My son is an evil genius

So one the issues that I have with DS2 is his determined obstinance. He wants control of all parts of his life even if the control hurts him in the long run. But I must say that today's example of this control was genius and glaringly shows where public school, and frankly adults in general, sometimes mis-fire in their plans to control kids' behaviors.

So once again we headed to school. Once again, he didn't grab a coat. He did have a fleece pullover but no jacket. I expressed my continued frustration about this to which he responded, "Don't worry. I have it all worked out. I don't have to go out for recess."

I thought for a moment not sure how to respond. I could tell that there was more to this story.

"The cover to my Social Studies book cover is ripped and so I don't have to go outside until it is repaired. I have it all worked out."

Hmmmm! I guess the school got him ; ) Can't do what he doesn't want to do until he fixes what he distroyed. I'm thinking that it will be fixed just about when the first tulip peeks through the ground.

I couldn't help but chuckle. He is an expert in using our own logical powers against us. I did go on to talk about how his master plan may backfire, but he doesn't yet have the forethought to see the downside. He did agree to bring the book home to be recovered, but I'm not sure how long that will last.

If you use the Dr. Phil phrase, "How did this behavior work for you?" I think the answer would be "very well" which I don't think is exactly what the school was going for when they imposed this rule.

I love you / I hate you

The best advice that I have had as a foster parent of a child with RAD is "don't take it personally". At first I thought this was just bunk and was frustrated by the simplistic answer and yet now I run this phrase through my head daily. Our days can go from so much fun and laughter to silly conversations where he claims he doesn't care about anything.

The other day, we saw a commercial for Anthony Hopkins Wolfman movie. He thought it looked fantastic and thought we should all go see it. While I would agree that like all of Anthony Hopkins work it looks like a great movie, I don't think it looks appropriate for an 11 year old. So I said that this would not be on our viewing schedule to which he responded, "I will be seeing it."

"DS2, do we have to go through it again? The movie is R rated. We are not going to see R rated movies. (as you can tell this has been a common point of conversation)"

"Well, I will be seeing it. I didn't say that I would see it with you." He glared at me. "I get to choose my families and I will just choose a family who will let me."

I knew he didn't really mean it, but it surely doesn't make the words hurt any less. My biological kids sat there stunned. I took a breathe and replied, "You are right. You get to choose your families, but I hope that you wouldn't make the choice over something as silly as a movie. You may get to choose your families, but I have an obligation to be the best mother possible for you and I don't think an R rated movie that looks that scary is appropriate for an 11 year old."

He rolled his eyes.

These little power struggles can take such a toll on your psyche. I know that RAD makes it hard for him to attach to others, but hurtful words like that make it hard for the rest of us to attach. We think we are going along fine and becoming a family and then he expresses that none of it matters to him. It can be so frustrating and it is then that I hear that echo, "Don't take it personally."

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."

Is Swearing a Problem?

Hint to stop a swearing problem: We have been facing a swearing problem with the newest member of our family. While in is relatively minor, it is definitively a problem. He has gotten in trouble at school for it, at sports activities, and at home. There is certainly no filter of what may be ok with one of the boys and how you speak to an adult. And he is very frustrated that we think swearing is a problem. He often wants to bait us into debating the rudeness of specific words. So the new phrase that has entered our home is “word choice – what would be a better word choice?” While at first he rolled his eyes, the rest of the family has really gotten into this and has started coming up with funny alternatives. For example, instead of the adding an expletive the end of a sentence, one could add “Oh, peanut butter and jelly”. We have also revived old phrases like “Oh, Jiminy”, “Gosh”, and “Goodness gracious”. Of course, we have also learned that it is not so much the words that you use, but how you use the words that really make something a swear.

Modeling Behavior

Some where I read a quote about, “be aware of the eyes are upon you.” It had to do with children watching everything that we do from how friendly we are to how we deal with stress. We can tell them what to do, demand that they do or do not do something, but our loudest words come from our actions. Although the exact quote eludes me, its basic premise sits on my heart, especially since we have added a foster child to the mix. Unfortunately, in his little life far too many people have given him bad examples so it is even more important that we do well. Interestingly, our biological children have not escaped from this requirement either. DS2 looks even more keenly on their behavior than ours. I had to remind DD this the other day when she was misbehaving a bit. I was clear about the behavior that I expected, but then I added, “Don’t forget you are a model.”


She responded that she wasn’t a model and looked genuinely confused by my comment. I let her know that as the eldest sister in the house, she was a model always now. Little eyes were watching. I could tell by her eyes that she took this comment to heart.


How do I know that my little girl is becoming a woman? By not only her acknowledgement of this duty, but the fact that she has taken it seriously and changed her behavior to be a better model.


I must tell you that this experience of foster parenting has strengthened my belief in my own parenting and my pride in my own children. They have been amazingly patient, truly kind, very responsible, and a great support to DH and I. We are not foster parents, but a foster family.

