I'm writing about this again because I just think watching it develop is interesting and I don't want to forget this.
I wrote about what S started out calling us here when she started transitioning towards a different name. That time it didn't last long.
But around Christmas, she switched over to pretty much always using Mom and Dad for the two of us, while using Mommy and Daddy for her bio parents.
Except when she's mad at me or I don't respond quickly enough to the first call for attention. Then she calls me Ms FirstName. :)
Monday, March 4, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
What if they don't?
Generally, I love PBS Kids programming. We happen to get two different local PBS stations, so when my pre-school kids watch TV during a school day, their choices are PBS1 show and PBS2 show. (Generally this means I'm saying things like "you can watch Dinosaur Train or Super Why, which do you choose?" If they don't like either of these, well, I guess we'll do something else then.)
This usually works well, and we love us some Super Why and Curious George at this house.
S has taken a liking to the new Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood as well, which has been fine....until today. If you've never watched the show, there's always a short sung tag line that's the "lesson" for the day. (There's been things like "Making something is one way to say I love you" or "When you feel so mad that you want to ROAR, take deep breath and count to 4!") The song gets repeated several times as the character has to practice that lesson during the story.
Today, the story is one of those stories that sounds like a great idea . . . to people who've never had foster kids.
The premise is that Daniel's parents went out for the evening and he had a baby-sitter stay with him.
Today's theme tag song was "grown-ups come back."
Oops. We, um, obviously didn't watch the whole thing. I "remembered" that we were going to make muffins today and we did that instead.
This usually works well, and we love us some Super Why and Curious George at this house.
S has taken a liking to the new Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood as well, which has been fine....until today. If you've never watched the show, there's always a short sung tag line that's the "lesson" for the day. (There's been things like "Making something is one way to say I love you" or "When you feel so mad that you want to ROAR, take deep breath and count to 4!") The song gets repeated several times as the character has to practice that lesson during the story.
Today, the story is one of those stories that sounds like a great idea . . . to people who've never had foster kids.
The premise is that Daniel's parents went out for the evening and he had a baby-sitter stay with him.
Today's theme tag song was "grown-ups come back."
Oops. We, um, obviously didn't watch the whole thing. I "remembered" that we were going to make muffins today and we did that instead.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Same old, same old
Not much has changed here, which has caused me to have little to write about.
Finally met S's newest caseworker. She did ask to see S's room and attempted to talk to S at least a little bit (but S is still 3, so it will take time before much can really be accomplished there). She took notes about my concerns and frustrations. It remains to be seen if she'll actually do anything about them. She was new to this county, so didn't know a lot about "how that works here" when it came to some of my questions, which was frustrating. I couldn't tell if she was also new to foster care in general (just from a different county) or whether her previous social work experience had all been in a different area. I got the impression she had worked in the past investigating complaints -- deciding whether to remove children or not -- but may have never actually followed a case through to the bitter end. Why does S keep getting newbies? Is it because her mother is working so hard and the case looks "easy"?
S's rages are escalating. I'm pretty sure they are made worse by two things.
One is the recent return of her BioDad. He was in jail at the start of the case, out briefly enough to see her once, then arrested again and now out again. To his credit, he wants his time with her and he wants it to be a positive interaction. However, he is the classic example of a "Disneyland Dad" who shows up with sweets and presents and lets the child do whatever the hell she wants and calls it awesome bonding time. So, I get back an overtired, overstimulated, oversugared little tyke who melts down all over me.
Two is BioMom's recent use of some unfortunate phrasing. In an attempt to help her daughter understand that progress is being made, she has told her that she's finished some of her "homework." And continued to promise that she'll be able to come to Mommy's house "soon." The problem is that Mommy doesn't yet have a house -- and that's the one part of her case plan that is really still hanging to be completed. She has gotten a lot done -- many classes completed or nearly so, months of clean drug screens, employment obtained and kept. But until she finds herself a new place to live, S isn't going anywhere. And "soon" to a 3-year old? Does not mean "in a few months", which would be the best case scenario at this point. So, after one of these conversations, I get a emotionally, traumatized little girl who just wants to go home to Mommy and doesn't understand why I won't let her.
Oh, and throw in the fact that her preschool has some events coming up to which they invite family members. And her teacher informed me (with a great deal of embarrassment) that when she told the class that "their Mommies and Daddies" would be coming, S lit up and asked if her Mommy was coming. (She's not. It's held during one of the times she's in her required classes and the preschool is about 1.5 hours from where she lives. And she doesn't drive.) I'll be there, of course, but that's not the same.
