Can't or Won't

I think this question is the most difficult question in raising children with mental health diagnosis, developmental delays, FASD, attachment issues .... really any child, but especially those with significant issues.

When we expect something from a child and they don’t do it ... is it because they can’t do it? Or is it because they won’t do it?

If we approach a child as if they cannot do something when in all actuality they can but won’t, then we are enabling their behavior.

However, if we approach a child as if they can do something when in reality, it is something they cannot do, then we are frustrating them.

But how do we tell?

And then there are children who have Oppositional Defiant Disorder or Conduct Disorder. Isn’t their disability that they won’t because they can’t? I realize this is confusing, but their inability to cooperate is their disability. So it often looks like won’t. But it might be that they really cannot cooperate, cannot make themself do the right thing.

I wish that I had an answer. All I know is that it is trial and error. We have to really know our children and we have to continually challenges ourselves to ask this question. Sometimes we have to play little games. Can a child do a task if there is a reward? Maybe we have to offer one sometimes to see if they are able to complete the task and then work towards getting them to do it without a reward. It involves constant re-evaluating, constant rethinking, constant conversation with the child, the therapist, other family members.

I recommend focusing on one issue at a time and determining if it is can’t or won’t. And then remember to re-evaluate after a certain period of time. Any feedback or discussion on this issue is welcome.

Warehousing Kids

A decision has been in the works about one of our sons for the past few weeks which has brought up some interesting conversations in my life. It has also resulted in a lot of frustration for me and others.

Our son, who is now seventeen and a half has spent the last 3.5 years in group homes, detention centers, psychiatric hospitals and shelter homes. He has spent a few months in our home, unsuccessfully, and even fewer months in three different "very skilled" foster homes. Every time he was placed in a residential treatment he was promised that if he did well, he would go back to foster care or back home or into a family setting. I blogged about the whole cycle over a year ago.

Our county has a policy that, in principle, I agree with. It involves the not "warehousing kids." They believe that kids should be in the "least restrictive environment." And so, after a designated period of time and the kids are doing well, they "deserve to be given a chance."

I could not agree more with the principle. But at what point in time do we conclude that certain children cannot function without more supervision? At what point in time do we determine that there are some kids who not only need a more restrictive environment as children, but as adults as well? Maybe setting up a setting to transition kids with mental illness from a supervised setting as juveniles to a supervised setting as adults would be more preferable than letting them be free at 18 and be forced to seek a restrictive environment for themselves (jail)?

I don't have answers. I just have a lot of questions. But in theory I must admit that I agree that kids should be given a chance. I consistently attempt to seek families willing to commit to kids who are in residential treatment with a plan to attempt to let them move into their family setting.

But after a child has proven time and time again that a family setting is impossible for them, then is it really fair to the kid to set them up for a perceived failure time and time again?

I hope and pray that this time my son proves me wrong. I hope he is extremely successful. I pray that he can hold it together and do as well as everyone dreams he might. And I will be thrilled to report, in this situation, that I was wrong, and that he was ready for this transition.

But until then I will fear for him, for the safety of those with whom he comes in contact with, for his younger siblings who are affected by his behavior, and for his older sibling who might lead him down a wrong path.

And until then I will know that there are those who believe that my pessimism will determine a negative outcome. But history has shown that my optimism or pessimism has not changed behavior. It is what it is.

Ungrateful

One of the biggest mistakes that I ever made as a pre-adoptive parent was to believe that my children were going to be grateful for what we were doing for them. Coming out of poverty, some living in cars, not always enough food -- I figured the things we were providing them were going to be enough that they would be grateful. It didn't happen.

Recently I started thinking about how ungrateful we all are. Some of us have reached a plateau where we feel content with our lives and don't complain, but most of us mutter some. We might have a good job that pays fairly well, but there are things we don't like about the job and we voice them to someone. We're smart enough not to voice them too often to the one who pays us, but we mutter. We complain about many things.

Kids have complaints too, but where do they go with their compliants? They come to us and we become frustrated. I just bought you three new shirts and you're complaining that one of them isn't quite the right color? I just made you a huge meal and you complain about the green beans -- maybe you'd like to cook sometime. I take time to give you a ride and all you can do is complain because I won't let you turn the radio to the rap station? There are a million examples.

I wonder if maybe God might have a similar reaction. I give you a rainbow, but you complain about the rain that came before. I provide usnshine and it's too hot, moisture via snow and it's too cold. I provide you with many blessings, and yet you complain.

