what were we thinking revisited

My husband read my blog the other day.
“You know what we were thinking,” he told me. “We wanted to help. We saw a child who needed us. We thought we could help.”
Maybe we still can. I don’t know. We are looking at this from the middle. It is hard to have perspective on the size of the forest when you can’t see through the trees. Only God know the ending from the beginning.
Years ago my oldest son was giving us fits. He was angry,oppositional and not always rational. At the time I was despairing over his future. It seemed he was going to succumb to his demons and let his anger rule him. There was a year when all his decisions were one hundred and eighty degrees from the way he had been raised.
Today his son and daughter ran to me to give me hugs and kisses. Now in his mid twenties,he is the man he was raised to be. His demons are silenced. He has goals. He loves his wife and children. Not that he won’t still wind me up, just to see what I will say. He will. He still teases his sisters;occasionally to the point of distraction. His anger is mostly gone. His abuse no longer dictates his life.
I hang on to that when I struggle with youngest. I am a realist. Youngest cannot love at this point. The ability to love was never removed from my oldest son. My oldest knew Christ from an early age. Youngest still hates Christ. But still……
As to future adoptions…
Kids are kind of what we do.
We are not a fifties TV family. We certainly are not the Duggers. We just do the best we can and love our kids. When asked why we would add older traumatized children-especially after dealing with youngest-our answer is the same as it has always been. Someone needs to love these kids,to give them a stable base from which to heal. It is kind of what we do. Besides,we like kids. Most of the time. Do you know how bored we would be,my husband and I,if our nest was empty?
On Monday I will see what we need to reactivate our license. We will do what we need to do and then take it from there. One step at a time. If we still have children waiting, we pray God make that very evident. If we are through,we pray God make that evident as well.

gotta love fas-or perhaps not

Do you remember those good kids I have been writing about? The three I could parent another half dozen just like them?
Well the little angels have been scamming on their school work. My nearly eighteen year old daughter had enough sense to kick herself in high gear and complete her writing assignments. (one of which was quite good-not her normal) Both boys however decided it was in their best interest to not only not do their work ,but to blame me for calling them on it. I have now served peanut butter three times in the last twenty-four hours. My thirteen year old is finally over his mad and talking to me. He is also doing the work he was supposed to have finished a week ago. my seventeen year old son is refusing to do anything. Both boys missed karate last night. If their work isn’t caught up by Sunday at bedtime they will be missing their Halloween party.Not only will they miss the party (neither boy cares enough for this to be a big carrot) they will be doing manual labor the entire time they would have been having fun. (cleaning baseboards and mucking out the fridge does happen to be a big stick).
All of the kids have work I check daily. The teens have assignments that are do weekly as well. At the beginning of the week I sit down with them and make sure they understand what they are to be doing. I help them break down the tasks into daily increments and check back when the week is up. This is the first year my thirteen year old has had any independent work. He has a syllabus that breaks his assignments down daily. All he has to do is follow it. I also check with him weekly. unfortunately I forgot to check the kids’ work
This Monday. Something about being in court with youngest distracted me.
It isn’t their inability to work independently that concerns me;although that is a concern with the older two. It is the lack of remorse and misplaced anger that is the concern. I am used to grudge holding for imajined slights. It has been a couple of years since my seventeen year old has flat out refused to do his school. His brother is simply copying him. In years past all three would still be staring blankly at me. This year my daughter took responsibility for her lack of action and did her work.
It is after eight at night and my seventeen year old son has yet to give me two paragraphs. He just stares at me. He talks to me only when forced to. He has spent the entire day staring at a piece of paper. This is of course my fault.
In case you think I am hard on my kids,they have always been allowed to tell me they are having a brain glitch day. They can ask for help. They are encouraged to say “I don’t understand”. They can ask for a break,or to come back to something later. They are not allowed to lie to me and say they have done their work. They are not allowed to just stare at me when I ask them a question. I am thankful they no longer silently cry and let the snot run into their mouths. It took me years to break that one.
In case you think this is normal teen behavior,it isn’t. This is getting stuck and having a difficult time moving forward. If they are to be independent they have to learn how to recognize when they have stuborned onto something and let it go. You can’t give your boss the blank stare or glare at him if he has corrected you. You cannot refuse to correct your mistakes of follow directions at work. Employers don’t like that for some reason.
When they were younger, this was the norm. Up until last year,I would see this a few times a year. This is the first time in a year’s time they have pulled this.
They are checking to see if I am paying attention to them. They are wondering, do I care enough to help them through. Am I going to be consistent? Do I really care? Do I really believe they are capable of doing their school work;or do I think they are too “dumb”.
In truth,I have not been giving them firm enough boundaries. I am going to go back to checking daily on their “independent ” work. I will not leave them alone in the house if I can at all help it. I will parent them a few years younger than they are.
This has been our problem since day one. The kids thrive under firm boundaries and close supervision. If that is eased up at all,they start to flounder. Each year I try and give them a bit more freedom. Sometimes they can handle a bit more. Sometimes they regress. It is a dance.
I think the hardest thing is to see who they could have been if birth mom had stayed sober. On their “on” days they are so sharp. On their “FAS” days,they are not.
It is difficult some days to know where they are. Some days they are age appropriate. some days they are several years younger. Some days they are back and forth between the two.
I could still parent another half dozen just like them though. They are in their hearts,good kids.
If they would just do their blasted school work……