We attempted to file our taxes, only to discover that the SSN for one or more dependent has been filed under someone else's account. We suspect it's L & O, who lived with us for more than half of 2012, then were with their mother for a few months, back in foster care (with another family) for at least a few weeks, and spent the remaining month or two with a different family member. For some reason, the IRS is not able (or willing?) to tell us which SSN is causing the error when we attempt to efile. So, we have to paper file and wait for it all to be sorted out.
So, it's been a lot of fun around here.
Finally met S's newest caseworker. She did ask to see S's room and attempted to talk to S at least a little bit (but S is still 3, so it will take time before much can really be accomplished there). She took notes about my concerns and frustrations. It remains to be seen if she'll actually do anything about them. She was new to this county, so didn't know a lot about "how that works here" when it came to some of my questions, which was frustrating. I couldn't tell if she was also new to foster care in general (just from a different county) or whether her previous social work experience had all been in a different area. I got the impression she had worked in the past investigating complaints -- deciding whether to remove children or not -- but may have never actually followed a case through to the bitter end. Why does S keep getting newbies? Is it because her mother is working so hard and the case looks "easy"?
S's rages are escalating. I'm pretty sure they are made worse by two things.
One is the recent return of her BioDad. He was in jail at the start of the case, out briefly enough to see her once, then arrested again and now out again. To his credit, he wants his time with her and he wants it to be a positive interaction. However, he is the classic example of a "Disneyland Dad" who shows up with sweets and presents and lets the child do whatever the hell she wants and calls it awesome bonding time. So, I get back an overtired, overstimulated, oversugared little tyke who melts down all over me.
Two is BioMom's recent use of some unfortunate phrasing. In an attempt to help her daughter understand that progress is being made, she has told her that she's finished some of her "homework." And continued to promise that she'll be able to come to Mommy's house "soon." The problem is that Mommy doesn't yet have a house -- and that's the one part of her case plan that is really still hanging to be completed. She has gotten a lot done -- many classes completed or nearly so, months of clean drug screens, employment obtained and kept. But until she finds herself a new place to live, S isn't going anywhere. And "soon" to a 3-year old? Does not mean "in a few months", which would be the best case scenario at this point. So, after one of these conversations, I get a emotionally, traumatized little girl who just wants to go home to Mommy and doesn't understand why I won't let her.
Oh, and throw in the fact that her preschool has some events coming up to which they invite family members. And her teacher informed me (with a great deal of embarrassment) that when she told the class that "their Mommies and Daddies" would be coming, S lit up and asked if her Mommy was coming. (She's not. It's held during one of the times she's in her required classes and the preschool is about 1.5 hours from where she lives. And she doesn't drive.) I'll be there, of course, but that's not the same.
We attempted to file our taxes, only to discover that the SSN for one or more dependent has been filed under someone else's account. We suspect it's L & O, who lived with us for more than half of 2012, then were with their mother for a few months, back in foster care (with another family) for at least a few weeks, and spent the remaining month or two with a different family member. For some reason, the IRS is not able (or willing?) to tell us which SSN is causing the error when we attempt to efile. So, we have to paper file and wait for it all to be sorted out.
So, it's been a lot of fun around here.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Praying
I'm trying really hard to pray for S's parents.
It's easy to pray for her mother. To pray that she continues on the path she has started. To pray that she feels support and encouragement from God and from those around her. To pray that the parts of her case plan that are out of her hands are resolved quickly. To pray for her healing and her spirit and her grief. To pray that her path to reunification may be smoothed. I can see S's mother working so hard to be the parent that S deserves and I want her to succeed, so it's easy to focus on the good things she's doing and thank God for them and to ask Him to help her with the rest of the steps.
It's hard to pray for S's father. In the last 6 months, he has had 1 visit with his daughter, because there was only one that fell during the brief time he was out of prison. He's out again now and will have another visit with her in a few days. So I am trying to pray for him and it is so, so hard. Although I can intellectually imagine that he also has grief at having lost her, I don't see it. What I see is an angry man insisting that nothing is his fault. (According to him, S's first caseworker was out to get him. Right. Her concerns with him as a placement had nothing to do with his history of arrests for violent behavior, the pending criminal charges on him, or his refusal to ask the "friend" with whom he was living to submit to a drug screen and background check.) I see a man who wants to play with this little girl, not parent her. I know that God sees more than I do -- that it is not my place to judge him -- but I am struggling to translate that knowledge into prayer for him. It's not that I don't want him to be the parent S deserves -- it's that I don't see him trying and it's hard to pray for his success at something he's not trying to do.
