Misdirected Rage

In response to Respite, Erika wrote:

She seems really, really angry at you two. I wonder if there's a way for her to express that in a safe way - so that she is expressing her anger but not harming person or property. That always helps my little one. And I'm not a bit surprised that the child abuse report triggered this. Can you imagine? I mean, there she is thinking that you two majorly suck - and then a professional comes in and agrees with her to the point of hotlining you for abuse. I don't know how you move through to a place of mutual trust and respect with your daughter. This is so intense. I'm really sorry. 

The sad reality here is that our child isn't really angry with us. Oh sure, she's got a certain amount of  teenage, angst-ridden, "my parents suck" going on because of the typical teen reasons.  She thinks she shouldn't have to help out with chores, that she should be allowed to do anything and everything that she wants, and that somehow we owe her an expensive car for her 16th birthday.  So sure, she's ticked off at us because she doesn't want to help out around the house, we supervise her more than she would like, and we've declined to buy her a $50,000 SUV* on her birthday.

Pretty much all teenagers go through a phase where they think their parents are stupid, worthless, and selfish, and Danielle is no exception.

That is not the real problem.  The true basis for her rage has nothing to do with us.  Over time, it's become clear that her anger is caused by something else, something that we didn't do.

She's pissed off at a number of people, including her abusers, social workers, therapists, and birth family.  She is furious, rightfully so, at folks who have hurt her, betrayed her, violated her trust, or abandoned her.  Since the people with whom she's really angry aren't available, she takes that rage out on us.

That's all very understandable.  Misdirected rage is a common problem with foster and adopted kids.  What makes this problem so serious is that our child routinely fails to express her misdirected rage in safe ways.  If she were just angry, it wouldn't be as much of a problem.  It's that her rage is expressed by verbal aggression, threats, and acts of violence.

It's just not safe.  It's not safe for her, it's not safe for our pets, and it's not safe for us.

It's especially frustrating that she regularly fails to employ her coping skills, because she's had so many interventions already to address this particular problem.  The last professional who worked with us was here specifically to work with our child to teach her coping skills.  Even more frustrating is the fact that this person was the seventh mental health professional to work with our child and all of the professionals have spent time on coping skills to one degree or another.

It isn't that Danielle doesn't have a box full of tools, or that she doesn't know how to use them.  The problem is that, for whatever reason, she does not use them.

Danielle is angry...all...the...time.  She is angry when the sun comes up, and when it sets.  Even when things are calm, her rage is seething just below the surface, and the smallest thing can cause it to explode.  We've seen violent fits of temper triggered by small things, even when we weren't in the room to cause any of it.

So we completely recognize that it's not us that she's really angry with.  Sure, she's pissed off because we enforce rules, boundaries and limitations in our home, but all teenagers are angry about that.  Normal teenagers stomp about the house, grumble under their breath, and occasionally slam a door or two when they don't get their way.

This is different.  This is a level of fury that wants revenge.  This is a level of anger that wants to hurt people and to break things.

And it's not about being asked to take out the garbage or to do the dishes.  It's not about a friend who didn't show up for a planned outing, or an electronic device failing because it had been dropped one too many times on the concrete.

This is about a child who has dangerous, boiling levels of rage, bubbling just below the surface, all the time.  This is about a teen who is so angry that when even the smallest thing happens, the cauldron spills, pouring out red-hot lava that incinerates anyone or anything in its path.

It's absolutely clear the kid needs help.  Unfortunately, Danielle often isn't self-aware enough to  understand the true nature of her anger, so she spends her therapy sessions complaining about all the  things she perceives that we've done wrong.  She complains that we give her an over-abundance of chores, and that we never let her do anything.  Her gripes are filled with the typical teenage phrases like, "you always," and "you never," and to date she's never had an astute-enough therapist who has realized that her explosions over dishes or being asked to take a shower aren't about chores or bathing at all.

The question of how we can possibly work through this is a question to which I have no answer.  Until our child figures out that violence, threats and verbal aggression aren't acceptable ways of resolving conflict, we have a problem.  Until she realizes that it's not us with whom she's really angry we have a problem.

So how do we get to a point of mutual trust and respect?

I have no idea.  

I don't think it's possible right now, at least not without getting Danielle better help than what she's received so far.

Though perhaps The Adoption Counselor is right in saying that therapy really doesn't work for traumatized kids.  Perhaps the best we can do is to bide our time until our child becomes an adult, where she'll have to figure these things out on her own, with a more developed and mature mind.

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* I realize that pretty much all teens have unrealistic expectations when it comes to cars.  When I was the same age, I wanted my parents to buy me a Ford Mustang.  I got a Subaru instead.

Respite

Danielle is away at respite.

Originally, I'd planned not to write about this publicly, but when I saw how Baggage is feeling incredibly alone because her child has been placed in RTC, I figured I should say something.

Our child is away at respite, because her verbal and physical aggression has been increasing exponentially.  Since the July 4th weekend, when she made some horrifically bad choices, things have been incredibly, unbelievably difficult.

Add to that a betrayal on the part of a professional and another unfounded child abuse investigation, and we've had the perfect storm of unpleasantness.

I hate that we had to send our child away again.  We shouldn't have to put our kid in respite.  Normal families don't live with the absolute chaos, and the level of verbal and physical abuse that we  regularly experience at the hands of our child.  Although many parents might sigh with pleasure at the thought of having some time alone when their kids go away for a slumber party, I don't imagine that most parents are genuinely relieved at the thought their children will be gone for a period of time.

The truth is, I have become afraid of my child.  I am afraid of her violence, her false accusations, and her manipulations.  Even when things are going well, I feel anxious, because past experience has taught me that things can go from good to extremely bad in an instant.

When we left her with the respite provider, she barely said goodbye. Although there were hugs exchanged with everyone as we left, she declined to participate.  As we drove away, we waved.  Everyone waved back but our child.  She stood there on the porch, stony eyed and unmoving, as she watched us drive away.

As angry as she was when we left her, she had been carrying on since before school ended about how much she wanted to be somewhere, anywhere, else.  When we finally selected a respite care provider, she carried on about how much she couldn't stand living here, how much she was looking forward to leaving, and how she wished she could move in with our friends forever.

It's a sad situation that the child escalated her behaviors to the point where it's best for all of us that she be somewhere else for while, but then feels angry about the outcome that she created.

At any rate, she'll probably have more fun in respite than she will here.  There, she'll have the company of a stay-at-home mom and several younger children.  Here, she has few friends, nowhere that she can go unsupervised, and two parents who have to work all day.

Although I'm breathing a definite sigh of relief at the idea of a break, I am also anxious because I worry that Danielle's destructive behaviors may arise while she is gone.  Of course she will honeymoon, at least for a while, but I still worry.

Our friends, thankfully, have seen our child in action.  They know her behaviors and think they can handle them.  Most likely, she'll keep it together for the majority of her visit, since most children tend to behave better away than they do at home.

It just saddens and frustrates me that we see this in such huge extremes.  It's a terrible thing that our child's angel times are uniquely reserved for relative strangers, while anger, tantrums and physical abuse are what we regularly experience at home.

I sometimes wonder if our child is even capable of understanding how much hurt and fear she has created in this family.  If she understood, would she care enough to stop?  If she cared, would she be able to put an end to the violence?

Summer often seems to be one of the hardest times of the year for our family.  The unstructured time, combined with a complete lack of constructive things for teens to do in our town, and the fact that FosterEema and I are occupied with work during the day, makes for a bad combination. Summer vacation is supposed to be a time when parents can fully enjoy their children, but this often seems to be our child's season of restlessness, discontent, conflict and violence. As a family, we all dread the end of the school year, and pray for the beginning of the next to come soon.

During the break, we are all thankful for whatever respite we can manage.

Like Baggage, we feel alone.

It shouldn't be this way.  We were supposed to live happily ever after.

Nobody Wants the "Bad" Kids

On Sunday, LT wrote that she finally had an answer for why she was never adopted:

Nobody wants to adopt a REALLY bad kid. It is hard enough to adopt a kid, let alone one that is REALLY bad. Right? My foster care records are full of “bad” things I did — wet the bed, pissed on the floor, ran away, stole, hoarded food, hid food, stole clothes for my mom (long story), cried, had flashbacks, had nightmares, burned the Hippie’s records, drugs, cutting, eating disorder, etc, etc, etc — how many labels were in those records? Did it say I was beaten to a pulp and raped repeatedly? Did it say my dad stabbed me and was in prison? Did it say I couldn’t read well? Did it say I was “traumatized?”

It's a sad truth that her foster care records were probably a barrier to her adoption.  Many adoptive families don't want to take overly-troubled children into their homes.  This is why so many families go the route of private or overseas adoptions, even though they are substantially more risky and expensive.  They are hoping to spare themselves of the pain of adopting a damaged child.

