They won't take no for an answer: The Relais Enfants-Parents

was a deep shock to him. I betrayed him. He carried the weight of my own stupidity. I had to talk with him, to explain everything. It was the least I could do. During our last visit, I asked Martin if he was angry with me. "Yes, because I love you," he responded, adding, "it's my fault that you are here because I should have told you to stop [taking drugs]."'

The child often shows fear in approaching the parent. Some parents are impatient and seek instant emotional gratification. They want to hug and kiss their son or daughter, but the child sometimes refuses and may even start to scream. The Relais stresses to the parent the need to wait until the child reaches out towards him or her. In turn, the child needs assistance in approaching the parent. The Relais tries to help by finding ways of renewing contact. Blanco explains: `We use little games to literally help the children approach their parents, such as hiding objects closer and closer to the parents, or asking the parents to sing songs the children used to hear when they were little. A common memory is reawakened and a relationship springs back to life. This can take two to three visits. It is not easy. For many of these children, separation has been very violent. Mothers who are drug addicts are not easy mothers. A father who has killed the mother is frightening for the child. The parents have to make an effort to be a partner. It is also up to the parents to respect their children's decision to visit them, and allow them to gradually come closer.'

Children who are compelled to live by timetables of separations and meetings which they have not chosen may refuse to maintain contact with their parents. The Relais listens to their decisions and respects them.

The Relais workers understand that children between the ages of six and eight often have formed strong opinions about the incarcerated parent, as they are generally acquiring a sense of morality at this age.

What's more, young children often reject the bond with the real parents to protect the image they have forged within themselves of ideal parents. Bouregba explains that, `At around five years of age children tend to invent a family for themselves based upon what they miss in their real family, to the point of hating their real parents. The Relais has an important role to play in dealing with this relationship that is rejected in reality and desired in dreams.'

The Relais stresses the importance of the child making at least one visit, in order to shatter any preconceived stereotypes of the parent in prison. Children sometimes expect to see their parents dressed in striped uniforms, complete with ball and chain. In addition, a true separation is often not initiated until a prison visit takes place. Here is one account in which this was found to be the case: Two children, aged eight and twelve, are being raised in a foster home because their father was imprisoned seven years earlier for killing their mother. The younger boy was in his mother's arms at the time of the murder. To avoid subjecting the children to a traumatic experience, the child protection service wanted to avoid any encounter with the father, who was urgently seeking to see the children. Going against the wishes of the social services and of the children themselves, a judge ordered that a meeting take place and asked the Relais to mediate. Weekly, hourly sessions were organised for a duration of six weeks, during which time the children would be able to express their aggression through games, verbal exchanges and drawings. `In any case, when we see him, it'll just be to say "Goodbye, asshole!"' said one of the children.

When they met their father for the first time, the children saw him in tears, exactly the opposite of what they had imagined, and they shunned him physically and emotionally.

But the encounter was essential, according to the accompanying psychologist. Only then could the bond with the father make any sense at all to the children; it was only then that they grasped what it was and were thus capable of initiating a separation.

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