Wondering about the Foster Care System

My DS2 has been bringing the most interesting things to my attention. I think so many of us think that foster care moves children from difficult home situations to more stable situations that allow them to heal and move on. My DS2 has had more placements than most children and thus has seen more than perhaps the average child. He was placed with the state when he was only months old and then adopted for a few years before he was 10, but that too was also disrupted. But as he opens up and shares his past, he knows things that I would not expect a child of his age to know and doesn't know things that he should.

He doesn't know what the small intestine are, but can shoot with a pool stick behind his back.

He doesn't know who Joe Biden, the vice president of the United States, is, but can name the major games of the city he was last placed in.

He didn't know that Hawaii was created by volcanoes, but he knows what a quarter slot is.

All these little tidbits were picked up not in the abusive homes but in foster care. What does this say about our foster care system? These children who are already fragile because of the horrors they have been through aren't treated like the precious gems of our society, but instead are put in homes that are questionable on their own. Why do you think so many families which have better circumstances don't consider foster care? How do you think we can fix this? If families from lesser circumstances wish to foster, how do we support them so that things like "jacking" bikes are not a part of these children's lives?

We as a society will pay later if we don't pay now and the cost will be much, much higher. DS2 cannot even visualize a future for himself and yet he knows what it means to be recruited by a gang. I can see and I continue to pray that his eyes are opened to a more productive future each day that we spend together. I hope that he begins to see how his actions affect not just him but all of society, but I wonder about the children that are now placed in the homes which he has left. Are they experiencing the same learning that he did? Do you have the power to change this? Would you be willing to step out of your comfort to make a change? Speak out for those that have no voice and don't even realize they need one. Consider being a foster parent yourself or a mentor. Perhaps you can be a CASA representative. Perhaps you could support someone else in being a foster parent. As the PSA says, "you don't have to be perfect, to make a change in a child's life."

No Guns Allowed!

I was the mother, who swore my kids would never play with guns. I told relatives not to buy even play guns. I admonished the kids when they turned Legos or sticks into guns. I drilled into their heads that guns were bad. Then DS was involved in Cub Scouts. Cub Scouts allows / encourages shooting with bb guns. I was horrified and scared when my husband told me that there would be shooting at summer camp. I made my husband promise that he would take extra care of DS and watch extra carefully when they were at the range. DS came home from that camping trip ecstatic. The range master was impressed with his accuracy. DS had posted 5 shots within the size of a dime. He had qualified as a sharp shooter. This should have been a sign of what was to come. DS was very proud of this and wanted to do more, so we found a range that practiced competitive shooting. This was not a fluke. DS moved up a 22 long rifle and DD wanted to try too. I sat through their safety class with them to see how they were instructed. I cannot voice how nervous I was about this. I had been taught to fear guns. Perhaps what I should have been taught was to fear people who use guns unsafely or with the intent to do harm. Perhaps it would have made more sense to have gun safety classes vs. telling us to never touch them.

Anyway, flash forward DS has now made the alternate spot on the State rifle team two years running and both children have gotten their hunting licenses. DD has even passed the bow course. The rifle sports and hunting opportunities have allowed for great family bonding, incredible self-control, a growth in self-esteem, and patience. If I had known what this sport would bring to our family, I would have brought the kids to the range instead of being so scared.

Having this knowledge also may have saved my children's life when they, along with a friend, found a gun in the woods. All the kids had experience with guns and knew the power they held, they were not curious, and were aware of mis-fires etc. They did not touch the gun, but immediately came to get adults to handle the situation. I'm not sure that their reaction would have been the same had they not experienced the power of a gun and knew they could use a real one the next time they were at the range. In fact, there have been studies showing that children that have been told not to touch guns, will; so if you think your warnings will save your children, you may want to think again.

Foster Parenting - Is it for us?

Big steps in our house. We have started our classes toward being foster parents. We have 7 more classes to go and our intensive home study. I appreciated how our instructor introduced the course, "We like to call this a mutual interaction course during which you will decided if this is right for you, and we can begin to see if you are right for us."

We are looking to be intensive foster parents i.e. foster parents for children with special needs/circumstances. Certainly, all children in the foster system have special needs i.e. the need for family and love, but these children exhibit larger issues or for some other reason require more time than children in the regular system.