No there's no denying that there are a certain number of good people who are willing, ready and able to take care of kids with these types of histories.  They come into the system with their eyes open and the knowledge and experience to handle it.

But the problem is that for many parents, they aren't prepared.  They don't know what they are getting into.  It's easy to think that one might be able to handle anything and everything that could be thrown one's way, but it's an entirely different experience to live it.

And some families, whether we want to admit it or not, are duped by the system.  Social workers lie, or they use their doublespeak to conceal or misdirect prospective parents into thinking that a child's problems are less than what they are.  Even when a family is very clear about certain things they feel they will or will not be able to handle, social workers are very good at placing kids without telling them that the very conditions  the foster parents said they would not accept are placed in their home anyway.

A small example in our case was that we were very clear that we weren't willing to accept children infested with lice, or kids with Reactive Attachment Disorder.  Every child placed in our home had lice, and the second foster child placed in our home had severe RAD.  It made me wonder how many parents take in children they aren't really able to parent, but don't realize that until they've already fallen in love with them and make decisions with their heart, thinking that they can handle it.

The reality is, though, that many parents bypass the more troubled kids (at least when social workers are honest) because they understand their limitations.  The smarter prospective adoptive families also know that the promised services and support will be hard to find (if not totally unavailable) even though officials will promise otherwise.

I would never have agreed to knowingly adopt a child with as many issues as LT described.  It's not because that child is less deserving of a home or a family, or because she was inherently bad or defective as a human being.  It's simply because I would have recognized my own limits, and known that I wasn't the right person to parent a kid with all those issues.  If the opportunity had presented itself after I'd had some experience with the system, I also would have known that the counseling and other mental health services a child like LT would have needed and deserved, are not available in our area, even if we could afford to private pay.

If we were in the market to adopt an adult child, which we are not, I similarly wouldn't want to adopt someone with significant mental health problems.  It's not that someone like LT doesn't deserve a family, or that she is inherently unworthy.  It's just that I recognize that I wouldn't be able to give her the unconditional support she needs.

I frequently find myself overwhelmed with my own child's behaviors and needs.  She definitely had issues prior to the adoption, but we never dreamed that they would get worse.  Kids are supposed to get better as they age.  At least that's what everyone told us, and that's what we really wanted to believe.

We thought we were doing the right thing.

Clearly, we were wrong.  Although there are myriad reasons why we probably shouldn't have adopted our daughter, the biggest one was because it placed her in the untenable position of having divided loyalties.  She should never have been put in the position of having to choose between remaining in foster care (and being bounced around from home to home to home) or legally terminating her mother's rights so that she could remain with us.

That's a terrible, terrible, terrible decision to force a 13-year-old to make.

Why couldn't there have been a third option?  Why couldn't there have been an option that would have allowed her to remain in foster care, to receive the appropriate counseling and mental health services, and to remain in a home that wanted her for as long as she wanted to stay?  I think that would have been the best solution for all of us.

And, if, we found ourselves in the position we are now, where our child wishes she could live anywhere else but here, then that would have been a viable option.  Unfortunately, with a finalized adoption behind us, our state and our county do not leave us any option to find her a more suitable family.  Short of legally abandoning our child, and facing the accompanying felony charges, we have no real options.  She's not sick enough to qualify for state-funded residential treatment; she's not violent enough to sustain a trip to juvenile hall or a group home, which she disturbingly claims to want; and we aren't wealthy enough to afford a private RTC or boarding school.

Ideally, our child would simply get better so that we wouldn't be in the position of having to contemplate out of home placement.  Given all that we've done and all that we've tried, I don't think that's going to happen.  It's especially not going to happen when we can't find suitable long-term psychological care.  We will start, very soon, with mental health provider number eight.

Why so many?

Because our county doesn't authorize long-term psychological services for anyone.  They approve a limited number of visits with a provider, and if that doesn't work, the approval process must be repeated again.  Often, by that time the provider has moved on or has too many other cases, and you move to the next person.  Out of all the providers we've worked with, we've only fired one.  Even then, it doesn't really count, as her service contract only allowed us to have a total of eight sessions with her.  We had completed seven.

Guess how many sessions will be authorized with the new provider?

Eight.

Of course they claim that the number of sessions can be extended, just like they have in the past, but I don't expect that will happen.

Can someone please tell me how a child who has suffered years of abuse will be made measurably better in eight weeks?

This is why LT is right when she says that nobody wants the more difficult kids.  People don't want to live with a child's out-of-control behaviors, especially when the system that's supposed to help the kids completely fails to do so.

Will Damaged Children Heal in Adulthood?

On Saturday LT, over at I Was a Foster Kid, wrote about how she thinks that it is possible for children of trauma to eventually heal, although it may not happen until adulthood. She believes that the most damaged and abused kids shouldn't be thought of as lost causes.

Although I admire those who have eternal optimism for kids who have been abused, traumatized and mistreated, I no longer share it.  At one time I did, but as the realities of living with such a child have unfolded, my hopes for the future have faded.  As I've seen my friends (both online and in-person) struggle with their damaged kids, and I've maintained relationships with people who work in the child welfare system, I've learned that the happy endings don't come nearly as often as the adoption recruiters would like people to believe.

I've had a number of my critics opine that the only place that my child is functioning poorly is at home.  As much as certain people might like to believe that, it's patently not true.  My child was sent to a program for emotionally and behaviorally challenged kids, not at our request, but at the insistence of her previous school.  Officials were concerned, because of behaviors they were seeing at school, and it was they who insisted on the mid-year move.

Although from an academic perspective our kid is doing well, there are number of things that still concern me about her future.  My biggest worry is that my child hates to read, and will go to great lengths to avoid it.  Even though she can read, and her teachers tell us that her reading skills are good and her comprehension is nearly at grade level, she will go out of her way to avoid it.  When we are in a situation where there really is "nothing to do" (whether it's a waiting room or down-time at home) she will absolutely refuse to read.  When she's asked to read a passage at school, she complains about it bitterly.

Her lack of interest and willingness to read worries me because it is through reading that one learns and succeeds in higher education.  If our child will not read, she's going to have a difficult time in life.  Even most vocational schools require some reading, and her absolute unwillingness in this area is going to set her up for failure.

The biggest area of concern we have is that our child seems to have virtually no problem-solving skills.  When faced with a problem, whether it be a social problem, a mechanical problem, or a logistical problem, she simply has no idea of how to come up with a solution.  When she's faced with a challenge, and you ask her, "how do you think you can solve this?" she is never able to produce ideas on her own,

Life is about problem-solving.  As an adult, one has to face the daily challenges of finding and maintaining food and shelter, and I fear that her lack of problem-solving abilities will put her at a severe disadvantage in life.  This is especially true because it seems that her only coping skill is to resort to threats, fits of temper, and sometimes violence.  Although her violent episodes have mainly been directed at us, I believe that she will use those same behaviors when she's not in our home.  She's admitted that violence was used to solve problems in her birth family, she now tries to use those same techniques with us, and I have no doubt she will use them in the future.

While she is a minor, it seems our legal system is willing to give her a free pass.  That will no longer be true when she's an adult.  Whether she is hitting us, a future spouse, or her children, the consequences won't be pretty when she becomes a legal adult.

Whether or child heals as an adult obviously will remain to be seen.  What is clear, at least at this point, is that she will face a number of very difficult years in her young adulthood.  If she does not learn to reign in her violent tendencies, she will not be able to continue to live here.  If she doesn't develop a work ethic and some motivation, she will have an incredibly difficult time making a living.  If she doesn't develop some self-control and problem-solving skills, she will not be able to turn whatever income she may have into life's basics such as shelter and food.

We've tried to discuss these concerns with our child, but she's simply not ready to accept that the world doesn't work in the magic way she believes.  She is convinced that, as soon as she turns 18, all the skills and experience she will need to find and build a wonderful life will magically be bestowed upon her.  She is convinced that these things just happen, and that she won't have to go to any great effort to have the perfect life.

In my experience, life is rarely that easy.  In my experience, life is difficult, and one has to work really hard to achieve any level of financial stability.  Once has to exercise a great deal of work ethic and self-control, and it's not always easy.  For a child who lacks a solid work ethic and problem solving skills, I see this as a very difficult, if not impossible, task.

I would very much like to teach my child these skills, but I cannot.  Even if we had a child who was receptive to our instruction, I have no idea how to teach things like problem solving or self-control.  I exercise both on a daily basis, in my personal and professional life, and I've often explained the how and why to my child, but she still fails to grasp even the most basic skills in these areas.

If my child is to heal in adulthood, I think it will only come after the school of hard knocks has made her weary.  I would like to spare her the pain of those ugly lessons, but it seems that her teenage brain has locked onto the idea that we are stupid, and that she knows everything.

