads this dance? This new dance: the dance which has never been danced before because it is new to both of us. And therein lies the excitement of “how will we be together?”

She dips. I bow. She reaches out a tenuous hand. I take it and swirl away. We are exploring how to be together in a way that will work for both of us. You all know the process of learning to dance with someone new. Anticipation builds as you are getting connected, learning to do this new thing together. Thinking we are engaged I take a risk and reach out my hand only to find she has moved in a different direction. I stumble, right myself and re-connect. Just when I thought I was the leader, she expected me to follow. Just when I should have followed, I tried to move ahead.

But of course, when we are learning to dance with someone new, we are usually listening to the same music, and we can use the music to help us establish the rhythm. But in the dance of the unknowns when we are just getting to know someone new to our program, we are likely listening to different tunes. I may be listening to something I think is old and familiar. She may be listening to something new and confusing. And me, I am only learning to dance with one new partner. She may be having to learn to dance with a dozen new partners, and sometimes she will confuse us, one for the other. When she reaches forward, for example, I may step in to the gesture, whereas one of my team mates may step back. She dips, I bow, you sway.

So, for her the dance of exploration, this exploration of safety, may take longer than for us. But make no mistake; it is there for us as well.

So, the next time you are in a team meeting having one of those old inevitable conversations about the honeymoon period, or about how it is over, or about how you have to push beyond it, do remember that she is learning more new dances than you are. The next time someone suggests that “the kid is just manipulating us”, or that “this isn’t really who she is”, allow yourself to wonder if maybe she just hasn’t learned all the dances she needs to learn yet. Remember that just because she has learned to dance with you does not mean she has learned to dance with everyone else on the team “or even that she has yet heard the tune you are all listening to. Maybe her exploration of safety isn’t over, even if you feel yours is.

So, when someone suggests that you need to start pushing her, reflect first on how well established this new rhythm is; how safe and well explored the new territory might be for her. Or how scary it all might still be.

Remember as well, that like all new behaviours, this dance she has just learned to dance with you is not yet fully established in her repertoire. It is still new behaviour. Just like yours was when you wanted so badly to learn that newest dance move when you were younger yourself.

So if you do feel that your relationship might be established, however tenuously, remember that when you have just learned something new, and someone pushes you to go farther, how you often resist the new move until you feel secure with the old one. Learning the dance one move at a time. Building the journey one step at a time. And if the “exploration period” seems to be lasting too long, remember, while you may be on this journey with a number of colleagues, the young person is alone. So maybe her pace will be different; especially if she has been hurt on other journeys.

Can you remember, now, a time when you were learning to dance with someone? And can you remember a time when one of you wanted to try something new. Didn’t you ask the other person if they were willing, or ready, or something like that? Didn’t you offer it up as a new adventure, a new possibility? Didn’t you recognise that you couldn’t do it without them: knowing that a dance without a partner was really a solo affair?

If a young person isn’t ready to explore a new step, perhaps it is a time to strengthen her confidence in the current one. An exploration of safety is only over when safety exists. The dance of the unknowns only ends when the unknown becomes familiar. And the honeymoon period, if it exists at all, probably just exists as one of our myths.

PS: By the way, and as an aside, there is, apparently an old northern European legend which defines the “honeymoon period” as the time when, after kidnapping the woman one wanted to marry, she was kept hidden away until her family stopped looking for her (or agreed to the marriage). Doesn’t that sound just a little bit too much like old residential care?