I believe that many children appear ungrateful because they cannot, especially at their maturity level, view the big picture.

In addition, I believe that there are other groups of kids who truly are grateful, but then cannot tell their parents how they really feel because they are afraid of sounding ungrateful. Kids adopted transracially usually have many inner struggles that don't get shared with parents becuase they don't want to hurt our feelings.

So, are children adopted out of foster care ungrateful? Yes, they probably are. But maybe not much more so than we were when we were their age, but our parents didn't expect us to be.

Thieves

Many times kids who are adopted out of foster care, and sometimes kids adopted internationally take things. We call them thieves and we call it stealing, but again, we need to take into account the WHYS and possibly choose a different term. In the first section I will talk about kids with FASD or organic brain damage.

1) Kids with organic brain damage do not understand boundaries. What belongs to who doesn't enter their heads. So, picking up something and putting in their pocket is not a conscious thought.... We have a son with FASD who is 18. He just recently started having contact wth us again after spending some time in jail. He came by and was only visiting our home (we got him another place to stay) and I saw him with a hat on that looked a lot like one that our second to youngest got for his birthday. I asked him where he got it and he said, "I don't know. It's not mine." So I pointed out to him that if it wasn't his, maybe it shouldn't be on his head as he walked out the door.

2) Kids with organic brain damage are impulsive. They grab things and stick them in their pockets without thinking. One mom of a kid with FASD that i heard about was able to think outside the box -- she sewed all her sons pockets shut and immediately solved his "stealing" problem.

3) Kids with organic brain damage take things very literally. Our son, when he was 14, "got arrested for shoplifting at an amusement park." However, he will tell you to this day that he did not get arrested. it was a security guard who wrote him up, not a cop, and he wasn't stealing the item -- he was just taking it to show a friend.

And then there are children who do not have organic brain damage, but who are practicing learned behavior:

1) Their parents taught them to steal because they needed to steal to eat. Sneaking into a store to grab a loaf of bread or some milk for a hungry baby was perfectly acceptable and even necessary.

2) They have been neglected to the point that they have had to take food in order to eat. This also leads to hoarding and other food issues.

3) They may not have been taught to steal but there was no morality taught in their home. Knowing that stealing is "right or wrong" -- nobody has ever taught them.

And finally there is just the good old button pushing that kids from the system do to test new parents. Taking our stuff is a major button pusher.

So again, as in the concept of lying , we has to ask the question of intentionality. Does not the idea of someone being a thief mean that the person can control impulses, know that stealing is wrong, not have deveoped the habit as an impressionable child out of necessity, and realize that the item does not belong to them?

Stealing and being Thieves may not be the right words for what our children do.

We Must Do Better

A cross post from my other blog, but it really belongs in both places:

If you have a while, read this report about Aging out of Foster Care. It was most disturbing. The one statisti that is most troubling for me is that since the beginning of the collection of statistics in 1998, the percentage of children aging out of foster care without a family has gradually increased. In 1998 the percentage was 3.1. By 2005, the last year that statistics have been processed, the percentage was 4.9.

To tell you the truth, I was shocked. With the addition of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 2007 I was hoping that statistics would have been reversed. But this is not the case. Instead, the percentage of kids aging out has grown.

We have to do better than this. We have to find families for children -- even the most disturbed ones --that will make that commitment to kids that they need, regardless of the behavior of the child. States need to provide assurance that families will not come to financial or social ruin if their children need residential treatment or congregate care. Because whether a teenager is living in a family setting or in a facility, they still need advocates.

We're doing our best, but statistics are showing that our best isn't good enough and we have to do better because statistics are so troubling. I quote from the article:

Many studies have documented that the outlook for foster youth who age out is often grim:

• One in four will be incarcerated within the first two years after they leave the system.

• Over one-fifth will become homeless at some time after age 18.

• Approximately 58 percent had a high school degree at age 19, compared to 87 percent of a national comparison group of non-foster youth.

• Of youth who aged out of foster care and are over the age of 25, less than 3 percent earned their college degrees5, compared with 28 percent of the general population.

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It's a national issue and one that so few know about, but it affects every facet of our society. What more can you do? What more can I do? We all need to ask ourself that question.

Hungry

Many times kids in the system struggle with food issues. They can range from anorexia to obesity. Some do not know when to stop eating and some cannot make themselves eat. And it all stems from years of not having enough or not knowing if you'll have enough.