So often things happen in our child's life where she is forced to admit that we, her parents, were right.  Even though she's seen this happen time and time again, she's still not willing to accept that when it comes to life, we've done a lot more of it, and we might know something of the way the world works.

Will our child eventually heal?  I don't know.  Certainly for much healing to happen now seems impossible.

On Failure

It seems that Last Mom's post about anger and resentment triggered a rash of commentary from other bloggers. I commented on it, as did Baggage, Corey, Story of Our Life, and a few others.  Although I think the idea of "never give up" is a good one, there comes a point when the practical realities of our situations overshadow hope.

Friday morning, Corey wrote:

Just for the record, while it was one specific post that pulled the trigger for me, it was a general current that I was responding to. And I *never* want people to think that I don't want to hear what is working for them or about how their child is responding.. That is not the case at all. It is more the fervent "never, ever, ever quit" mentality that makes moms whose kids are not responding to any therapies feel like failures. It breaks my heart when people write to me and say that "It must be me. S/he would have done better if only s/he had a different family.". I just don't buy that, even though I once felt that way. A child with severe mental illness does not heal just because they have a different family. They just have a severe mental illness somewhere else. (They may FUNCTION better in a different living environment, and YOU may function better, but they are still mentally ill.). As the saying goes, whereever you go, there you are.

Over the past couple of years, I've thought the same thing a thousand times over.  But Corey is also right when she says, "wherever you go, there you are."  We often say a similar phrase, "wherever you go, that's where you are."

But it means the same thing.  Wherever you go, whatever you do, the problems that are inside you will ultimately reappear.  The emotional baggage one carries through life will eventually appear no matter where one is or what one is doing.

And I think the same is true for troubled kids.  You can put a kid in another foster home, adoptive home, group home, residential treatment facility or jail, but whatever baggage that kid is carrying will go along for the ride.  Certainly, in some settings kids will do better (i.e. a kid with severe attachment problems will probably do better in a facility where he perceives no one cares) but the baggage is still there.

Eventually, with the exception of those who exhibit the most severe mental illnesses, violence or criminal behavior, kids will become adults and they'll walk out of whatever placement they are in, and they'll go out into the world.

And they will still be carrying that baggage.  Some, I expect, will learn from the school of hard knocks and change their ways.  Others, like some of the children Cindy describes, will continue into adulthood with their dangerous, defiant and criminal behavior.

We parents will have been unable to redirect these children from their dangerous, impulsive, violent and criminal ways.  We will have failed.

In the end, it is these children, as young adults, who will have to make their own choices about the way they live their lives.  We can lead them, guide them, show them the way, encourage them, coerce them, consequence them, and punish them, but in the end they make the decisions for their behavior.

It's easy for an outsider to say "so-and-so is a bad parent."  It's easy to criticize, to blame, and to insult.  It's easy to pick up the phone and file a child abuse report against a friend, a neighbor or even a total stranger because you don't like or agree with someone's parenting.  It's easy to find fault, to point fingers, and to set the blame, but it's an entirely different thing to live with damaged and difficult child.

I admit that I have failed.  I can't fix my child.  We have gone through seven mental health professionals, and in a few weeks we will be assigned yet another, but I have little hope that this person will be able to accomplish anything more than the other seven.

Even after years of therapy and interventions, our child still hasn't mastered any level of reliable self-control.  At almost 16 years old, her coping skills often consist of destroying her room, making threats, or committing acts of violence against other people.

In five years, a child that used to throw herself to the floor to tantrum and scream when she didn't get her way, now sometimes resorts to threats and violence to solve her problems.

Clearly that's not much of an improvement.

Many of my critical commenters have opined that I am at fault for my child's rages and tantrums.  Although I might once have believed that, now I do not not.  Given a few recent rages that were triggered without any of our involvement, I believe that the problem rests within my child.  Her ability to deal with frustration and circumstances outside of anyone's control is low, and her ways of dealing with those feelings are impulsive, often dangerous, and destructive.

Is the problem that our child can't do better, or simply that she won't do better?

In the end, it won't matter.  As our child reaches adulthood, the world becomes increasingly intolerant of aberrant behavior.  As every parent of a disabled child suffering from cognitive disabilities, FASD or autism knows, once a child reaches the magic age of adulthood, behavior that is adjudicated to be criminal is handled the same way.  It doesn't matter if a child is disabled or not, the legal system views criminal and violent behavior as criminal and violent behavior.

Am I sad for her?  Do I grieve for the future she might have had if her first family had treated her with the love and caring that she deserved?  Absolutely.

The reality is that sometimes love is not enough for our damaged and broken children.  Sometimes, all the love, all the treatment, and all the services in the world aren't enough to overcome mental illness, neglect, and abuse.  We cannot repair the organic brain differences that are caused by prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol, trauma, cognitive disabilities, and inherited mental illness.

I think every foster or adoptive parent starts this journey with a profound desire to help.  They want to make a difference.  They want to help children be the best that they can be.  The problem is that some children, as much as we'd like to think otherwise, cannot be helped.

Although hope is often a good thing, in that it keeps us going and it motivates us to work for a better day, there comes a point where people have to accept reality.  The accident victim with a spinal cord injury isn't going to walk again.  The young man who lost his eyes in an explosion isn't going to see again.  The child with cognitive or emotional difficulties is never going to be "normal."  There comes a point where we have to accept the realities of our children.  They may never achieve healthy, productive and independent lives by any standard of "normal."

And though hope for the future is always good, we have to come to a point of acceptance.  Otherwise, we spend our time unproductively beating ourselves up for our children's inability to succeed and our perceived failures.

The Stupid Things Professionals Say

On Thursday, Jen over at Couldn't Make It Up If I Tried, wrote about her frustrations with the so-called "professionals" that are supposed to be helping her currently-hospitalized daughter.

Jen's post really struck a chord with me.  She was writing about some of the really stupid things her professional team had said to her.  This one really got to me:

"What you really need to do is make sure Little Turtle knows the expectations and hears from you that physical violence is not okay."  (Oh, is that what you're supposed to do?  Never would have thunk it on my own although I do think I did a pretty good job of explicitly and firmly saying, okay yelling, "You may not bite my boob," as she was latched on with her full set of teeth one night.)

When I first read this, I wanted to shout at my computer, "Are you f--cking kidding me?"  But of course Jen is not, because we've had many supposedly-brilliant professionals say similar things to us.

Our kid knows (at least when she's calm and rational) that violence is not okay.  However, that doesn't make any difference when she's angry or upset.  Sometimes she will dial it back in.  Sometimes, she won't.

There's an entire collection of stupid things professionals have said to Jen, so if you are parenting a difficult child, go take a look. I'm sure some of her post will strike a chord with you as well.

I know for a great many parents, it seems that we know what's better for our kids than the professionals who are supposed to be helping them.  It's pretty embarrassing when a supposedly-experienced therapist manages to be thoroughly manipulated and triangulated.  But of course the therapist doesn't recognize that she's been had, and everything comes down to the fact that we parents obviously must not be doing the right thing. (Can you hear the sarcasm in my voice?)

At one point, we raised the issue of our child's behavior with her pediatrician.  Do you know what she said?

She told us to withhold the child's allowance so that she would behave.

We did as the good doctor suggested, just as we've tried zillions of other parenting techniques that haven't worked.

I suppose you can guess how well withholding our kid's allowance worked out...

It didn't.

But the idiocy of the suggestion sure made me want to stab myself 10,000 times with a titanium spork.

Maybe withholding a child's allowance is a way to obtain compliance from a "normal" kid, but it sure didn't work here.  As the doctor suggested, we set up a chart, and kept score, and you can guess how many weeks our kid was able to keep it together long enough to get her money...

For our kid, money simply wasn't a sufficient motivator.  Or perhaps the entire concept was too abstract.  Who knows.

So telling a kid violence is not okay is about as effective as spitting into the wind.  It's probably less effective, because at least spitting into the wind will get your face washed.

Improving the Foster Care System - Part XXVI

This week, it seems that a lot of adoptive bloggers have picked up on the topic of the anger felt towards their behaviorally-challenged kids.

Wednesday afternoon, Sojourner Truth wrote about an online support group:

[T]oday I realized that I have been doing really well with my anxiety. I have been pretty chilled out with the son's behavior. I am pretty sure that is directly related with the opening of the group. I have had a place to vent AND hear others vent. It has taken the taboo out of saying "I don't want to look at my child" or "Hugging them makes me want to vomit". Do we still hug? Sure. But there, it is okay to admit to yourself and others that you had that feeling. It may sound really ugly and really bad, but you realize that those feelings are not solely in your own head. For me it has allowed me to love myself again.