It's easy to pray for her mother. To pray that she continues on the path she has started. To pray that she feels support and encouragement from God and from those around her. To pray that the parts of her case plan that are out of her hands are resolved quickly. To pray for her healing and her spirit and her grief. To pray that her path to reunification may be smoothed. I can see S's mother working so hard to be the parent that S deserves and I want her to succeed, so it's easy to focus on the good things she's doing and thank God for them and to ask Him to help her with the rest of the steps.
It's hard to pray for S's father. In the last 6 months, he has had 1 visit with his daughter, because there was only one that fell during the brief time he was out of prison. He's out again now and will have another visit with her in a few days. So I am trying to pray for him and it is so, so hard. Although I can intellectually imagine that he also has grief at having lost her, I don't see it. What I see is an angry man insisting that nothing is his fault. (According to him, S's first caseworker was out to get him. Right. Her concerns with him as a placement had nothing to do with his history of arrests for violent behavior, the pending criminal charges on him, or his refusal to ask the "friend" with whom he was living to submit to a drug screen and background check.) I see a man who wants to play with this little girl, not parent her. I know that God sees more than I do -- that it is not my place to judge him -- but I am struggling to translate that knowledge into prayer for him. It's not that I don't want him to be the parent S deserves -- it's that I don't see him trying and it's hard to pray for his success at something he's not trying to do.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Caseworker Carousel
One of the things I am realizing with S's case is some of the little ways in which I had it good on L & O's case.
L and O had the same county caseworker throughout the entire 13 months that they lived with me. The agency caseworker went out on maternity leave when they had been with me for about 6 months. (Everybody involved had thought they'd be with family by then and she got put on bedrest, which required her to take leave sooner than planned.) She was replaced by a caseworker who stayed on their case for the remainder of their time with me and who took over their new case when they were returned to care.
That gave L & O some continuity. Some of the "adults in charge" did not change...which ensured that the messages they received about their mother and their time in foster care stayed consistent.
I got frustrated at times with how difficult it was to get a response from the county caseworker, but she was always here for her monthly home visits, always saw the kids' bedrooms and spoke with them (privately at every visit for L, sometimes privately for O especially after he got comfortable with her). I knew that she was overworked and overloaded with cases and (mostly) accepted that my questions would get answered at the next monthly home visit.
S has been with me about 6 months. My agency caseworker has remained constant. I just had a home visit from her county caseworker....who informed me that S will be assigned a new caseworker tomorrow as this caseworker's last day is the end of the month. That will make the 3rd state caseworker S has had in the time she's been in care. And, of course, I don't even know who it is or how to contact him or her.
The first one was pretty good -- she saw S's room at each visit, she worked hard with BioMom to help her understand everything she needed to do and how to get it done, she kept me notified of important dates as soon as she knew about them, she attempted to build a rapport with S. But after a couple of months, she informed me that she was "rolling off the case" and gave me the contact information for her replacement. The replacement was very nice, but not particularly effectual. She never once went anywhere in my house other than the entryway and the kitchen table at which we sat while we talked. She was a new hire by the agency who is already leaving -- I'm thinking she turned out to be not cut out for this job? I am not naive enough to even hope that the case will be given back to the original caseworker.
S's referral for counseling is lost in the wind ... and the person who should be following up is as good as gone, which means I will have to start over with a new caseworker with my evidence of why she needs help even though she isn't on the verge of getting kicked out preschool or burning down my house. Which means it will be even longer before she gets that help. Not to mention the fact that S's mother -- who is doing everything she can to get her daughter back -- is about to be given a 3rd person to whom she has to prove herself.
To steal (with permission!) from Cherub Mamma -- foster care sucks!
L and O had the same county caseworker throughout the entire 13 months that they lived with me. The agency caseworker went out on maternity leave when they had been with me for about 6 months. (Everybody involved had thought they'd be with family by then and she got put on bedrest, which required her to take leave sooner than planned.) She was replaced by a caseworker who stayed on their case for the remainder of their time with me and who took over their new case when they were returned to care.
That gave L & O some continuity. Some of the "adults in charge" did not change...which ensured that the messages they received about their mother and their time in foster care stayed consistent.
I got frustrated at times with how difficult it was to get a response from the county caseworker, but she was always here for her monthly home visits, always saw the kids' bedrooms and spoke with them (privately at every visit for L, sometimes privately for O especially after he got comfortable with her). I knew that she was overworked and overloaded with cases and (mostly) accepted that my questions would get answered at the next monthly home visit.