what were we thinking? ……… what are we thinking?

Two years ago,about this time of year (actually November,but close enough) my husband and I were debating whether or not to pursue another adoption. We had just painfully disrupted a pre-adoptive placement. The boy in question was the most sexually reactive person I have ever seen. I have yet to come across a child that reactive in all my reading and research. He was also MR. He was also RAD. He was also hearing voices that told him to hurt people. He could move completely silently. He was eleven. The ironic thing is, he really only raged twice.
As our grief lessoned somewhat, we decided to cautiously move forward towards adoption. It was in that first month of getting children’s profiles (and never hearing again about our inquiries) that we were told about youngest. After N ,we had told ourselves no children older than ten. Eight would be preferable. We didn’t want to have to race the clock with puberty. We wanted time. Well, youngest was eleven. He was a sweet boy in my daughter’s music class. His foster mom worked in the school office. His foster mom was afraid he was going to age out. He was on the photo listing so we saw a picture of a sad smiled,curly headed boy. He looked closer to seven or eight-not a boy entering puberty.He was adorable. The next six months were fighting CPS to bring him home. Our homestudy was rejected-the previous foster-adopt family wanted him back (They had disrupted,we were told,because of the boy’s propensity to pee on things). That was February. In March we were told we were in fact selected. We then started the battle to read his paperwork. It was a battle. All of a sudden his file had to be de-identified prior to us reading it. (policy is de-identification prior to us receiving it. Reading the file in the office of CPS with a worker present has never been an issue) It might be September before the file is ready we were told. To speed the proccess up we rushed our foster licenses. We have always been adopt only. In June we licensed to foster. Now we would be allowed to read the identified file. It was during these months youngest fell apart. He attacked a teacher at school,had a psych hospitalization, and changed foster homes. It was intimated the school had overreacted. In July we had an appointment to read our son’s file. The day before we were told he was looking forward to meeting us. They told him about us before we had agreed to proceed. He was waiting to meet us on the day we drove two hours to read a very incomplete file.This was wrong on may levels. The only behavior we were told about truthfully was his peeing. His rages were downplayed. We were never told the full extent of what CPS knew was his abuse. The rest of the story is here within this blog.
So,why didn’t we disrupt this placement? We could have after the cleaver. Having a child try and hack you is grounds to disrupt. This child raged to the point of restraints many,many times those first few months. Why did we stick by him and not the other boy?
We didn’t disrupt. We doubled and then tripled our efforts to help him settle in. Perhaps it was because we didn’t want to fail another child. We did honestly think we had turned a corner after Thanksgiving. We believed our son had decided to begin to trust us. We consummated the adoption in February. All Hell broke lose four days later.
And here we are.
Like all parents with troubled children,we have dissected nearly every parenting decision we have made. We didn’t enter this last adoption starry-eyed new parents. We have successfully parented eight other children with some pretty hefty issues. We used to be pretty confident in our abilities. It is little comfort that neither the boy we disrupted on (who managed to perp on a five year old while hospitalized),or youngest continue to act out wherever they are. It isn’t any comfort to find out that youngest has been acting this way since he was eight;death threats and all. There just isn’t any comfort.
With this pain and upheaval-for all of us.with the uncertainty of youngest’s future ,why do we wonder if we are done having children? Our family has had two experiences where we were directly and indirectly lied to by CPS. Files were missing on both boys. We have no confidence in our own ability to read between the lines. We do not trust the state to tell us the truth. We have three teens at home with their own adoption and cognitive issues. Is it some pathology in us? Some deep seated guilt? Some twisted need within us?
Or is God still calling us to parent hurt kids?
I look at the three sitting at my dinning room table doing their schoolwork and I think: I could parent six more kids like them. I look at the grown children who were challenges growing up and I think: It was worth all the effort. They have grown up well in-spite of their trauma. I look at youngest and I think: I cannot handle a child this damaged again. I do not have the abilities to parent a child with a bent towards homicide. I simply cannot do it.
Why can I not get excited over being “done”?
Why do I still feel there are a couple more kids out their who are ours?
What on earth are we thinking?