I think feelings of anger and resentment are normal when one is parenting a desperately-troubled child.  It's hard not to feel resentful when one looks at other "normal" families who don't have children who behave in dangerous, impulsive and destructive ways.  It's hard not to feel angry when a child, again and again, does things to injure you, your spouse or your pets.  It's hard not to feel frustration and despair when the promised post-adoptive services magically disappear when you need them, or fail to provide any meaningful or lasting help.

It's just so damned hard.

And the worst of it is, even if you know in your heart that you can't help your child there's no graceful way out.  There's no way to admit failure without incurring massive legal and financial consequences.  Parents who are in over their heads can't go back to the Social Services Department and say, "I've failed.  I can't do this.  Please help me."

What happens if you do?  In our state, you'll find yourself with a substantiated case of child abuse on your record, and you'll likely end up facing felony child abandonment charges as well.  Even if everyone agrees that your child would be better off somewhere else, there's no way to gracefully do that.  Our county has to approve every adoption or guardianship arrangement, and they have a blanket policy of denying guardianship or re-adoption of children that were previously adopted from the county.  Even if your child is the sickest of the sick and somehow manages to qualify for residential treatment, that option is only temporary.  Unless your child murders someone or commits a serious felony, no matter how sick or how violent he may be, he will eventually come home.

If you aren't wealthy enough to afford boarding school or private residential treatment, there is no way out other than to commit an act of felony child abandonment.

That's just so wrong on so many levels.  Parents shouldn't be forced into such a dreadful no-win situation.  Children shouldn't have to be abandoned by their parents in order to qualify for the help they desperately need.

The truth is that there are cases where adoptions fail.  Is it right that those parents, who thought they would be able to handle their child's challenges and gave their best effort, should be punished with criminal charges, jail time, and forever being listed in the child abuse databases?

No.  There ought to be a way for the system to recognize that there are some children and some parents who turn out to be a bad match after the adoption has been finalized.  There ought to be a mechanism to provide relief to the families (and the child) without destroying everyone in the process.

But there isn't a way, and this is just another example of how our foster care and child welfare systems are insanely broken.

Scammed?

In response to When Hope Dies, Chicago asked the following question:

FosterAbba, I have a question that I have been hesitating in asking because I don't know how it will be received.

I read your blog and others and it seems like there is this little-known secret about adoption. Some of the blogs I read are from happy "easy" adoptions, some from ones like your's but the parents still feel some hopefullness. And then I read several where the parents are in similar positions to you.

I am a total outsider, neither foster child nor parent. I had at one time considered adopting but I have changed my mind due to serious health issues I have.

So here is The Question I have been holding back. Do you,and other parents in your position, feel scammed? It sounds horrid to say that, since children are not 'things' and there are no guarantees even with bio-kids.

But is seems there is something terrible happening here, and everyone suffers for it. The children do not really find homes, and no one is better off for the adoption.

I am dating myself here, I know, but this seems to me another glaring example of how Reagan got it wrong, all those years ago. By closing state facilities, there is nowhere for these kids (who quickly become young adults) to go, where they can live safely.

My heart truly goes out to you and your family, and all the others whose lives have been torn apart by this. If I were you, I would be furious. I would feel scammed.

As it is, I am angry that good, decent, people are being treated like this, misled and essentially ignored at every turn.

I have learned so much and appreciate you (and others) putting it out there for clueless people like myself, who assumed that adoptions were handled so, so differently than they are.

Chicago asks a very valid question here.

Since I don't really know what other adoptive parents think or feel, I don't feel that I can answer this question on behalf of anyone else but myself.  So rather than answer the question for everyone, I will just answer whether or not my family feels scammed.

There are two parts to this question.  The first is whether or not we feel scammed because our agency somehow misrepresented Danielle's challenges to us.  Although this is certainly true for some adoptive parents, I don't think that it was the case here.  I think the reality was that people really didn't know all there was to know about Danielle's case, though it was clear certain things were kept from us with respect to her biological family's history.  If we had known more about Danielle's biological family, would it have made a difference in our decision to adopt?

I'm not sure that it would have.

When we adopted our child, we knew that we were facing some pretty significant problems.  We knew that she was profoundly behind in school, and we knew (based on her previous behavior) that she was a challenging kid to parent.  What we didn't know, and I'm not sure anyone could have predicted, was how bad things would eventually get.  I don't think that anyone could have predicted the level of violence that we would one day see in our home.

So on that score, I can't say that we were scammed by the county.  Our friends Jack and Jill, who also adopted two children from our county, probably were.  Their youngest child has severe problems, and the root cause (prenatal drug and alcohol exposure) was deliberately concealed from them.  I've never had the chance to ask if my friends feel scammed on this count, but if I were in their shoes, I certainly would feel that way.

The second part is whether or not we feel scammed when it comes to promised post-adoptive services. In that area, I am not sure that I would go so far as to use such a strong word as scammed, but certainly mislead and disappointed apply.  We adopted, thinking that appropriate mental health and supportive services would be offered on an ongoing basis.  What we found was that our county has done everything they can to ignore us, make excuses, and fail to pay for mental health services that were promised by our adoption worker.

I think Chicago is also quite correct in saying that something terrible is happening, and everyone suffers for it.  Kids suffer, because they don't get the services they need, parents suffer, and siblings suffer.  First families suffer too.  The entire system doesn't ameliorate suffering; rather, it increases it.

While families and children suffer, millions of dollars are used to perpetuate a system that doesn't prevent abuse, fails to treat victims, and doesn't help the children and families who suffer as a result.  The system claims to be operating in "the best interests" of the children.  Instead, I see a system that operates very much in the best interests of itself.

Although I think Reagan had the right idea in freeing mentally ill people from hospitals if they could be treated in the community, I think the plan was taken too far.  There were some people who could manage in the community with the appropriate supports.  Unfortunately (and this is largely to blame for the huge upswing in the mentally ill homeless in our area) some people cannot or will not do well when they aren't in a structured, hospital setting.

At the time, it seemed freeing all these poor people, especially those being held against their will, from the mental hospitals was a good idea.  The problem with it was that they decided that everybody could be treated on an outpatient basis.  As a result, families with seriously mentally ill members had nowhere to turn.

I get tired of hearing from everyone that comes in contact with our family the phrase, "there is nothing we can do."  The police can't do anything when children are violent, because there isn't enough room for the kids already incarcerated in juvenile hall.  The mental health professionals can't do anything because there is no money in the state budget to pay for treatment and our child isn't sick enough to qualify for residential treatment.  The school says there is nothing they can do, because our child's most violent behaviors are confined to the home environment.  Even the crisis people admit they are powerless to provide any meaningful help, because they are limited to a handful of visits.

So although I don't feel scammed per se, I do feel as though the amount of post-adoption support we were going to receive was grossly misrepresented.

A Disservice to Adoptive Parents

All I can say is, "oh yeah," to what Corey said yesterday:

[S]omething has been bothering me for some time, and it came to a head yesterday with a post someone wrote about anger. In the "trauma" community, I have seen a trend that maybe started as cheerleading and people wanting to be supportive. But somewhere along the way, it has morphed into something hurtful. It is this unwavering assertion that all children can be healed, and a fervent "don't EVER give up hope!" mentality.

Corey goes on to say why this mentality is hurtful to the adoption community. Please, please, please, go read her post.

She goes on to say more...

Parents of neurotypical kids don't understand. Parents of adopted kids who do not have attachment issues are even more critical and judgmental, IMHO. After all, THEIR kid is okay, so it must be you.

And it's not just parents of neurotypical kids.  It's therapists who are manipulated and triangulated by the superficial sweetness and charm of our damaged children.  It's family members, friends, social contacts, and even well-meaning strangers*.  It's even creeps from the Internet who think it's okay to stalk, harass, and threaten my family.

And then she writes:

I realize this sounds angry and reactionary. Clearly it struck a nerve with me... but I am tired of moms whose kids are not healing feeling like they have to stand in the back. If your child is not healing, is is NOT because of you. It is not because you don't love them enough or you haven't tried enough therapies, or you're not parenting them the "right" way or ANYTHING that has to do with you. It's because your child has a mental illness, a personality disorder that stole from them and from you. And while it is not their fault, it also is not YOURS that you can't heal them.

Bingo.  Thank you Corey.

---
* Given our family's experiences, I am not sure I can say that most strangers are well-meaning.

When Hope Dies

I haven't been blogging as much recently for several reasons:

• We've been doing a lot of things (mostly involving self-care) that pull me away from the Internet, which leaves less time for blogging.
• It's clear from my site traffic logs that I've attracted the attention and ire of some more people who intend me harm. Nice.
• I just don't know what to say anymore.  Much of the time I feel like I am repeating the same story over and over and over again.  Given my group of "fans" (and I use the term sarcastically) I'm not sure that it's smart to publicly write about what is going on in our home anymore*.