S has been with me about 6 months. My agency caseworker has remained constant. I just had a home visit from her county caseworker....who informed me that S will be assigned a new caseworker tomorrow as this caseworker's last day is the end of the month. That will make the 3rd state caseworker S has had in the time she's been in care. And, of course, I don't even know who it is or how to contact him or her.
The first one was pretty good -- she saw S's room at each visit, she worked hard with BioMom to help her understand everything she needed to do and how to get it done, she kept me notified of important dates as soon as she knew about them, she attempted to build a rapport with S. But after a couple of months, she informed me that she was "rolling off the case" and gave me the contact information for her replacement. The replacement was very nice, but not particularly effectual. She never once went anywhere in my house other than the entryway and the kitchen table at which we sat while we talked. She was a new hire by the agency who is already leaving -- I'm thinking she turned out to be not cut out for this job? I am not naive enough to even hope that the case will be given back to the original caseworker.
S's referral for counseling is lost in the wind ... and the person who should be following up is as good as gone, which means I will have to start over with a new caseworker with my evidence of why she needs help even though she isn't on the verge of getting kicked out preschool or burning down my house. Which means it will be even longer before she gets that help. Not to mention the fact that S's mother -- who is doing everything she can to get her daughter back -- is about to be given a 3rd person to whom she has to prove herself.
To steal (with permission!) from Cherub Mamma -- foster care sucks!
Monday, January 14, 2013
Challenging Days
We're going through a rough behavior period right now and I don't know how -- or if -- to blog about it, so I just haven't been writing.
S has been here for over 5 months now. I'd say we are definitely out of that "honeymoon period" they talked about in training.
I'm trying to keep things simple and focus on one major behavior issue at a time, so that we don't set ourselves up to be constantly criticizing her.
So, I picked the biggest one, set some boundaries and am holding my ground.
She hates it. She reacts with shock and frustration every time I follow through on a promised consequence. (And she's reminded of the consequence and given a chance to change the behavior every time. She never does.)
I make her cry at least once a day. It's becoming a gruesome joke -- how long we will make it today? To bedtime? To lunch? Not even through breakfast?
Today, I was that parent in the grocery store with the 3 year old in the cart screaming her head off and kicking her feet. You know, the one that seems to be ignoring their brat of a child? That was me. I wasn't ignoring her. I had told her that we would talk about what had happened and how to get what she wanted when she was ready to stop crying. I repeated that to her several times before she finally "heard" it and insisted (still sobbing) that she was done crying.
I don't know. I don't know if I'm doing this wrong. I don't know if there's a better way to help her understand that her choices have consequences and that I always mean what I say.
I have a training class coming up on behavior tools, which I really hope gives me some new ideas because I am at a loss.
It's hard to explain this even to caseworkers because it sounds like "normal 3 year old testing limits" behavior. Until you see it. And you see how out of proportion her rage is and how genuinely confused she seems to be by the fact that I follow through on consequences and how utterly incapable she is of repeating back the reason for that consequence. Even when I just gave them to her. The conversation will go something like this:
Me: "I put you in time out because you hit me. Do you understand?"
Her: "Yes."
Me: "OK. Tell me why you had to go to time out."
Her: "Because I asked for ice cream."
Me: "What happened when you asked for ice cream?"
Her: "I wanted some."
Me: "I know you wanted some ice cream. You asked for some and I said no. Do you remember what you did when I said no?"
Her: "We don't hit."
Me: "Yes, we don't hit. But you hit me when I said no ice cream. Do you remember that?"
Her: "yes."
Me: "And you had to go to time out for hitting."
Her: "yes."
Me: "So, tell me why you were in time out?"
Her: "Because I can't have ice cream." **Not a real conversation. Hitting is not the behavior issue and not getting ice cream has never triggered it. But it gives you the flavor of how we're talking in circles and it feels as though she really can't articulate why she's in trouble....which makes me wonder if any sort of discipline could possibly be effective!
Before I know it, it seems we have spent more time trying to get her to verbalize her understanding of the misbehavior than it is reasonable to expect a 3 year old to talk about it.
I can't tell if she really doesn't get it, if she's trying to manipulate me into dropping it (by "playing dumb"), if this sort of response has gotten her out of trouble before....I just don't know. Maybe I picked the wrong behavior to focus on...but I don't feel like we can resolve any other behavior issues until we get this one more in line with normal 3 year old development.
