Colman Noctor: Children living in mica houses need a safe place to call home

Children from the affected families worry the walls will cave in on top of them as they sleep 

Picture: iStock 

‘Home is where the heart is’, ‘there’s no place like home’, and ‘a roof over our heads’ are all well-known phrases. But do we truly understand the importance of these sayings to our emotional wellbeing?

Campaigner for the homeless Fr Peter McVerry once explained to me how the profile of a homeless person is often misunderstood. Though the homeless person is often depicted as someone with chronic addiction issues, unkempt and sitting on the ground in the street with a paper cup in their hands, this is not representative of homelessness in Ireland in 2021. Instead, homeless people now include whole families who have no means of paying the exorbitant rental rates and who cannot secure affordable or social housing. Christmas reminds us of this reality and, in the words of a famous festive song, ‘Tonight thank god it's them, instead of you’.

The dog on the street knows that the housing situation in Ireland is deplorable. The housing struggle is real, whether you are a young couple trying to save enough money for a deposit while paying huge rental prices or a student travelling three hours to college daily because there is no possibility of living near campus,

Some weeks ago, I spoke to a group of people affected by the mica crisis, a housing issue of a different kind. They live along the western coast from Donegal to Clare where, due to the sale of defective concrete blocks, their homes are crumbling and awaiting demolition. I met with this group to explore possible ways they could support their children who are growing up amidst stressful circumstances.  As I listened, I was reminded of the importance of a ‘secure base’ and a safe place to call ‘home’ for children’s mental health.

The mica parents described scenarios where their children were lying awake at night, fearing that the roof above their heads would cave in. As Storm Barra bashed our country last week, I could not help but think about these young children. Their parents described them as being hypervigilant, hearing the walls cracking at night, and sleeping on mattresses in their parents’ room for fear of the walls caving in and being crushed in their beds.

A secure base is an ‘attachment concept’ that goes further than just having a roof over your head - it is created through relationships that make children feel contained and safe. Child development experts say a secure base is essential for a child to thrive and explore the world. This feeling of safety is crucial for children's emotional and social development and plays an important role in many aspects of child wellbeing.

Size does not matter

Safety is the core foundation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. And where a feeling of safety does not exist, learning is delayed or halted.

The secure base is not measured by a building’s size or the standard of luxury - it is measured by the sense of containment the environment provides. It is the level of felt safety that matters. The family culture and relationships are central to building this secure base.

Children also need this sense of safety in other environments such as school. With the epidemic of fear and uncertainty that has contaminated our schools since the arrival of Covid, it is understandable that life feels a lot less safe. Also, the pandemic has undoubtedly negatively impacted children’s emotional/social development and learning.

For the mica parents, this sense of safety is increasingly difficult to provide for their children. Similar to the pandemic uncertainty, guarantees and reassurances have not been forthcoming. The inevitability that their homes will be demolished is a constant worry. One teacher described mica as ‘an app that is constantly running in the background’. 

With their homes in jeopardy, anxiety levels are high and the parents have become consumed by the task of securing somewhere safe for their family to live, reducing their emotional availability to their children. This is even more difficult for children with additional needs for whom consistency and reliability are essential.

There is no easy answer for families who do not have a safe haven. If the ‘secure base’ is physical and emotional, one needs to double-down on providing as much emotional safety as possible. But this is not a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

There needs to be a menu of options for young people who experience loss. They must be provided with the space to vent their feelings, or have refuge and sanctuary from the stressful topics if they need that too. In scenarios of family stress, children may benefit from speaking to someone outside the crisis. Many children do not want to burden their parents with their worries, especially if they are also in crisis.

Although the process of coming to terms with loss may at times feel like it will never end, we need to remind each other that it will. Very few things last forever.

Life can be difficult 

We cannot spare our children from experiences of loss. House moves, bereavement, illness and death may happen in childhood, and as the adults in the room, we will be tasked with helping them manage these experiences. 

Christmas can amplify our experience of loss, It can be challenging to know how to manage this, but my advice is that it is best to keep the structure of day-to-day life as stable as possible. It is important to acknowledge loss, but it may be unhelpful to labour over it. 

Try not to feel guilty for experiencing good things during the festive season, these are truly precious moments that deserve to be cherished [ and not be a source of guilt ]. We need to remember what we have lost, but remind ourselves what and who we still have in our lives. It is important to try to make new memories around what we still have. And if there is an element of joy this Christmas, despite the loss, remember this is OK too.