out of the frying pan or one heck of a dilemma

Yesterday was of course court with youngest.While waiting for his case to come up I found out there is one facility that will take him. He will be considered intensive and will have one on one staffing for the first month. It is in a city two hours from the house-not all that far if the traffic gods are kind. My son will remain in detention and will transfer to the residential care center as soon as a bed is available.A bed should open up in two to three weeks. He will have a hearing on the second of November if he is still detained. His case worker (with whom we are on a first name basis) will see if our Blue Cross is accepted. If so,he will be transfered ASAP. So far,so good. We are told the facility is extremely therapist and specializes in adolescents as disturbed as our son. This sounded like the answer to prayer.There was a little red flag when my son’s worker told me the facility needed to be re-certified as they had just changes their name. I asked if this was because of “incidents”. “No,” I was assured,”Change of ownership.”
My biggest concern last night was affordability. Most everyone who has had to try and pay for residential care knows how expensive $1000+30% can be.
The kids at home were reminded that Christmas will be scant in the gift department and money will be tight if we have to use our insurance. No one complained (at least out loud). The kids truely do want their brother well. We are not going to be destitute,just broke. It isn’t as if the kids need anything. They have a lot of “stuff” as it is. They aren’t even all that materialistic. It is more of a pride issue than anything else. As I said,that was my biggest concern. I felt relief we had a bed for youngest.
This morning I researched the facility.
What I found is not good. In fact,it is very,very bad. Frighteningly bad.
Almost hysterical, I called both my son’s worker and his therapist. As I waited for a return call, I researched the parent company (which has not changed hands). I was not reassured. Eventually,youngest’s worker returned my call. She too was appalled when she read what I had found,she said. I was not to worry,she assured me. The incidents took place in 2007,not 2009 as it appeared. That facility was transferring all of it’s residential clients to a different facility. They both had been cleared by the department of family services. All was good. No worries.
I researched the receiving facility. In 2007 and 2008 they had many horrible scandals as well. The resident population was not troubled youths,but troubled youths in this country illegally awaiting deportation. The parent company is the same. The abuse being reported is the same type of abuse my son was removed from his birth family for. There are pending lawsuits.
I am physically ill thinking about the ramifications of this.
We have so little control.
No other facility will accept my son.
His options are limited.
I would rather risk him home than risk him being abused.
I am not the one making these decisions.
The court is.
I have a call in to his lawyer (who I am not all that impressed with).
My son, of course, is his usual manipulative,oppositional self. He has no clue as to the ramifications of his behaviors. He does not understand how his propensity for violence is hindering us from protecting him.
I am not only out of my depth, I am in an alternative universe.
Advise is welcome.

nice weekend,not looking forward to tomorrow

We have had a nice weekend. We took the kids to the zoo on Friday. The wonderful thing about homeschooling is we can do things while the rest of the world is at work or in school. The weather was perfect for a zoo day; eighty and sunny. Since we were passing through my oldest daughter’s neck of the woods, we bought a couple of pizzas and ate with them. My grandson is getting big so fast. He is a hairs’ breadth away from walking. He is adorable and highly intelligent (and I am not biased at all) At some point I will find my camera cord and post pictures. I know the blasted thing is around here somewhere…
My daughter and her husband have just purchased a new house and they are having significant problems with it. When I say new, I mean new-they are the first owners. The problems are severe enough they will be seeing a lawyer. Their dream home has just turned into a nightmare.
Yesterday my husband and I spent the whole day together without kids. It was very much needed. We had minimal fallout from being gone. I was surprised it my my nearly eighteen year old who had the issues. It has been a while since she has reacted that way. Usually it is her brother who has problems. She worked herself out of it and everyone went to bed in good moods.
Tomorrow is court for youngest. As of Friday, no facility has agreed to take him. I don’t know if they will hold him over longer in detention or not. I do not like this lawyer as well as his last one,but beggars can’t be choosers. We are just thankful the court appointed him a lawyer. It is not within our means to pay for one ourselves. My troubled son is still trying to manipulate even while in detention. I wish he would stop that. It gets him nowhere. It helps him not at all. All it does is give him yet another excuse to get angry when his attempts are thwarted. I need to see him tonight. The last time I visited him, I left after ten minutes. He was rude. I cannot see spending the whole thirty minutes with him when he is treating me ugly. I’ll try again this afternoon. I would think he is scared with court looming. I will also get to know if he earned his pizza. He said he was maintaining his level to get pizza on Saturday. He didn’t call last night,so He may have earned his pizza and then acted up,or he may just not have called.He has been using his phone calls as control issues and has been using them to try and triangulate from afar. We haven’t been playing along. It doesn’t seem to stop him from trying.
Our grief is coming in waves again. He has so much potential. We just are unable to help him find it.
Tomorrow may be another two weeks in detention,or tomorrow may be sentencing. No one has told us.
The not knowing what to expect is driving me nuts.