Choosing a Homeschool Curriculum

What makes a homeschool curriculum? Do you buy it? Create it? Plan it? Evolve it? Ignore it? I think that if you asked a myriad of homeschoolers, you would get a myriad of responses. In our case, we are what is known as eclectic. We aren’t strict school at home people. We aren’t unschoolers. We kind of live our life in the middle. I have a plan of attack and we use Alpha Omega LifePac’s as our core, but I am willing to stretch, change, omit, or add as needed. I look around to see what is going on in the world. I try to use the kid’s interests as jumping off points. I try to become visibly excited about information I find to see if it might be contagious.



This is one of the many great freedoms that homeschooling can offer. I always think it is such a shame when there is something wonderfully curious going on and yet the school system is stuck getting through their curriculum. What else can they do though? 30 kids may have 30 different interests. What interests one may not another. Plus the hours alone prevent some of the excitement. It is very hard for me to get excited about anything when I have to get up at 6 am. Plus, did you ever realize how interesting things could be at 2 am? How would / could a class adapt if a student became fascinated with a subject for weeks at a time to the exclusion of his other learning? But as homeschoolers, we are free to do this.



Plus, as homeschoolers, I am not confined to judging my children’s accomplishments strictly by standard assessments of their knowledge. DD can write a blog. DS1 can draw a picture. DS1 may do his reading by pouring through cookbooks, creating a masterpiece, and then teaching another child to do the same. Frankly, that is about as tasty a final exam on technical reading that one can get. DD, on the other hand, may work in reverse and beg to learn how to create an PowerPoint with an embedded graph to show the growth of patrons at her library so that she can argue for additional funding.

Homeschooling, also, may include a far broader reaching curriculum than a traditional school. In addition to Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, I consider:



-Compassion

-Kindness

-Work ethic

-Teamwork

-Citizenship

-Honesty

-Responsibility



And other such virtues that are very difficult to quantify. I consider the growth in these areas to be a better gauge of how we are doing than the grade level on their books (I still can’t quite figure out why we insist on putting them there in the first place) or the grades they receive on their tests.



One of the greatest benefits of homeschooling is the ability to monitor and adjust. In my job as the site facilitator for a program which teaches teachers, I often hear the phrase “monitor and adjust” used by the instructors. The phrase is used to explain how the future teachers how to show proceed in presenting their lesson plans if things are not going just as they had planned, but how far can they realistically adjust? When you homeschool, the ability to monitor and adjust is almost endless. I think of it like an old fashioned stage coach heading across country during the Western Expansion. If you were on a definitive path that you could not veer from, what obstacles might stop you from continuing your journey? What amazing sights might you miss? How many wagons would be able to finish the journey? But if you had endless abilities to “monitor and adjust” based on the needs of the horses, the stage, the road, the passengers, how might the journey be different?



So needless to say my advice for choosing a homeschool curriculum is fluid. Chose one if you wish. If it doesn’t work, try another. If something new or different catches your eye, don’t be afraid to try it. Think of assessment in a completely different way. What does it mean to be successful? And most importantly of all is have fun and find the joy in learning. Remember you chose to move away from the traditional methods for a reason: Rejoice in the freedom that you now have.



Helpful websites: Enchanted Learning ; Alpha Omega ; Calendar of Events ;

Escaping the Time and Space

Does it seem that I have disappeared? Fallen off the planet? To some degree I have. I have been trying to make sure that I post at least once a week (originally, I was working on once a day). Becoming a foster parent has taken up far more of my energy or time than I have ever anticipated. This is not necessarily a bad thing, just a reality. As we are intensive foster parents, the needs of our new child have been eating into our time in unforeseen ways and truthfully completely out of his control too. Because of his needs there are multiple appointments a week which are compounded by the requirements assigned by the state for his oversight. I know that there is a part of me that wants to yell, “Give us a break!” I can only imagine how he feels. Everyday, someone else is in the house asking him more questions. I understand their need for oversight, but maybe they could do it while assisting with his homework, watching one of his basketball games, or helping us get dinner together. Frankly, these day to day activities would probably speak more to how life is going than their intrusive sit down visits. I must say that all the people are quite pleasant (thank goodness) and truly have DS2’s best interests at heart, but this system seems to really bog down real life. Some days he can’t even get his homework done before basketball due to their visits. Once we ended up eating hot dogs because I didn’t get the chicken in the oven properly and had to leave DD overseeing it. It also seems that so many of these visits are redundant. Couldn’t one Social worker report to the other two instead of each of them having their different responsibilities and assessments? I hoping this will slow down over time, but we’ll see. I surely welcome any helpful suggestions from anyone else that has had to deal with this issue.

Some of the time constraints are of my own doing as we opted to maintain his therapist and other mental care in a city which is 45 minutes away, but I felt the poor child had had enough transition without taking away more people that he had built relationships with. I do find it funny though that people who chose to work with children only seem to be available during the day. Doesn’t it seem odd that we would want to take a child who is already struggling at school and make it basically mandatory to take him out of school in order to get proper mental and physical care?


Funny homeschooling moment related to this: Although DS2 is in public school, I am still homeschooling our other two children and among all these crazy time constraints, I am trying desperately to stay on top of their studies. The other day when we were waiting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, DS1 and I ended up having an impromptu art appreciation lesson. As any homeschooler can attest, the best curriculum plan is to use what is around you.