***

Baggage made a really good point this morning about hope.  She was commenting on Last Mom's post about the anger and resentment one might feel towards their adopted child, and said the following:

[H]ow do you not be resentful towards someone who accuses you of child abuse, who destroys things, who causes you trouble left and right in all sorts of ways, when all you have tried to do is love them, to parent them "therapeutically," to do everything you can to make it better.

I understand these feelings more so than ever.  Baggage went on to say that she had high hopes for her child when she was nine years old.  Now that her daughter is a teen, all she hopes for is that the kid escapes death and incarceration.

I understand. I understand. I understand.

This morning, we had a big meeting with the folks at our county's mental health office.  The meeting seemed pretty pointless, and a waste of seven people's time.  They told us they were going to give our kid the same services that we'd discussed over the phone.  So why, since they had already told us what they are going to do, did they make us come down and chat about it for 90 minutes?

Oh, I know why.  It was so the meeting organizer could compliment all the other people involved in our daughter's case on what a great job they are doing. 

Whatever. 

Of course my frustration is that the services they are going to provide are coming far too late.  They are basically going to be a repeat of what we've been doing all along, just with another new person. The only difference is this time we are going to see someone who is licensed.  That's an improvement, but it should have been done years ago. What are we on, now?  Mental health professional number eight?

This is insanity.  Let's do the same things, over and over again, and hope for a different result...

I have no hope left.

Our situation at home isn't about putting on an oxygen mask, being better parents, or anything else like that. It's about a very sick and troubled child, who is damaged (possibly beyond repair) and a system that doesn't have the resources or willingness to really help her.

---
* I am considering opening up a private blog.  If you are interested, shoot me a private e-mail.  If there's enough interest, I'll set something up, though invites will only go out to folks that I "know" either through comments, or their own blogs.

When Adoption Isn't Fun

Yesterday afternoon, I found the following over at Urban Servant.

Many adoptive moms carry a terrible secret around in their hearts.
It's the overwhelming weight that they can't even whisper to their husbands late at night.
It's the guilty relief they feel whenever their kids leave for school and the excruciating despair they face when three o'clock rolls around again...

At it's barest essence it boils down to the the heart breaking reality that they don't love or even like their newly (or not so newly) adopted kids.

There's more. Go read.

Baggage, Too

It looks like I'm not the only one who is sick and tired of pointless child welfare investigations.  Baggage is tired of it, too.  On Saturday, she wrote:

I'm so sick of everything involving DFS. My kid is hospitalized again, and we are trying to get her into residential. We have another investigation against us. The investigator was really nice, and I'm sure it will be unsubstantiated, because of course, it was unsubstantiated. And my daughter, she is sick and she needs help. I keep telling myself that.

All I can say,  Baggage, is that I completely hear you.  I'm sick and tired of pointless investigations that waste my time, make my child upset, and make it impossible to get any good, productive work done.  Let's face it -- one can't concentrate on work when one is thinking about what might happen when the social worker comes calling, even if one knows they have done nothing wrong.

We are to the point where unexpected visitors to the door create great anxiety for everyone in the house.  Earlier today, a woman came to the door wanting to talk to someone who doesn't live here.  It turned out the door-knocker was at the wrong address, but her badge, dress and professional manner of speaking (she wasn't from the child abuse patrol, as near as we could tell) gave everyone a brief scare.  Our child stepped away from the door, wide eyed and frightened, as if she'd seen a ghost.

We shouldn't have to live this way.

NOBODY should have to live this way.

The Insanity of Child Abuse Allegations

In our county, if someone calls the child abuse hotline, even if they report something that is legally not abuse, authorities will investigate.

We've now been investigated four times for child abuse. With the exception of one investigation two years ago, that was triggered because our child lied to police and claimed her arm had been dislocated*, everything else we've been investigated for is complete nonsense. Since all of these allegations have been completely bogus, all investigations have cleared us of any wrongdoing.  The charges have been unfounded.

We've been investigated for "forcing" our child to change her name and religion at the time of her adoption (untrue), not allowing post-adoption contact with her birth family (also untrue), sending her to a summer boot camp for troubled kids (true, but not abuse), griping about her annoying behavior (true, but not abuse), and most recently, because our child has been hitting us.

So that big violation of trust?  The crisis counselor filed a child abuse report on us because Danielle was hitting us, we were discussing out-of-home placement, and I'd told the counselor I wasn't going to follow some of her advice, because I disagreed with it.

So let's take a quick look at these allegations, shall we?

• A child hitting her parents is not child abuse.  It's elder abuse.
• Considering out-of-home placement is not child abuse, especially when said child has been violent in the home for close to two and a half years.
• Parents disagreeing with a therapist's advice is not child abuse.
  
  In this case, the crisis counselor wanted us to buy our daughter a new cell phone, and give her increased freedoms and perks.  It didn't seem like a good idea, since we were debriefing after another episode of our daughter's violence.  Given our troubles over the July 4th weekend, I think restricting, rather than increasing, her freedom is probably the wise choice.

I'm not even sure what to say about this situation, other than I'm pretty unhappy with the crisis counselor at the moment.  I would have understood her actions if she was reporting something that actually could have been considered abuse if it were true, but this is just a complete pile of baloney.

We were investigated and cleared in one day.  The charges were unfounded.

But that one day resulted in a ton of lost productivity at work and caused our child so much anxiety and distress that I can't even describe it.  I am so unhappy about what happened that I don't want the counselor back in our home.  We are done.  She's fired.   Of course firing her is probably unnecessary, as she would have moved on in a week or two anyway.  This agency only provides short-term counseling services.

We spoke to the counselor's supervisor, and at first she tried to hide behind the mandated reporter laws.  That's all well and good, but what was reported was not abuse.  Then, she tried to backpedal and say that the worker had contacted authorities because our child was abusing us, and this simply turned into a miscommunication between her agency and the child welfare people.

I call bullshit.

Seriously.  If you pick up the phone and call the child abuse hotline, what do you think you are doing?  Ordering a pizza?

Give me a break.

The supervisor offered to facilitate a meeting between their agency and the child abuse investigation people.  No thanks.  Danielle has been traumatized enough.  She's terrified of social workers, and each time she is interviewed by one, her reaction is increasingly negative.  This time, she suffered through two hours of a panic attack, complete with vomiting, headache, heart palpitations, and dizziness.  My kid doesn't need to be subjected to more of this.

Then, the supervisor offered to have one final meeting in our home to debrief.

Again, no thanks.  We are done.

It absolutely boggles my mind.  We were turned in because our child is hitting us, we are considering an out-of-home placement, and I told the therapist I won't buy my kid a brand new cell phone a week after she tried to kick me.

Insanity.

---
* Our child's arm was not, and has never been, dislocated.  The police could plainly see that she had not been injured, but they had to file a report anyway, because Danielle had made the allegation.

When Professionals Violate Trust

After a difficult meeting with the crisis counselor last week, and a troubling July 4th weekend, we came home to learn that the crisis counselor had done something that really violated our family's trust.  The result of her mistake created some unbelievable drama and a traumatic event for Danielle that, once it was over, resulted in her having a two-hour-long panic attack.

The attack was so severe that we considered transporting Danielle to the emergency room.  She was vomiting and hyperventilating, and complained of a headache and heart palpitations.  It was bad.  Since her pediatrician bawled us out the last time we took her to the ER without a telephone consultation first, we called her office.  The doctor spoke to us and then to Danielle.  After about 20 minutes, she was able to partially talk Danielle down out of her emotional tree.

The logical choice would have been to call the crisis counselor, but of course it was her actions that had created the problem in the first place.

So what do you do when a professional violates your trust in such a profound way?

Once Danielle had calmed down enough to go to bed, we called the counselor, expecting to get her voice mail system.  Surprisingly, she answered, and my wife and I calmly let her know just how badly she had damaged our professional relationship and undermined Danielle's trust in her.

"What you did was not cool," I told her.

Her response?

"I was only trying to help."

Her "help" ended up creating two days of stress, drama, and unproductive, distracted work for us.  More importantly, she created two days of worry and stress for our kid.  Although the problem that was created has been resolved, the destruction of Danielle's trust is complete.  She no longer wishes to work with this particular counselor, nor does she wish to work with anyone else.

And I don't blame Danielle one little bit.

Although I really don't believe that the crisis counselor meant any malice in her actions, she failed to consider the effect they would have on everyone, especially Danielle.  Part of the problem, I think, is her lack of experience.  She is not a licensed therapist; rather, she's an inexperienced fresh-out-of-school intern, who failed to consider the fact that we are dealing with a child of trauma, and her actions stepped right onto one of Danielle's biggest triggers.