One of the first questions we got at our first meeting was why were we considering IFC (intensive foster care)? My first thought was of a student that I had when I was student teaching (Let's call him Patrick.). When I started teaching, I expected to really like the goodie two shoes and find the difficult children to be my biggest problem; however, what I found was that the "trouble makers" were the ones that stole my heart. Patrick was always bothering other kids. He was actually known to jump over a table and punch other children. He was outwardly aggressive and extremely confrontational to adults (mind you this was 3rd grade). I cannot tell you the number of times I had to take this child aside to talk to him. One particularly difficult day, when I took him aside, he finally just admitted that he was hungry. His mom was "saving" the food for this weekend when a friend of hers was coming by. He hadn't eaten since yesterday at school. I knew from the background on Patrick that this was most likely a true story. The concept of a parent withholding food from their child was foreign to me (Yes, I was naive, but I wasn't even 20 yet). Henceforth, I kept snacks in my desk and told him to come to me any time he was hungry, but that is when I knew that it was these kids that held my hearts--- Kids with all the promise in the world that just needed someone to believe in them, that just needed some stable ground to begin to grow in, that just needed to worry about being a kid and not all the adult worries. Patrick was also and incredible artist. I can only hope that his home life changed and he was given an opportunity to develop this talent or that he remembers just one of our many talks and had the strength to hold on to his dreams. Patrick has been held in my heart from these almost 20 years, but as a teacher there is only so much you can do for so long. As a mother, maybe I could ensure that the Patricks of this world would one day become world renown artists.





I welcome any thoughts by others that have fostered or been fostered. Please let me know how we can be a good family for the children that will hopefully come through our doorway. We still have a long road to travel, but we are now a little farther today.

It is all in a name

When DH and I were pregnant with DD (15 years ago), we had a big debate on her middle name. Although her first name was a gift from God and was just known to be her name, her middle name seemed elusive. We joked that it should start with an “F” so that her initials matched that of the family business, but DH said that the “F” should stand for Fox. Although I thought it sounded pretty cool, I remembered the middle name reveal that occurred for every child around middle school. I figured DD would not appreciate Fox too much at that age. I, also, could not imagine myself hollering her name out. I could just imagine the other parents looking at me thinking “Did she say what I thought she said?” I tried to convince him that Faith would be an acceptable replacement, but he wasn’t crazy about it. We bantered back and forth for weeks until we went in a completely different direction and gave her the middle name of Troi. Several of you are wondering how this is any better than Fox, but there are a few of you who are saying that is cool, because you know the origin.

Troi comes from Deanna Troi that was an empath on the Star Trek Enterprise during the Next Generation series. Uniquely, Deanna has the ability to discern other people’s feelings. She couldn’t quite read their minds, but she could feel if they were being honest or not. She also had the honor of being the highest ranking female officer on the Enterprise. We thought this was a perfect name for all that we could hope for our DD and so we both agreed that Troi was perfect. And so it has been. . .

Flash forward to today; DD has now embarked to live up to her name. We always took the name to be symbolic representing strength, courage, empathy, etc. Yesterday, she has begun the path that may potentially lead her toward it being an accurate description. DD went to her first Sea Cadet drill. She has been talking about an interest in the Navy for several years and she is very excited about the opportunity to see if this may be a direction from her life. Sea Cadets is a Youth organization that prepares children from the Navy or Coast Guard. It will allow her the opportunity to participate in any of the trainings that the adults do and if she chooses the Navy as the direction for her life then she will be ahead of the other enlisted men and woman. I think it is certainly too early to say if she will stick with it or not. I can tell you that she was extremely enthusiastic about it after visiting this week and that we will be back for the next drill in two weeks.

So I guess the moral of the story is that you better think long and hard about the name that you give your child because perhaps you are subconsciously edging them toward that future.

Parenting Styles - to be or not to be like your parents

When you read parenting professionals, they all espouse that you should be the parent that one day you want your children to be and I try to follow this philosophy. However, in my personal life I question if this theory is correct.

My parenting style is completely at odds with the way that I was raised. The killer of this is that fine style continues to today. It is now two days after my birthday and my father (who despite this complaint, I love dearly) has yet to utter the words “Happy Birthday”. Truthfully, this really is nothing new. He has always blamed it off on confusion of my birth date when I was first adopted. The paperwork said one thing and the hospital records said something else. The issue had to be reconciled before the adoption could be finalized. But, it is 38 years later; you would think, if it mattered, he would have gotten it down by now.

And then to top it off, I have been planning to go out with him tomorrow night to see Azar Nafisi speak at the University of Hartford, his alma mater. Azar Nafisi is the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran. I have been looking forward to this lecture since last year. We had had it planned and scheduled several month ago but unfortunately the author was sick and had to cancel. Anyway, my father let me know that the lecture was rescheduled and asked if it fit in my schedule. I said, “Yes” and joked we could celebrate my birthday then. Now mind you, as you’ve read it has been a little crazy, but when he finally called today to ask if I wanted any tomatoes, I asked what the schedule was for tomorrow and he let me know that he had forgotten, he had not RSVPed, and he had to pick up our cousin at the airport. He hoped I didn’t mind . . . Oh, no not at all. I hadn’t arranged alternative childcare, had my assistant Girl Scout leader set up to run the meeting, let the choir director know that I couldn’t be at rehearsal, and have been talking about the lecture for weeks. Grrr!

