We had a bit of a “come to Jesus” discussion with our family therapist and are facing some tough realities. We also share what it was like to spend some time with the girls’ grandfather.
Tuesday night was kind of like a Twilight Zone episode for us. It made us think of a skit on Saturday Night Live that you can see here.
Wow, tough lesson, right? Funny, we just had the same kind of Aha! moment with our girls. No matter how good we are as parents, we have to accept the reality that we cannot always ‘fix’ these kids. But what we can give them is more than they would have without us.
You may remember our earlier post. The behavior problems we faced continued to be challenging. Our two girls have just been placed back in their mother’s care, and we are hopeful that things will work out….and sad that they are gone…and worried for their future…and happy for them…and, honestly, a tiny bit relieved too. And I don’t think that makes us horrible people.
It’s funny how we looked at foster care before we became foster parents. We thought we’d bring them into ‘our happy, blessed home’ and give them a snapshot of healthy living and relationships. What we failed to take into account is that anytime you add a member to the family, the dynamics change. You can’t bring someone else into your home and heart without them being a part of the resulting life and environment. Sort of like you described it, you get a ‘new normal’. And it’s not horrible. But it’s not what we expected.
We are going to give ourselves a few weeks to grieve, but we have decided that we aren’t done yet. We might be after the next placement. Or the next. But not yet. We still have more to give. We still feel called to give. And there is stilll such an awesome need.
God bless you and what you do. Thank you for your prayers.
Mary
My wife and I really enjoy your podcast. We are a foster family in Arkansas and and can really relate to your experiences. Thanks for sharing and we look forward to the podcast.
Terry
Hi,
I just recently subcribed to your blog and felt God was telling me to write. My husband and I have been foster parenting for more than 11 years and have had dozens and dozens of foster children. We lost count years ago. We have three adopted “special needs” children, are in the process of adopting a 4th (should be final in late April) and have a foster daughter just placed with us who we may be eventually adopting. We’ve been respiting her for three years and enjoy having her with us. We also have six biological children that are grown and out on their own.
I wanted to write to let you know that your therapist telling you that your daughters are “Special Needs” is not a “life sentence”. In all of our years of foster parenting we have had mulitiple children with attachment issues. Our 10 year old adopted daughter has been with us for five years. She is diagnosed with ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome as well as Reactive Attachement Disorder. Katie was in foster care with us for more than 3 and a half years before we could adopt her and her two half sisters. In those three years, she spent the first nine month rarely sleeping. Her nights were spent kicking the walls or beating her head off the walls. She tantrumed for hours and hours while beating her head on the walls, floors and throwing herself around while scraping her skin, etc. Every day notes came home from school tellling us she talked constantly, made crazy noises, wouldn’t stay in her seat and was fighting with other students. Katie had no boundaries and was constantly lying and stealing things. It has been a battle since day one but, I need to let you know that Katie is now a beautiful child that I love with all my heart. After five years of being with us, she finally has accepted that we are not sending her away and that we love her just like she is. How did we do it? We got really creative and a bit crazy to deal with the behaviors. One time when Katie was tantruming, We all got on the sofa and gave her rounds of applause. The we rated her just like at a diving competion. We held up pieces of paper with scores for the tantrums. If she told me she was going upstairs to cut her head off… (one of her favorite threats), I’d say, ” okay, but don’t bleed on your carpet”. If she said she was running away, I’d say “pack warm clothes, it’s supposed to snow and don’t forget your flashlight because it will be dark soon.” Sometimes, I’d say, “Can I come, too?” Most of the time we’d just ignore the tantrum and she’d get bored of getting no attention. Time Outs never worked for Katie but, making her do a chore appropriate to the behaviors helped a lot. If she tantrumed over setting the table, I’d make her set the table and then do one of her sister’s dinner time chores. If that didn’t work, it was bed time as soon as she ate. When the punishment was over, I reassured her that I did not like her behavior but I loved her enough to make sure that she did the right thing. I guess what I am trying to say is that being in your home for the short time you have had the girls, is not enough time for them to learn to love you yet. You have taken them into your hearts and care so deeply for them, but they are expecting another move any day now in spite of reassurances from you that they are staying. They have no reason to trust you yet and it may take years but eventually they will. Even as they grow to love you, their birth mother will still always be an important part of their lives and they will always have a dream of returning “home”.
In five years of being consistent, loving, and making Katie responsible for her actions, we are finally developing quite a bond with her. She now in the past six months has begun to give voluntary hugs and kisses (before we were only permitted to kiss the top of her head) and no longer tantrums or gets in trouble in school. She’s even calmed down enough and feels secure enough to stay in a seat at school and has become a fifth grade cheerleader.