The only thing that frustrates me more is the fact that the crisis counselor had been warned in advance about this particular trigger, and she didn't bother to take it into account.

"I was only trying to help."

That may have been very well her intention, but it was a huge violation of everyone's trust.  We are trying to get help for a troubled child who needs it, and now the so-called helping professionals have once again made Danielle's situation much, much, much worse.

They created an enormous mess, and now we are the ones left trying to clean it up.

Self Care - Part V

One of the most important realizations that I've come to as I've pondered the issue of self-care, is the fact that foster, kinship and adoptive parents need to realize an important fact:

Our children's problems are not our fault.

This is very easy to say, but it is much harder to believe, since inevitably parents are blamed for the problems their children exhibit.  When a family is out in public, and a 10-year-old throws a temper tantrum in the middle of a warehouse store, the public doesn't think, "Oh, the poor family of a special-needs child."  Instead, they think, "Geeze, what a lousy parent!  If that was my kid acting that way, I'd belt him into next Tuesday."

Likewise, teachers, medical professionals, friends and even family don't understand why our children behave so badly.  If a child has problems, people reason, it has to be the parents' fault.

Maybe this idea might be true in the case of badly-behaved children who were properly nurtured and cared for since birth.  Unfortunately, most foster and many adoptive parents don't have that luxury.  Many of us have adopted from the domestic foster care system, and most of the children in that system are there because they were abused or neglected for years before they came into our homes.

So they act out, some in very profound, troubling ways.

And society at large wants to blame us for those problems.

But to properly care for ourselves (and by extension our children) we have to recognize two important things: 1) we didn't cause the problems our children have, and 2) we can't necessarily fix them.  This is especially true in cases where our children have been prenatally exposed to drugs or alcohol, or they are burdened with a biological destiny of mental illness.

We didn't cause it, and we can't fix it.

As painful as it sounds, many of us have to realize that there are some problems in our children that simply cannot be repaired, no matter how much love, attention, or services we shower upon them.  Some of our children are too broken, too damaged, and too disabled to function as normal children can.  Worse, many of these kids are going to grow up to repeat the cycle of their birth families.

For most families, that reality creates a lot of guilt.  Parents question themselves and wonder, "Could we have done better?"  They wonder if perhaps they should have sold the family home or gone deep into debt to cover therapy or services that weren't covered by insurance.

But as I've discussed before, bankrupting one's future in the hopes one might save a child isn't the wisest choice.  At some point, that child will leave the family home, either when he reaches the age of majority, or when he runs away or becomes too violent to stay.

So we have to realize that there is only so much we can do. We have to recognize that there is a limit, and all we can do has to be good enough.  Sure, there will always be critics out there, accusing parents of being selfish, or having not done everything they could do, but at the end of the day, a family has to live within its financial, physical and emotional means.

And sometimes, good enough just has to be good enough, even if it's not perfect.

If we recognize that there are some children who cannot be fixed (and who will never be "normal") and we simply do our best to give them the best childhood we can then we should be satisfied.  That doesn't mean allowing a violent child to abuse the family, or a manipulative one to escape consequences.  It means that we make the best of what we have, and do the best we can given that we began from a crappy starting place.

If you can forgive yourself for not being able to save your children, you'll sleep a lot better at night.

Self Care - Part IV

Yesterday, Integrity Singer wrote about how she came to the conclusion that her mentally ill daughter's life is not more important than her own. I thought it was a moving, well-written post, and I found myself wishing that I could come up with something even half as eloquent.

And then, I was reminded that I really ought to add to my series on self-care.

An important aspect of self-care, especially when dealing with seriously damaged, disabled, or traumatized kids, is that we realize that their lives are not more important than our own.  We parents are important.  Our needs must be met.

In fact, I would argue that our needs should be met first, if for no other reason so that we have the energy to do our best for our children.

I realize that my critics will argue with me and perhaps even call me selfish for advocating that parents should put themselves first, but I realize that when one lives in a world of scarce resources, it's the only healthy conclusion one can reach.

Children, whether disabled or not, rely on their parents for everything.  It is the parents who provide the food the kids eat, the clothing they wear, and the housing, entertainment, and everything else the kids want or need.  If a child's parents are sacrificing their basic needs in order to "save" their child, they are forgetting an important reality -- if a parent is too tired, depressed, overwhelmed, or hungry -- he or she cannot do a good job providing for that child, themselves, or the rest of the family.

In our family, I am the primary breadwinner.  In order to better take care of my family, I owe it to them to take care of myself.  So my wife and I try to spend time together, away from our child.  We try to get adequate sleep, even if it means putting an early end to conversations that might be important to our daughter.  (Why is it that she never wants to have these conversations at a convenient time, instead of wanting them five minutes before bedtime, when we are all exhausted?)  I take time to exercise, even though it's not always fun or convenient.  When we take our rare vacation days, we spend them doing the things that will give us adults the maximum rest and relaxation, even when those plans are in direct conflict with what our child wants.  (She wishes for noisy and chaotic amusement parks, while we crave quiet, natural campgrounds.)

What our child wants is important, but I've come to realize that there is no way we can take care of her if we do not take care of our needs first.  Although she's not as difficult as some kids that we've read about in the blogosphere, she is by no means an "easy" child to live with.  Some days, she can be a joy to be around, while others are so bad there are simply no words to adequately describe them.

And in some ways, riding the roller coaster that goes up and down, sometimes stopping in Crazy Town and sometimes not, is more difficult than dealing with consistent behavior, even when it is all bad.  Her behavior constantly reminds me of the line from the movie Forest Gump, "Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

In our case, we never know what version of Danielle we are going to see in any given moment.  The word "unpredictable" doesn't adequately describe her behavior.  Sometimes we brace for what we think will be an inevitable explosion, and she will respond favorably.  Other times, she'll explode over nothing, when we least expect it.

We never know what we are going to get.

So when we ride the roller coaster, up and down, around and around, sometimes stopping in Crazy Town and sometimes not, we find ourselves exhausted.  The phrase, "I am so tired," frequently escapes our lips, so we grab whatever crumbs  of respite, relaxation and enjoyment we can, even if it means that our child doesn't get everything she wants.

One of the ways that we adults try to take care of ourselves is to spend time outdoors.  Camping, especially at some of the more rustic local campgrounds, is one of our favorite activities.  We've spent many a nice day, simply sitting outside under our sun shade, watching the day go by.  Since we have parrots, and sunshine is imperative for their health, we try to take them outside nearly every day.  I also make a point to run outdoors three times a week*, or find time to wash our cars, so that I can breathe in fresh air while also getting some badly-needed exercise.

Even though I'm fair-skinned and burn more easily than anyone else I've ever met, I've noticed that my mood really has come to depend on getting a certain amount of outside time.  Being able to go outdoors, even if it's only to watch the cars buzzing down my street, is hugely important.  Although our child often manages to bring her own portable rain cloud with her, even on the nicest days, we still make a point to spend some time in the sun.

I've noticed something important: the more time I spend doing the things that I enjoy, that fill my soul and meet my needs, the more able I am to effectively deal with my child's explosions, disrespect, and challenges.  The more content I am with my life, irrespective of my child, the less her behaviors bother me.

Now that's not to say that her behaviors don't get under my skin.  They absolutely do.  It's just that if I'm more happy, well-rested and fed, then I have more emotional energy to allow her "let's take a trip to Crazy Town" behaviors roll off my back.

---

* After a long break from running because I was sick, I re-started Couch to 5K.

Self Care - Part III

I apologize to my readers who have been waiting for my series on self-care. I had planned to write a number of posts, one per day, until I'd covered all the topics I wanted to address. Unfortunately, life got in the way last week, and this week Danielle's behavior has been in the toilet.

It's hard to write anything really meaningful when you are being aggravated to death by petty, ridiculous behaviors.  Last night, for example, Danielle tried to argue that the case of sparkling water sitting on our front porch wasn't water.  FosterEema had asked her to bring our monthly water delivery inside, and she had brought in the five-gallon jugs, but left the case of individual bottles sitting outdoors.  When FosterEema called her on it, she argued that the [brand name] bottles weren't water, but were something else, so she wasn't supposed to bring those inside.

Funny that, considering the fact that the case was clearly labeled [brand name] sparkling water on the sides and top.

It would be funny if it weren't so darned pathetic.  Danielle has no idea how idiotic it makes her appear when she tries to argue things like water isn't really water, or that the Air Force isn't part of the military.

But I digress.

This morning's post was supposed to be about self-care.