I promise to always be there for my children.
I promise to remember and celebrate in some form every birthday with my children.
I promise to always make my children feel like they are the most important things/people in my life.
I promise to keep my promises.

I have / am the trifecta of psychological issues. I am the eldest born child in a alcoholic family who was born under the sign of the Virgo. That pretty much makes me a complete control freak with perfectionistic tendencies that will appologize for all actions whether in my control or out of it. I will organize everything, then still worry if I have everything in order, and if you look at me sideways I will be concerned that somehow I have persoanlly no accomodated you or outright offended you in someway. Sometimes it is frightening how right characteristic traits can be. As my husband often jokes, "You have issues!"


Virgo Traits
You Virgos have the uncanny sense to see what's wrong with a person, a situation or your environment. It's why Virgo makes such natural critics. Virgo practical analytical abilities are second to none. Your mental process may not be the most creative, but Virgo's razor-like thinking is highly effective. Like the maiden pictured in the Virgo glyph, you separate the useful wheat from the unneeded chafe, the good from the bad. Virgo might be a "clean freak," but most Virgos have a messy closet somewhere or a disaster under their bed.

The Virgo motto could be "Perfect is almost good enough." On one hand, this trait makes you very employable, for you're not likely to do shabby work. On the other hand, you can be so finicky that you put limitations on your interactions and experiences before they happen. You'll be happier if you can learn to be selectively less critical, both of others and yourself.

http://horoscopes.aol.com/astrology/zodiac-central/virgo

First Child Traits
-Is only child for period of time; used to being center of attention.
-Believes must gain and hold superiority over other children.
-Being right, controlling often important.
-May respond to birth of second child by feeling unloved and neglected.
-Strives to keep or regain parents' attention through conformity. If this failed, chooses to misbehave.
-May develop competent, responsible behavior or become very discouraged.
-Sometime strives to protect and help others.
-Strives to please.

http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/birth_order.htm


Children of Alcoholics Traits
Adult children of alcoholics appear to have characteristics in common as a result of being raised in an alcoholic home. Review the characteristics listed. If you identify with these characteristics then seek appropriate sources of support to understand and resolve them. You will find many books at the bookstore on this subject. Additionally, there is Adult Children of Alcoholics 12-Step self-help community meeting, individual therapy, and group therapy facilitated by a therapist.

1 Isolation, fear of people, and fear of authority figures.

2 Difficulty with identity issues related to seeking constantly the approval of others.

3 Frightened by angry people and personal criticism.

4 Have become an alcoholic yourself, married one, or both. A variation would be the attraction to another compulsive personality such as a workaholic. The similarity is that neither is emotionally available to deal with overwhelming and unhealthy dependency needs.

5 Perpetually being the victim and seeing the world from the perspective of a victim.

6 An overdeveloped sense of responsibility. Concerned about the needs of others to the degree of neglecting your own wants and needs. This is a protective behavior for avoiding a good look at yourself and taking responsibility to identify and resolve your own personal difficulties.

7 Feelings of guilt associated with standing up for your rights. It is easier to give into the demands of others.

8 An addiction to excitement. Feeling a need to be on the edge, and risk-taking behaviors.

9 A tendency to confuse feelings of love and pity. Attracted to people that you can rescue and take care of.

10 Avoidance of feelings related to traumatic childhood experiences. Unable to feel or express feelings because it is frightening and/or painful and overwhelming. Denial of feelings.

11 Low self-esteem. A tendency to judge yourself harshly and be perfectionistic and self-critical.

12 Strong dependency needs and terrified of abandonment. Will do almost anything to hold onto a relationship in order to avoid the fear and pain of abandonment.

13 Alcoholism is a family disease which often results in a family member taking on the characteristics of the disease even if they are not alcoholics (para-alcoholics). Dysfunctional relationships, denial, fearful, avoidance of feelings, poor coping, poor problem solving, afraid that others will find out what you are really like, etc.

14 Tendency to react to things that happen versus taking control and not being victim to the behavior of others or situations created by others.