Find hobbies that help the girls bond with each of you alone and together. Finger paint with shaving cream on the table (it’s such fun to sneak and make a big mess), built a tent over the table for just two of you and read a story, go for a walk, have Daddy take them one at a time on date, bake a cake, color with chalk on the sidewalk, let them give you a fancy “hairdo”, put make up on together, plant a garden, have a tea party with daddy, make a scrapbook of pictures of visits with their birth family, it helps them to learn it’s okay to love both families.
There are some special books you can read. The books by Dr. Gregory Keck are wonderful ( http://www.abcofohio.net/ ) and so is Twenty Things Adopted Children Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew
They explain a lot of what goes on in the minds of these poor damaged children.
God Bless you in your journey with foster parenting and you will be in my husband and my prayers.
Gail Bable
bable7061@comcast.net
Mary,
Thanks for checking in. I actually think of you guys every time we’re having a really tough moment. I always think ‘I wonder if it’s any easier on them?”
Our two girls have just been placed back in their mother’s care, and we are hopeful that things will work out….and sad that they are gone…and worried for their future…and happy for them…and, honestly, a tiny bit relieved too. And I don’t think that makes us horrible people.
There is so much truth in that. And you are definitely NOT horrible people. Wise of you to take some time off. Keep up the good work.
Terry,
Glad we can be an encouragement to you. How many kids do you have? How long have you been doing it.
Being a first time mother, I wasn’t ready for anything. But for my first child to be of special needs, I needed all the helpI could get. I recently got a book called Parenting Children with Health Issues. It’s really been a great help for me not really knowing what to expect.
I’m quite thrilled with the book actually, as well as the website. There’s a section where you can ‘Ask Dr.Cline’ which is always a huge help.
I hope others can find this as useful as me. It’s really an excellent helping hand.This is a valuable book that will help parents of children of all ages.
Take Care, Chrissy
Gail,
Sorry I just saw your message in moderation. Thanks for your kind words of encouragement. It sounds like you’re a fan of “Love and Logic” and it worked for you. That’s great to hear. We’ll for sure check out your links.
We’ve been fostering for 3 and a half years,and I think we currently have our ninth and tenth child with us. We have three “loined” children, I think that’s the preferred term, ages 14, 12, and 9, who are great with our foster kids.
We also feel a strong spiritual connection to fostering and feel convicted to care for these little ones. So far we have only had kids from 5 days old to seven years old in our home.
We have a slightly different situation than you all with the hopeful adoption of your girls, we have had the 5 day girl, born to a drug addicted mother, for 6 months and are preparing for her to be moved to an adoptive home in the next week or two.
Once again we enjoy your podcast and truly look forward to the next installment.
Terry
Hi Tim and Wendy,
I recently found your podcasts on iTunes and am playing catch up with them and have listened to about the first nine today after finding them. I just want to tell you that you guys are doing a great job! I have thought about foster care/adoption for a long time. Growing up, I always knew that I wanted to have children – and lots of them – I still want between four and six, but have none as of now. I even told my mom when I was growing up that if I hit the age of 26 and wasn’t in a relationship at the time nor had any children, that I was going to start the journey of taking in someone else’s children into my life.
I’m still a little ways off from the set age that I created while growing up – I’m 23 right now…but I still look forward to having children, whether they are biological or not. About five months ago I started to seriously toy with the idea of foster care, but have since quieted the urge to be a mother at this time. I know that I could be a foster parent at my age, but I’m single and I worry about being able to do it all on my own. The other thing I worry about is meeting a potential mate if I am doing the foster parenting thing by myself at my age. I’m not into the whole going out night life scene that most my age are enjoying, so I’m already not getting out a lot to meet people.
So…my mothering right now is being channeled through my job. I am a registered nurse in a neonatal intensive care unit and I love my job with all my heart and taking care of those tiny little babies! It still has it’s tough times, though – such as I discharged a little baby to DFS (Division of Family Services) where they placed the little one in a foster family and then reuniting the baby with the parents 3 weeks after being discharged from our hospital. Sadly – and my heart truly breaks saying this since it is still so fresh in my mind – one week after being placed back with the parents, this small baby was brought into our ER being coded (this was last week). There was no reason that this baby should have been brought to the hospital in cardiac arrest…this baby stayed on our unit for months and had an uneventful stay – the only problem was being born too early – and being a healthy baby, there was no reason… This child should not have been placed back with the parents – we interacted with this family for months and knew that it wasn’t a stable and safe environment…but DFS gave the baby back to the parents. It’s all so sad and heart breaking.
On a little brighter note, this isn’t a common occurence and I very much love my job other than these issues. I’ve been doing my job for a year now since graduating from college and have only seen DFS take a couple of our babies from their parents. My job lets me be a “substitute mother” and love on these babies when their own moms aren’t there and it will have to tie me over with my urge to be a mother and have my own children until I decide to take the plunge and either do foster parenting/adoption/have biological children.