In response to Self Care - Part II, Lisa wrote:

It took me too many years and tens of thousands of dollars (put on credit cards no less) to figure this one out. I felt like I had to try EVERYTHING to help my kids. I was depressed for weeks when I couldn't swing one type of therapy for 3 kids that would have run me over $300/week. I felt horrible guilt when I couldn't enroll 4 kids in a tutoring program that would have been upwards of $1,000/month. I was nuts. It took me much too long to realize that these kids would be GONE and I would be paying on these failed therapies for the rest of my life. I just had to start saying (and meaning) NO - and I did! It's been 3 years now and with a ridiculous amount of belt=tightening, most of the debt is gone. Of course one of the kids is gone, another is leaving in 10 mos and another a year later so it's not like we have time to develop a nest egg - and we are much older now than when we began this journey - but nevertheless, it's happening. Self care is so...important, and the one thing we NEVER budget for. Vitamin supplements that cost $300/month? We found a way. $50 for dinner and a movie once every 6 months? nope, could never do it. I regret that the most.

Try to ignore the haters, they have no clue...

And this is exactly the point I wanted to make in this morning's post.  There may very well be talk out there in the blogosphere about self-care in terms of respite, or taking time to do things one finds rewarding and satisfying, but there's very little talk out there about financial self-preservation.  Many parents feel, rightly or wrongly, that they should do everything possible for their children, even if it means destroying the family finances in the process.

In our family, we've come to financial crossroads a number of times.  We came to one when the county fought to remove our daughter, before her adoption was finalized.  We came together as an extended family, decided to fight, and spent tens of thousands of dollars in doing so.  We did this because Danielle said this is what she wanted.

Later, when her behavior completely cratered, we again came together as an extended family and scraped up the money to send her to a summer-long boot camp program.  We thought it would help her, since all the other interventions we'd done previously had failed.  We had taken dozens of hours of parenting classes, we'd gone to countless hours of individual and family therapy, and Danielle herself had worked her way through five or six different professionals and para-professionals, with no real, measurable, or lasting improvement in her behavior.

So this summer, when my wife and I found ourselves with a big financial choice ahead of us, we made the decision to go with what would make us happier.  We have made the decision not to incur additional debt in more attempts to "help" or "cure" Danielle.  Instead, we are making choices to fund our retirement and savings accounts, pay off our outstanding debts, and keep our credit cards paid off each month.

No doubt there are some people out there who will find us selfish for not sacrificing our own happiness and financial security in a futile bid to "save" our child.  Unfortunately, I think the sad reality is that she is who she is, and there's only so much healing she's going to be able to do right now.  I think she may do more once age, maturity and the school of hard knocks known as life, instruct her in ways that no parent, no counselor and no schoolteacher can do.

At this point, I know we have roughly two and a quarter years left until our child turns 18.  She's told us, hundreds, if not thousands, of times that she plans to move out the day she becomes an adult, so that she doesn't have to live with us, and our miserable, demanding, and unfair rules.

I can't fight that.  I'm not going to try and sit down with her when she's raging and offer her a bowl of candy to make things better.  Because honestly, knowing her as well as I do, that bowl would probably end up tossed across the room and I'd just as likely end up with her fist in my eye.

I realize that my kid, her problems, and our relationship can't really be "fixed" in any meaningful way.  So yes, I still owe her the duty of doing the best that I can for her, within reason.  That means that we aren't going to sacrifice everything for her, and we are especially not going to sacrifice our financial future.

Could we go $50,000 into debt and send our troubled, adopted child to a private RTC for a year?  Sure, we could.  However, I'm not convinced that it would truly help her, and certainly the financial stress of carrying that amount of debt in an unstable economy, combined with the negative impact it would have on our future retirement plans, won't make things better, for us as a couple, us as a family, or Danielle as an individual.

So sometimes, we parents just need to put ourselves first, especially when it comes to financial decisions.

At this point, we've made the decision to put ourselves first on the financial totem pole.  Our retirement, savings, and bills come first, because we know in just over two years Danielle will be calling the shots for her life anyway.  We are making decisions that will ensure our financial future, and by doing so, we'll be more likely to be  relaxed, less stressed, and better capable of dealing with the regular side trips to Crazy Town that our child routinely seems to make.

In ten years, will I regret focusing our financial resources on my wife and myself?

Probably not.

At this point, I'm not sure that throwing more and more money at Danielle is really going to help her.  I fear that she will never get better, but if she does, I think it's only going to come at the expense of bitter life lessons that come from the school of hard knocks.

Yesterday, Paula wrote:

Yesterday afternoon I had a long talk with one of my adult sons. He and I had our fair share of disagreements when he was in his teens, but he's turned out to be a pretty intelligent young man and is making wise decisions now. Unfortunately for him, he is also having to live with some very severe consequences from some of the foolish choices he made when he was younger. He's not whining or complaining about these consequences at all. He knows they are a direct result of his actions. As we talked I asked him if he remembered the warnings I'd given him. He did. I asked him if he remembered when I told him what the consequences would be if he didn't heed them. Again, he said yes. I asked him why in the world he didn't listen and obey then. His conclusion was that he just doesn't think that kids truly realize what they are doing and how it will affect them in the long run. I told him that's why God gave kids parents. They KNOW. They have gone before and been kids and now have an adult perspective.

With so many things in life, there are two ways to learn: the easy way, or the hard way.  Sadly, I think for so many of our kids, it's life's hard lessons that are truly the memorable teachers.  I've come to the realization that much of what we do for Danielle is really futile.  Telling her, showing her, counseling her, and teaching her isn't going to spare her from life's ugly lessons, because she simply can't or won't listen to us right now.

So, rather than futilely throw thousands of dollars more at ineffective therapies and cures, I think our money is better spent on things we all can enjoy now, and focus on our financial future that will be coming once our nest is empty.

I have a hard time being optimistic for my child's future anymore.  Her struggles, her pain, and the emotional, psychological and educational damage that has been done to her may very well be an intractable problem.  I realize that I am not capable of fixing her, as much as I might have liked to do so.  Since I cannot guarantee her future or her happiness, the best I can do is to take steps that will ensure mine.

Sometimes, when one is faced with a no-win situation, it's best to cut everyone's losses. Danielle has made her feelings absolutely clear, and I think continuing to try and pretend we are a "real" family (whatever that is) is only going to set us all up for more disappointment.  She has made it clear that she doesn't want to be around either of us (she is just as spiteful to my wife as she is to me) and that once she is an adult, she's going to leave and never look back.

There's an old saying that I think applies here:

When you find yourself standing at the bottom of a hole, stop digging.

I think it's time for us to put away our shovels, and focus on the things that will maximize health, happiness and security for my wife and me.

And perhaps, just perhaps, that happiness might rub off on our child.

---

As an added footnote, I should probably say that I'm not advocating that parents never spend money on their needy children. I'm just saying that it's important we strike a balance.  If a therapy, treatment or medication helps, then it is probably worthwhile.  I just think, especially for those of us parenting kids who aren't being helped by whatever interventions are available, that we need to strike a balance between providing continued treatment that has been proven ineffective, and bankrupting a family's financial future.

The bottom line is that parents need to take care of themselves and their children.

Self Care - Part II

I've had a lot going on in my personal life for the past couple of weeks, which explains the dearth of posting and my failure to get my series on self-care written last week as I had planned.

Most of what's been going on is good stuff, though it has resulted in a lot of unplanned scurrying around.  We had a big change at our house, but I'm going to refrain from sharing the details, because frankly I'm kind of tired of anonymous commenters criticizing my decisions.  It just gets old, sometimes.

Just over a week ago, my wife and I made a decision that will allow us to spend more time doing something that we love to do.  We made the decision to support our need for self-care.  I'm not going to share details, because I'm tired of people telling me I'm a bad parent because I choose to spend my time, money and resources on x, instead of y, but I will say that what we did is a good thing for us as a couple.

And maybe, just maybe, it will enable us to create some good family memories over the next couple of years before our child turns 18.  Or maybe it won't.  Maybe our kid will dive in and enjoy the opportunity for what it is, and maybe she won't.  If she doesn't, I'm not sure what difference it will make. If she is prone to being surly, sullen, grumpy and unhappy at home, why not allow her to be surly, sullen, grumpy and unhappy while we are doing something that we truly love?

I'm sure there will be plenty of people out there who will criticize my decision.  I guess the reality is that there are people out there who will criticize everything we do, even though they have never met us and haven't walked in our shoes.  Maybe that is just the reality of the Internet and the sad downside to blogging.

Corey, over at Watching the Waters, recently posted some criticism she received from our favorite nasty, Anonymous, and what was written there is pretty much the same B.S. I see over here on a regular basis.  It gets pretty old receiving the same tired, worn-out criticisms and being called a bad parent, when I opt not to battle my kid over trivia, or I don't give her something she wants because her behavior hasn't been good enough to warrant it.  It's pretty obnoxious when the person who is griping doesn't understand the context of the situation, and often hasn't bothered to read the entire post.