the rest of the family

The rest of the family seems to be handling life just fine. The kids at home are much, much lighter since the news youngest will not be returning home anytime in the foreseeable future. We have talked about birth families, choices and freewill. We have talked about feeling guilty for not liking someone you love. We have talked quite a bit about mom and dad carrying the burden for the youngest-not them. They have done their bit.
School is finally in a workable rhythm. We have a schedule that keeps everyone moving forward and still allows them down time. With the exception of my thirteen year old sneaking the calculator to do his math (no calculators until algebra), they are buckling down and giving me their best.
My grown kids are,well,grown. They are handling themselves well, even when life isn’t easy. The grandkids are healthy and causing their parents a few early gray hairs.
It is time for me to give youngest fully over to God. I have done what I can do. The kids still at home need me to be more fully engaged with them. My grown kids need me to bounce ideas and complaints off of. My grandkids need me to play with them. I need to regain my perspective. The grief doesn’t vanish,it becomes incorporated in. I know this is a proccess. I know I will take the burden back from God from time to time. For today I will rest in the knowledge and comfort of God’s love-for my family and for myself.
For today it is enough.

proccessing

I have been trying to proccess the very real possibility that youngest will not be coming home; perhaps for a long,long time. There are no RTC’s that are willing to take him with his level of aggressiveness.
He sure isn’t safe to have home. If a large staff of trained adults can’t handle him in an institutional setting, how can we handle him at home? I do want him home,but I am much more aware of my own limits. There are only so many times I can restrain my son. Eventually someone will be hurt.
I think we have done everything in our power to help our son. The only thing we did not do was to remove all consequences from him. He wants to do as he pleases twenty-four-seven. His attachment therapist told me he shouldn’t have negative consequences. That one we could not do. We have done everything else. We have medicated him against our better judgment. We have visited him and taken his phone calls. We have made every family counseling and every psychiatrist appointment.We have called,emailed and badgered trying to find a therapeutic setting for him. We have loved him unconditionally. We have prayed and are praying for him.We have never tried to make him into someone he wasn’t. We did not expect him to love us in return. We did expect he follow the basic rules of the house and not hurt others. Our household rules are not that grievous. Honest.
We will continue to love him unconditionally. We will stand with him when he goes to court. There are no more people to call,badger,e-mail about alternative placement. Without a miracle, my son will be in juvenile prison. I cannot will my son to heal. I cannot heal for him. I would carry his pain if he would let me. I would lend him my strength if he would take it.
I feel as if I have failed my son-but I don’t know what else I could have or could yet do.
I want to blame others. I want someone to be angry with. I want to shake my son until his teeth rattle and some sense floats to the top. I want to punch his birth father. I want to scream at CPS. I want God to intervene-who cares about free will. I want my son to feel loved and cared for. I want to be able to make things better.
I want to understand.

court

His (youngest) re-sentencing is on the 19th. They don’t have a clue what to do with him. No one wants to send him to the correctional facility. The prosecutor and his lawyer both agree he cannot come home. That leaves an RTC. We need to figure out how to fund a RTC and then we have to find one that will accept him.
For now he will stay in detention.
He loves detention.