Until I feel that it’s the right time to take the plunge, I will continue to listen to your podcasts as you two are giving me some great insight and knowledge into the fostering parenting world.
Keep up the great work and keep those podcasts coming!
Ashley
Ashley, Terry and Chrissy–thanks for checking in! It is great to hear your stories.
Ashley, we haven’t talked much about single foster parenting on the podcast, but I’ve thought about what it would be like. I’m convinced you need two strong things to do it well.
First would be close male friends or family members for your foster children to connect with. Being that foster kids usually have been hurt, rejected or unprotected by both a male and female, I think they need strong connections to both sexes in order to heal. A committed mentor, close neighbor or foster grandfather could do the trick.
The second thing you absolutely need is a rockin’ support system! You need someone that you can share ALL of your highs and lows with, whether that be your parent, a friend or another foster parent who has an open ear and zipped lip. You also need a good network of others around you who will babysit, bring you meals, and step in for emergencies when you just can’t handle it anymore. Tim and I have those things built in since we’re doing this together, but we still crave the extended community too.
God bless you for having the heart to do this! We’ll look forward to hearing from you down the road.
Wendy
Hi,
I’m an adoptive parent, new to your blog. I appreciate your candor and good humor.
I must say, I’m struggling in a way… appreciating the intimate view of your family life… but I’m concerned about 2 things. One is, your use of the kids’ names…. are these their real names? Their birth mom, their infant sibling? I hope these aren’t their real names, and apologize if I’ve missed your caveat. If these really are their real names, I just feel as though you are exposing a lot about them without their ability to really give consent.
In addition, I’m concerned about the kids calling you “mommy” etc before adoption is finalized…. Maybe you’ve covered the process by which that happened earlier and I’ve missed it. If so I apologize.
Yours in struggle,
Lee
Hey Lee,
Thanks for listening and posting your concerns. Yes, just to be clear. We do NOT use the kid’s real names, nor their birth mom’s, nor their baby sister’s. Thanks for the reminder to give the caveat more often. We are also not disclosing our location and there is a great deal of other confidential information that we are purposefully not sharing despite these other precautions.
As far as them calling us Mommy and Daddy. . .from the day they entered our home we let them know that it was quite alright to call us by our first names. Linda (not her real name) started calling us Mommy and Daddy first. Andrea (not her real name) was concerned and confused about that. We explained that we are the Mommy and Daddy of our house and they are free to call us that if they wish. Carmen (not her real name), their birth mom, refers to us as Mommy and Daddy when speaking to the girls as well. Though most often she differentiates with “Mommy Wendy”. Carmen has also explicitly stated that I am their Daddy and the only Daddy they should know.
We’ve mentioned all of this in the past, but just in case you can’t find it or don’t want to go looking for it.
Happy Belated birthday to Andrea!
I commented many months ago, about us adopting a boy/girl sibling group. As time has gone on, I can relate more and more to your situation. Our kids have a half sister that was born while they were in our custody also. She remained with her birth mom. We are having some serious issues with lying and stealing with one of our children, which is disheartening after all this time. We did have a good conversation with him the other night, and found out some feelings he had about being removed from his home to begin with, that was five years ago now. He thought he was being kidnapped, still to this day, he thought someone kidnapped him while his parents let them, and then at each foster home the same thing happened. We were blessed that we got them a few months after being taken from their home, but still it never crossed our minds that he felt that way. Anyway, I really enjoy hearing your podcast, as crazy as it all sounds, I’d still like to adopt again, so I’d like your prayers, as you’re in mine. God Bless
Shelly
Keep up the good work Shelly. Hopefully our kids will all see brighter days.
Hi! I just discovered your podcast last weekend and have slowly been listening to them all. I was listening to this episode today while cleaning, and while I want to say how amazing your podcast is, and how much I look forward to listening to the rest of the episodes- along with how touching this episode was in particular… my skin crawled when you said “sitting indian style.” It’s not particularly an offensive phrase in and of itself, but growing up part native, the phrases people use day-to-day without realizing how negative they can be is disappointing, at best. One great, quick resource on this is a page on the Understanding Prejudice website, along with the website Anti Racist Parent (which has a lot of contributors who are adoptees, have adoptived, or work in the adoption and/or foster care system!
I’m looking forward to listening to more podcasts this weekend!
You’re right. My apologies. Our girls actually always say “criss cross applesauce”, and I guess we haven’t quite picked it up yet.
That’s great! It is harder to pick up when you’ve been told it’s OK to do when you were growing up- thanks for encouraging your children, even when you find it hard to adapt yourself.