It's boring, and it often saps the motivation to blog right out of me.

Okay, fine, there's some of you out there who think my wife and I are crappy parents.  We hear it.  We get it.  Move along.

But the reality is that I know that I function better as a parent when I put my needs first. If I'm rested, content, and mostly happy with my lot in life, then I am much more capable of responding better to all of the crazy-making things my kid does.

So I think that one of the things adoptive parents must realize is that there are times when the financial resources must go to the parents, instead of the children.  Yes there's a balancing act, because some of the sickest children need expensive services, medical care, therapy or medications that are not covered by insurance.  There comes a point, though, where you have to ask yourself the following question:

Will spending money on y really make a lasting difference for my child?

If the answer is no, or maybe, perhaps it's time for a reallocation of resources.  Even if the answer is yes, parents need to ask themselves if the long-term consequences for the decision are healthy.  If spending huge amounts of money on a child's needs will bankrupt the family or empty out a couple's retirement fund, maybe it's not the thing to do.

Helping our children is important, most definitely.  However, ensuring our own future is equally  important.

For most parents, a day will come when their children no longer live at home.  It's important for us to plan for our health, welfare, and financial stability when that time comes.

So that is why we made the decision that we did.

Self Care - Part I

For the past several weeks, I've been pondering the post Brenda, The Adoption Counselor, wrote about self-care.  I've been thinking about it a great deal, especially since I've realized that my wife and I are not always good at doing things that meet this very important need.

I've been thinking about this topic so much, that I've decided to write a series on it.  This week's posts will be dedicated exclusively to the subject of self-care.

Before I get into some of the particulars of self-care, it's probably worth discussing exactly why it is so important.  I know a lot of parents who give and give and give to their children, and they end up exhausting themselves and having nothing left.  Even though they might agree that their living situation isn't really comfortable, livable or sustainable, they keep doing it because they feel they must.  They feel that it's unreasonably selfish to meet their own needs first, because their children's needs are more important.

I disagree.  Although taking care of one's children is important, taking care of yourself first is more important.

It boils down to one important fact: 

If you are too exhausted, too stressed out, and too burned out to function decently, you aren't going to be able to do a decent job of meeting your children's needs. 

If you are parenting a special-needs child, taking care of yourself is even more important, because you can't give what you don't have.

When you ride on an airplane, the flight attendant will always give you the same instructions:

In the event of cabin depressurization, oxygen masks will pop out of the ceiling.  Put your own mask on first before assisting others.

Put your own mask on first. That's an important analogy for living life with special needs kids.  If you are taking good care of yourself -- eating right, sleeping enough, getting exercise, and taking time to meet your own needs -- you'll have much more physical and emotional energy to do the things your child needs.  If you are taking care of yourself, you'll have the ability to also meet the needs of everyone else who relies on you, including your spouse, employer, extended family and other children.

Take care of yourself first.  You are the only you that you have.  If you destroy yourself in the process of taking care of everyone else, eventually you will find yourself in the position of not being able to take care of them either.

Although there are folks out there in the world who will tell you otherwise, there really is no glory in martyrdom.  This is especially true with some of our more damaged special-needs kids, because what we do might not make a long-term difference.  For some children, prenatal exposure to alcohol and drugs, a familial history of mental illness or intellectual disability, or the weight of abuse and neglect that they received during their most crucial formative years, will forever alter the course of their lives.  What we do might not make a long-term difference in their adulthood.  Even with the best parenting, some of these children aren't going to do well.

So we have to do all that we can to help them, but we need to take care  of ourselves so that we can.

Because the reality is, at least for the majority of parents who are caring for special-needs children, that these kids will eventually leave.  Some kids may end up blowing up and ending up in residential treatment centers or jail, while others will navigate the tumultuous waters of adolescence and move out when they reach the age of majority.

So, with few exceptions, those kids are going to leave, and we parents will still have to live what's left of our lives.

If we've neglected our emotional, physical and spiritual health, we've not only shortchanged our children, but we've also created lasting health and emotional consequences for ourselves.

So we must, no matter how difficult or unreasonable it seems, find a way to carve out a space for self-care.

Suspicion

While we were away on vacation, some friends of ours had to take their children to the hospital. I won't go into specific details, because their story is not mine to tell, but I'd like to comment on the reaction of the hospital's emergency room staff.

When the kids were brought in, the ER staff carefully questioned the parents about what had led to their visit that day. The staff repeatedly questioned my friends, as if they were trying to find some inconsistency in their story. They would ask leading questions such as "Now let me make sure I understand this, x happened, right?" when in fact they had been told, several times, that y was the reason for the visit.

After the parents had been questioned several times, staffers started the same line of questioning on my wife, my kid and me.  At least to me, it felt more like a police interrogation than nursing staff trying to find the answer to important medical questions.

Although the kids did get the necessary medical care they needed, I couldn't help but feel as if my friends were treated with a certain amount of suspicion.  I'm sure it didn't help that we were all wearing old clothes and were muddy and smelly from camping in inclement weather.

The nature of what happened was clearly accidental, and I don't see how any hospital staffer could have interpreted events any other way.  Small children often lack common sense, and they can do stupid things they shouldn't do in a matter of seconds, even if an adult is standing right by.

It felt really bad to watch my friends treated with such suspicion. 

So, How Was Your Vacation?

Sometimes, I find myself in a quandary about what to write about in my blog.  I'd like to share the details about my vacation, but given the fact that it's clear that at least some of my blog stalkers are back, I'm not sure I should share much in the way of details.  Even if I didn't have concerns about revealing too much identifying information, I think some of my critics would think that I was bragging or showing off, and accuse me of further abusing my child by doing the things I wanted to do on vacation, instead of booking airline tickets, renting a car, and spending a week at the nearest Disney theme park.

So without going into too many specifics, I'm going to share a few bits about our vacation:

• We went camping at a somewhat local campground.
  
  
• The weather was not as nice as we would have liked, but a bad day camping is better than a good day doing almost anything else.  Everything we have came home unusually filthy.
  
  
• To our surprise, the kid behaved better than she has on any other camping trip.  It's unclear why, though I'm hoping that interventions with the crisis counselor may be helping.  Her worst behavior appeared after one of her friends arrived to spend a few days with us.
  
  
• The friend ended up going home a day early, not because of our kid's behavior, but because she wasn't having fun (choosing to go camping when one is sick is generally a bad idea) and called home begging for a ride.  The adult who came to pick her up was not pleased.
  
  
• It turned out that the friend's departure was a blessing in disguise, because an emergency popped up a few hours later that resulted in a mad dash to the nearest hospital. (The emergency didn't involve anyone in our family, and everyone who was involved is now fine.)

Some things I learned this trip:

• My big truck can go scary fast.
  
  
• I am mean because I won't allow a pair of teenagers to spend the entire day inside my RV, especially when we have a perfectly good enclosed and heated screen room outside.
  
  
• I am extra-special mean because I insist all teenagers who are not helping with meal preparation go outside when I'm trying to use my tiny galley (kitchen) to make dinner.
  
  
• I am extra-special, double-trouble, quadruple-whammy mean because I do not allow non-helping teenagers to sleep in when other adults in our group are waiting for breakfast, especially when I need the dinette table, which the kids were sleeping on, for a meal-preparation area because there is no counter space in our RV*.
  
  
• Jumbo marshmallows, in my opinion, are not as good as the regular-sized ones.
  
  
• I can tow and back up a 30' trailer without wrecking it.
  
  
• Sleeping in a car, parked at a gas station, in the middle of the night, with a friend, because you are too tired to drive another mile, is just as fun as it used to be.
  
  
• Even the most boring of vacations can turn into an interesting adventure.

I had a great time.

 ---
* Said teenagers had the option of sleeping in a tent, where they wouldn't have been disturbed by our need to do something as trivial as meal preparation.

Technology Diet

I've received a number of concerned e-mails and comments from folks asking if we are okay, since I haven't posted anything in more than a week.

I've been on a technology diet while on vacation, so that explains my absence and lack of communication.  I had every intention of pre-writing a list of posts to go up while I was gone, but work got crazy, packing didn't happen until the last minute, and I didn't manage to write anything in advance.

One of the last posts I read on The Adoption Counselor spoke about the importance of self-care, and I've spent a lot of time doing things that meet my needs for rest, relaxation and self-care.  As I spent many days sitting under the shade of a tree, watching the sun rise and set with nothing to do but tend the fire, roast marshmallows, and grill steaks, I've been thinking a lot about things that I need to do to take care of myself..

So that series is coming soon.

For now though, I have work to catch up on, and a giant heap of muddy clothes, shoes, and camping gear that needs a friendly visit from a garden hose.

So all is well.