She's had a psych eval, which said she was mostly fine, just "borderline in a few areas." I'm pushing for further testing and support for those borderline areas, but the wheels are turning really, really slowly.
I feel stuck. And I don't even know how to end this post, because it isn't resolved. We're working on it. We've told BioMom we're working on it and what we're doing and asked her to "be consistent" with us during visit time, but realistically we doubt that's happening. (Who wants to make their child cry when you only get to see them a few hours a week? Especially with someone watching every move you make. If S reacts to her mother enforcing these boundaries the same way she reacts to me, I'm sure Mom caves to make her "happy" again. I probably would, too, in her shoes. I have the luxury of enforcing my consequences in relative privacy and having plenty of "not in trouble" time to balance it out.) I'm trying to trust that things will improve if we stay consistent, but I'm feeling discouraged and ineffective right now.
S has been here for over 5 months now. I'd say we are definitely out of that "honeymoon period" they talked about in training.
I'm trying to keep things simple and focus on one major behavior issue at a time, so that we don't set ourselves up to be constantly criticizing her.
So, I picked the biggest one, set some boundaries and am holding my ground.
She hates it. She reacts with shock and frustration every time I follow through on a promised consequence. (And she's reminded of the consequence and given a chance to change the behavior every time. She never does.)
I make her cry at least once a day. It's becoming a gruesome joke -- how long we will make it today? To bedtime? To lunch? Not even through breakfast?
Today, I was that parent in the grocery store with the 3 year old in the cart screaming her head off and kicking her feet. You know, the one that seems to be ignoring their brat of a child? That was me. I wasn't ignoring her. I had told her that we would talk about what had happened and how to get what she wanted when she was ready to stop crying. I repeated that to her several times before she finally "heard" it and insisted (still sobbing) that she was done crying.
I don't know. I don't know if I'm doing this wrong. I don't know if there's a better way to help her understand that her choices have consequences and that I always mean what I say.
I have a training class coming up on behavior tools, which I really hope gives me some new ideas because I am at a loss.
It's hard to explain this even to caseworkers because it sounds like "normal 3 year old testing limits" behavior. Until you see it. And you see how out of proportion her rage is and how genuinely confused she seems to be by the fact that I follow through on consequences and how utterly incapable she is of repeating back the reason for that consequence. Even when I just gave them to her. The conversation will go something like this:
Me: "I put you in time out because you hit me. Do you understand?"
Her: "Yes."
Me: "OK. Tell me why you had to go to time out."
Her: "Because I asked for ice cream."
Me: "What happened when you asked for ice cream?"
Her: "I wanted some."
Me: "I know you wanted some ice cream. You asked for some and I said no. Do you remember what you did when I said no?"
Her: "We don't hit."
Me: "Yes, we don't hit. But you hit me when I said no ice cream. Do you remember that?"
Her: "yes."
Me: "And you had to go to time out for hitting."
Her: "yes."
Me: "So, tell me why you were in time out?"
Her: "Because I can't have ice cream." **Not a real conversation. Hitting is not the behavior issue and not getting ice cream has never triggered it. But it gives you the flavor of how we're talking in circles and it feels as though she really can't articulate why she's in trouble....which makes me wonder if any sort of discipline could possibly be effective!
Before I know it, it seems we have spent more time trying to get her to verbalize her understanding of the misbehavior than it is reasonable to expect a 3 year old to talk about it.
I can't tell if she really doesn't get it, if she's trying to manipulate me into dropping it (by "playing dumb"), if this sort of response has gotten her out of trouble before....I just don't know. Maybe I picked the wrong behavior to focus on...but I don't feel like we can resolve any other behavior issues until we get this one more in line with normal 3 year old development.
She's had a psych eval, which said she was mostly fine, just "borderline in a few areas." I'm pushing for further testing and support for those borderline areas, but the wheels are turning really, really slowly.
I feel stuck. And I don't even know how to end this post, because it isn't resolved. We're working on it. We've told BioMom we're working on it and what we're doing and asked her to "be consistent" with us during visit time, but realistically we doubt that's happening. (Who wants to make their child cry when you only get to see them a few hours a week? Especially with someone watching every move you make. If S reacts to her mother enforcing these boundaries the same way she reacts to me, I'm sure Mom caves to make her "happy" again. I probably would, too, in her shoes. I have the luxury of enforcing my consequences in relative privacy and having plenty of "not in trouble" time to balance it out.) I'm trying to trust that things will improve if we stay consistent, but I'm feeling discouraged and ineffective right now.
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