Post by Dabeagle on Jul 20, 2014 11:33:35 GMT -5
Since May we've had our lives thrown into turmoil by the arrival of a foster daughter. She's been through a lot of trauma - her mother duct taped her to a chair and beat her when she was 5 because 'she wouldn't stay still'. Her mother has zero parenting skills and goes from 0 to overwhelmed in nothing flat with nothing in between. The mother also struggles with her own mental health issues and is a product of the foster care system. The only good thing I can say about her mom is that she really does care about her kids - she is just a horrible, horrible parent. And this girl is being sent back to her mother.
From the beginning we knew this was to be a short term stay - initially we were told 6 weeks till the end of school, and then they wanted to place her in a home she'd been in before - and been successful. That person was away in Europe visiting friends at the time, however, and they needed a home for her right away. Then they started to say she was going to go home to mom (mental health agency and the lawyer for the child said she should go home) and then that was reversed and we were asked to keep her for the summer.
Throughout this we had some kid stuff, some theft and a lot of lying and mistrust. We had to deal with one of her tics, which is questions. She asks questions excessively, and not simply to gain knowledge or comfort. She asks, as my dad would say, to hear her head rattle. For instance, I sat down to dinner with a glass of milk. In a clear glass. She turned to me and said, 'Is that milk?' Her short term memory is shot and she's on a raft of medicine. We have been advocating to reduce her meds since day one, but in her last meeting (med review) it was made clear she is medicated to make her manageable for her incompetent mother.
To make matters worse, we knew we weren't a great fit for her needs. She really, really needs to be the only child and get one on one attention. However with our son and three dogs, and being selfish enough to look out for our own needs as well, it just wasn't possible. We told them straight out that if she became available for adoption, we shouldn't be considered 'an adoptive resource'. Now that she knows she's going home, the separation behaviors have started to make it easier on her, mentally, to go home. Defiance, theft, no effort to focus on even simple things like eating breakfast and getting dressed. We've been pushed to the edge of sanity over the course of the last few months, and what makes it so galling is that the system is sending her right back into that mess. Looking at the family, she will be a teen mother - she's so needy she won't say no to the first boy that asks. The two younger ones are smarter, but will be JD problems and likely teenage parents as well. It's so sad to look at a situation and know you are powerless to help.
In the midst of this, what I think (hope) are the final changes to Wayward Son have been completed and we have begun the publishing process. There is a new chapter for The Tull Unification that is 80% done. There is a new serial novel that is five chapters in, but I'm not really happy with it and have had little time to focus on any of them.
The bus is dead in the water, at the moment, with the coil having given out. How's your summer going?
From the beginning we knew this was to be a short term stay - initially we were told 6 weeks till the end of school, and then they wanted to place her in a home she'd been in before - and been successful. That person was away in Europe visiting friends at the time, however, and they needed a home for her right away. Then they started to say she was going to go home to mom (mental health agency and the lawyer for the child said she should go home) and then that was reversed and we were asked to keep her for the summer.
Throughout this we had some kid stuff, some theft and a lot of lying and mistrust. We had to deal with one of her tics, which is questions. She asks questions excessively, and not simply to gain knowledge or comfort. She asks, as my dad would say, to hear her head rattle. For instance, I sat down to dinner with a glass of milk. In a clear glass. She turned to me and said, 'Is that milk?' Her short term memory is shot and she's on a raft of medicine. We have been advocating to reduce her meds since day one, but in her last meeting (med review) it was made clear she is medicated to make her manageable for her incompetent mother.
To make matters worse, we knew we weren't a great fit for her needs. She really, really needs to be the only child and get one on one attention. However with our son and three dogs, and being selfish enough to look out for our own needs as well, it just wasn't possible. We told them straight out that if she became available for adoption, we shouldn't be considered 'an adoptive resource'. Now that she knows she's going home, the separation behaviors have started to make it easier on her, mentally, to go home. Defiance, theft, no effort to focus on even simple things like eating breakfast and getting dressed. We've been pushed to the edge of sanity over the course of the last few months, and what makes it so galling is that the system is sending her right back into that mess. Looking at the family, she will be a teen mother - she's so needy she won't say no to the first boy that asks. The two younger ones are smarter, but will be JD problems and likely teenage parents as well. It's so sad to look at a situation and know you are powerless to help.
In the midst of this, what I think (hope) are the final changes to Wayward Son have been completed and we have begun the publishing process. There is a new chapter for The Tull Unification that is 80% done. There is a new serial novel that is five chapters in, but I'm not really happy with it and have had little time to focus on any of them.
The bus is dead in the water, at the moment, with the coil having given out. How's your summer going?