15 A chameleon. A tendency to be what others want you to be instead of being yourself. A lack of honesty with yourself and others.

http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/assess/subabuse2.htm

Where did this come from today? My dad’s house was broken into. Why? Dear brother, the youngest in the family, exhibits other issues of alcoholic parents and has battled with his own abuse demons for years now. Of course the killer is that as the “responsible” one in the family, I am the one that gets shit on repetitively. Every time I think that I have extricated my family from craziness that swirls around that part of the family, we get drawn in yet again. With both of them gone, who do you think was down bringing in the mail and feeding the fish – yes, the responsible ones. So guess who found the break-in and got the joy of working with the police. As I told them and still maintain, somehow this will all become my fault. Sure enough, as I called my father to discuss the issue, “We don’t want to jump to any conclusions”. Let’s see the tv’s are there, the dvd players, china, silver, but every top drawer is pulled out. Hair clipper boxes are popped open. A first aid kit is rummaged. Social Security cards are still there, blank checks, and credit cards. “It’s like last time just kids in the neighborhood.” A few years ago, he was broken into and coins were taken. This time full jars of coins are still sitting there. This was not local kids and these people found whatever they were looking for and it was small. Of course, as I tried to put drawers back in dressers I came across items that indicate that dear innocent brother is on more of a downtrend than an up. But according to my father, I always think the worst of my brother----Hmm! He must have been warming up dinner - One spoonful at a time.

But in my typical fashion, I feel responsible for something I have no control over. I want to make it better and solve the problem and can’t get over my obsession to get to the bottom of it. I am hurt by my father’s response and frustrated by husband’s feeling that I am making it about me and not my brother. I want to escape and get away from all this and I am so happy that we are moving.

I have decided that the best gift that my father can give me is to write me explicitly out of the will. I really, really don’t ever want anything to do with my brother again. And I'm actually glad that my mother is not alive to go through this all yet again.

Still Daddy's Little Girl

Tonight I made strawberry shortcake. When it was clear that we were not going to eat it all, I rang my father to make sure that he was home and asked if it was ok if I brought something down. One of the nice things about our current home is that we are only a half a mile from my parent’s house (this was especially helpful when my mother was sick). So I packaged up the shortcake, leashed the dog, and headed down. He hollered for me to meet him at the back entrance. I told him to bring a fork. “oh, no. I couldn’t eat any more. What did you bring?”

“Strawberry shortcake”

“Well, maybe I could find room for a little.” Let me tell you that there was barely any left in the bowl to make it worth washing. This made me very happy. I always worry about his eating. He eats only about two vegetables and eats his bagel with cinnamon sugar on it daily. He really should be made an honorary Italian for all the pasta he eats. Sometimes, when I look at him it is hard to believe that he was once a top athlete. I would bring him more food, but he doesn’t like the food that we eat. I wish that he would spend more time up with us, but he doesn’t like that we don’t allow people to smoke in our house. We try to get together at least once a week for coffee. We usually talk every other day – more during great sporting events. And we’ve been planning time together like the visit to the Titanic Exposition, going to seminars at his alma mater, or taking in a play. Even at 37, I still am daddy’s little girl.

Monday Miscellaneous Musings

Yummy New Melon

Oh, I found a yummy new melon – orange flesh. It is a combination of a honeydew and a cantaloupe. I found it at Wal-mart as we set out to get the last few things for the men’s canoe trip and I was grabbing food for coffee hour this week (I went with crackers, cheese, grapes, and melon – easy preparation and oh, so tasty). I couldn’t find a regular cantaloupe, which is what I was looking for, and had to “settle” for something different. See sometime change is good : ). Everyone at coffee hour raved about the flavor and texture, so I had some this morning for breakfast. It was delicious! Sometime diverting from your plan, can be a good thing.

Stuffed with Love

This morning I am eating the leftovers after having done Yoga with DD. If I haven’t mentioned it before, we have decided to make a change and try to become more healthy. Of course, this is made difficult when your husband buys you fudge from Cabela’s and Ben and Jerry’s Coffee Ice cream. Mind you he doesn’t know that DD and I have pledged to try to be healthier, but seriously I felt like I was being stuffed, enticed by my favorite foods. The poor man offered me the coffee ice cream and I almost had a fit, “What are you trying to do to me?”
“What? Are you on a diet? Your son and I just wanted to show you that we were thinking of you and love you.” He responded disappointedly.
I did later have a couple of bites, but I was able to contain myself. As anyone knows, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s is a single serving, so trying to limit to just a tasting is a real challenge.

Phelps has Two Golds Now

I grew up in a very sports oriented house. My father had been quite an athlete when he was young and so he channeled all that enthusiasm toward fan-hood as an adult. As an avid Red Sox fan (Diehard, I believe is the term), life was a little rough in our house especially in September (for those of you that did not follow the Sox in the 1970-90’s, September was the traditional choke time for the Red Sox. No matter how far ahead they were in the race for the pennant, it fell apart then). When I left the house, I could always count on my father watching the Sox or the Giants. So whenever I was watching the game and an incredible play was made, I would dial as fast as I could to share the moment with him. Last night, I had the opportunity to do this again.

Did you see the 4 x 100 freestyle? At 11:30 or so at night, as Lezak touched the wall, I was off my feet and dialing that phone. Sure enough, my father was hooting and hollering on the other end.