court in the morning and a visit tonight

Youngest has court at nine tomorrow (Thursday) morning. I think this is just his detention hearing. I don’t think they will determine where he goes next. My husband will go and support him in court. I will stay home and supervise a grammar test for my high schoolers. (Who could not find their book until I told them it would be a shame for them to have to pay for a new copy. Funny how that works…)
I visited youngest in detention this evening. I had to wait for him to get out of the shower and three separate people gave me their condolences. One (the proccess server and child transporter guy) gave me some parenting advise. I smiled and nodded. He kept telling me my son would return to the way he was raised-and he knew I raised him well. He was trying to comfort me. He doesn’t know my son has only been my son for a year. He is doing what he was raised to do.
The guard bringing my son to me was talking about he couldn’t believe the incident reports he had read-my son was always so well behaved while in detention. I told the guard that my son can be very sweet;and then he isn’t anymore. It is his pattern.
Youngest started the visit with attitude. I told him he had made a pretty bad choice and asked him what his plans were. He told me he wanted to “Work his program and go home” I reminded him he couldn’t go back and “work his program”. He had blown it. He then told me “That’s messed up! It pisses me off they did this to me three weeks before I was supposed to be done” I told him “they” didn’t do anything. He had deliberately made the choice to attack the staff. He has known on Sunday he was close to being taken back and had chosen to attack the staff not once,but twice. I told him either his dad or I would be in court with him in the morning. He didn’t seem to know he was on the docket. He then went on saying nothing was his fault because he was “pissed off” and just did stuff. I reminded him he was in control of himself and he became angry and asked me “why are you doin’ this to us?”.
Us?
I asked him who us was. He looked half panicked and half confused. He finally brought up me getting on his brother over school work left undone.
We sat in silence for a while.
Then I told him I loved him. I told him he had some lies in his head that he needed to let go of. The lies said that he was evil and not worth saving. The lies said no one loved him. I told him the truth was he had good inside him and was worth saving He had many people who loved him -and listed them. I told him Jesus loved him. I told him he had a home. I told him we would stand beside him as he faced his consequences. I talked about giving his anger over to God. I talked. He sat facing away from me. I told him I knew he could hear me and I wanted him to remember that he was loved,and worthwhile. I told him that wherever he was sent, he would have time to think. I wanted these words in his head. Maybe someday he would believe them.
I asked him why he hated me. He didn’t know-he just did. I told him again that I loved him.
We sat in silence until it was time for me to go. I asked him to give me a hug. He did. He melted into my arms and cried. I asked for five more minutes and had him sit beside me. I held him to me and breathed with him until he was calm. I had him say after me:
D– and L—– love me
“D– and L—– love me?”
D– and L—– LOVE me
“D– and L—– love me.”
I am not alone.
“I am not alone”
I have a home
“I have a home”
I am worth loving
“I am worth loving?”
I AM worth loving
I am worth loving”
and so on and so forth.

When he called this evening he tried to have attitude but my husband gently reminded him it was his choices that had gotten him back in detention. We would stand beside him,but he was the one who had to change his ways.

He didn’t want to talk to me.

birthdays and odds and ends

On Monday we celebrated my son’s birthday. He is seventeen! As soon as I find the cord to my camera, I will post pictures. He has come a long way from the over-medicated nine year old who entered our family. He still doesn’t talk a whole lot. He is still stubborn from time to time. He is still painfully shy. He is also caring. When he does have something to say it has meaning. He is loyal. He is beginning to move out of his comfort zone and get out in the world. (OK,so we are providing a little push-he is still doing it) He is also adored by his niece and nephews. Having two two year olds wish you a “Happy Birday Unc G…,I uve you!” has to warm the heart. It is also nice that his grown siblings are beginning to talk to him as more of an equal and less of a little brother.
He is a son to be proud of!
The week leading up to his birthday was filled with old behaviors. My thirteen year old told me he had no gift for his brother and had no intention of getting him one. This was not a good thing to say to me and I let him know in no uncertain terms I was very disappointed in him. My daughter also said she needed to shop for her brother ,but didn’t want to do so. I was unhappy with her as well. It turns out they purchased gifts for him after all. I still do not know why they didn’t tell me. It would have saved their ears and a weekend of my thirteen year old refusing to speak to me because I yelled at him. A simple “We have his gift” would have sufficed. The joys of FAS. I will never fully understand their brains.
My youngest daughter spent the weekend at a workshop/school/whatever-they-call-it for CAP. The weekend was spent learning to write and do public speaking; not exactly my daughter’s strong suit (yet,she voluntarily signed up,paid her own money,and went). The writing assignments were exactly as I told her they would be. I have been working on writing with my high schoolers for the last two years. They will take days and weeks to complete an assignment designed to take a couple of hours . In the real world,they really are expected to complete a two page paper in an hour’s time. My daughter had several such assignments. She said it was much,much harder than she expected it to be.
Mom, it seems, might actually know what she is talking about.
Imagine that.