The Emotional Risk of Unpacking by Victoria Johnson, Senior Supervising Social Worker
As we head into the summer holidays, I’ve found myself thinking about unpacking. Not initially in a social work sense, but in the ordinary, slightly infuriating husband-and-wife sense!
Over the years, I have come to realise there are two types of travellers in this world. There are people like my husband, who seem perfectly content to live out of a suitcase for an entire holiday. His clothes remain exactly where they were packed two weeks ago, he can apparently find everything he needs through some magical rummaging system, and as far as he is concerned, a hotel room is simply somewhere to sleep between adventures.
Then there are people like me. Within a few hours of arriving, I have unpacked everything. Clothes are hung up, toiletries are arranged, furniture may have been subtly repositioned, and the storage has certainly been reorganised. By the time I have finished, I have essentially turned the hotel room into a temporary version of home. Much to my husband’s despair! And whilst I am creating order from chaos, he is usually standing at the door, wondering why on earth we are not already at the beach with an ice cream.
For years, I assumed the difference between us was simply that I like organisation and he doesn’t. Although if you ask him, he would probably suggest I take it a little too far (!). However, underneath that, he has often said something that has always stuck with me. “I don’t really care where I stay. It’s just a bed.” Oddly, that comment has followed me into my social work career more times than I can count.
Because when I think about children moving into foster homes, emergency placements, residential settings or, hopefully, their forever families, one of the things that has struck me most over the years is how many children simply do not want to unpack. In fact, many actively resist it.
Now, unlike my husband, I don’t think this is because they can’t be bothered. Quite the opposite. I think it is because unpacking means far more to them than it does to most of us.
One little girl in particular has stayed with me throughout my career. When I first met her, she would allow me to help unpack her belongings when she moved. We would arrange her teddies and Barbies together, fold her clothes into drawers, and, if I’m honest, I would go as far as to say we found joy in the shared experience of making her new room feel warm and welcoming. But then came another move. And another. And another. By the time we reached her fourth move in as many months, something had changed. She wouldn’t allow us to take her suitcases into her bedroom. She kept them by the door. She refused to unpack. And she maintained that position for the next seven months.
I remember thinking at the time that there must be something much bigger happening here than clothes sitting in a suitcase. The more I reflected on it, the more I realised how much emotional meaning can sit within the simple act of unpacking.
For most of us, unpacking is practical. It barely warrants a second thought. However, for children in care, it can represent something far more significant. After all, they did not choose where they were going to stay. They did not scroll through photographs, compare reviews or decide that this was where they wanted to spend the next chapter of their life. More often than not, they have arrived carrying very little information and even less control. The bedroom they are being shown may be one in a long line of bedrooms they have slept in. The home may be one of several they have entered and later had to leave, often through circumstances entirely outside of their control.
When viewed through that lens, unpacking can feel like a surprisingly big emotional risk.
As Social Workers, carers and professionals, we often talk about attachment, belonging and felt safety. We know that children develop trust through consistency, predictability and relationships that feel safe enough to rely upon. Equally, children who have experienced repeated disruptions often learn to be cautious. To hold something back. To avoid becoming too comfortable too quickly. Not because they are unwilling to connect, but because experience has taught them that people, places and plans can change, sometimes with very little warning.
In many ways, the closed suitcase can become a physical representation of that emotional self-protection, because unpacking requires a degree of hope. It requires a child to believe that this move might be different. It requires them to invest emotionally in a place they barely know, with people they have only just met, whilst carrying the knowledge that previous placements may have ended despite being promised otherwise.
Unpacking also involves giving up a small piece of control. Many of the children we care for have had very little say in where they live, who they live with or when they move on. Decisions have often been made around them, rather than with them. Therefore, it makes sense that unpacking can feel like a much bigger step than adults sometimes realise.
The suitcase says, “I can leave if I need to.”
The wardrobe says, “I’m staying.”
And for a child who has already had to leave several homes, often through no choice of their own, staying can feel like the biggest risk of all.
Of course, we should continue preparing bedrooms, painting walls, choosing bedding and creating welcoming spaces. Those things absolutely matter. They communicate care, and they tell a child that somebody has thought about them before they arrived. However, over the years, I have come to realise that unpacking can mean far more to many looked-after children than it does to the adults around them.
Because unpacking requires trust. Not just the trust needed to put your clothes into somebody else’s drawers, but the trust needed to gradually reveal yourself to the people around you. To share pieces of your story. To lower your guard. To allow yourself to hope and to become attached.
In many ways, unpacking is an act of vulnerability. And vulnerability is frightening for most of us.
If we are honest, many adults spend years carefully deciding who they will and won’t open up to. We don’t walk into a room of strangers and immediately share our fears, our hurts or the most important parts of ourselves. We wait. We watch. We decide whether it feels safe.
The children we care for are no different. In fact, many have far more reason to be cautious than most, and perhaps that is why I have learned not to worry too much about the closed suitcase.
Children settle in all sorts of ways, often giving us subtle clues long before they are ready to unpack their clothes. Sometimes the greatest gift we can offer is simply time and patience, whilst remembering not to take it personally. More often than not, it is not a rejection of the home, the room or the people caring for them. It is simply a child deciding how much of themselves they are ready to unpack.
So, whilst my husband and I will probably continue our annual disagreement about whether unpacking is necessary on holiday, I suspect I will continue thinking about the children who arrive at our doors carrying far more than a suitcase.
Because for some of us, unpacking is simply part of arriving, whilst for others, it means something much bigger.
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