Many scenarios could have taken place in the past to cause these issues. Many times, children have gone hungry, or there has just been a lot of uncertainty as to where the next meal might come from. Food stamps might have been traded for drugs, the house might not have any food it in, and the child is hungry. And so they either go hungry, or they have to find their next meal. Maybe a neighbor would feed them or they could find food in the trash bin at the fast food place down the street.

If it is a sibling group, the oldest child feels responsible to get food for the younger children. If the baby still needs milk in a bottle and is crying for it, it might be up to the 5 year old to find some milk. Either way, having enough food becomes a central issue. The survival instinct takes over and it becomes not only an important thing, but the ONLY important thing.

Fast forward ahead five years to when the child is placed in a safe, loving adoptive home where there is always enough food to eat and nobody ever grows hungry. There is breakfast served as soon as you get up, a morning snack if you aren't in school yet, lunch, an after school snack, supper, and evening a bedtime snack. The kids can look in the fridge and see that it has food. They can look in the freezer and see it stocked. They can see that the cubhoards have enough food to feed the entire family for weeks.

But even a year or two after they are placed you still find moldy cheese under their beds, cracker crumbs under the pillow, and chips shoved in backpacks. You still find a kid that doesn't know what it means to feel full and overeat until they are ill. You still have a kid who might overeat and then go make herself throw up.

Trying to behavior modify children from their food issues is practically impossible. You can consequence, take away, threaten, etc., but the issues are not going to go away. You cannot take away that basic instinct survival feeling from a child, no matter how hard you try.

Acceptance and supervision and gentle attachment will help it to slowly disappear. Maybe not completely, but the symptoms will lesson. Have patience, remember the whys, and help them heal, regardless of how long it takes.

The Case File is Not A Fortune Teller

I am reposting this from my personal blog because I think that it has some value here.

This morning Cindy posted a very helpful post about the severely disturbed older adopted children. It reminded me of some new words that I've started to say lately to parents who are thinking of adopting children.

When they state their fears, I ask them to go down the road of that fear and ask themselves if they will survive. Everyone's fears are different -- fear of a child ending up in jail, or of a child dying, or of a child growing up to return to their birth parents. Or maybe the fear is that they will raise a child who will become pregnant as an unwed teen or "come out of the closet" as an adult. Whatever our worst fears are, we have to face them.

I guess my worst fear would be that one of our children would kill Bart or I. Certainly carrying myself down that mental road is not something that I like to do often, but sometimes I let myself and I realize that even so, it would eventually be OK. The person killed (the lucky one) would be in heaven, enjoying a stress free eternity with God. The person left would eventually be OK. I have a big faith in a bigger God and I know that God's love and strength would sustain me, that forgiveness would not be easy, but would come, and that in the end, after it was all over, we would be OK.

One of Kyle's turning points was the first time he threatened to kill Bart. In a sinister voice, very sinister for an 11 year old, he angrily said to Bart, "Some day I might have to kill you." To which Bart responded, "and if you do so son, I will die loving you." I don't think he ever seriously threatened to do it again.

Part of the reason we have arrived at this point may come from the fact that some of our biggest fears have already come to pass. We have already had a child in prison, two different children in the psych hospital, and a "Child in Need of Protection or Services" Petition filed against us. Our children have accused us of abuse, we have had our lives threatened. Many of our fears have come to pass and ... we're OK.

Pre-adoptive parents often want a crystal ball. They want the child's file, or the caseworkers, or the therapist, or a teacher to tell their fortune and promise them that everything is going to be OK. That none of their worse fears will come to pass.

But the truth about life is that we do not know the future and we can't know it. Every day, every step is a risk. I learned from the rebellious choices of my brothers that even when parents do everything right from conception to age 18, each person's freedom of choice determines their future.

So now when I go through paperwork with a family who is considering a child, I tell them to expect the worse. I suggest to them that there is no way to predict the outcome of any human life, but that they should expect life to be hard. I tell them about the behaviors they can expect.

I am completely convinced that any person can parent any child -- they just have to be willing and decide how much of their quality of life they are willing to give to the cause.

I quote Pat O'Brien

I often get asked the question “what kind of people will offer their home permanently to a teenager?” My answer is always the same. I always say “any and all kinds of people who, after a good preparation experience, are willing to unconditionally commit themselves to a child no matter what behavior that child might ultimately exhibit.” Teenagers need first and foremost at least one adult who will unconditionally commit to and claim the teen as their own. Any thing less is an artificial relationship. Teenagers need unconditional commitment before anything else constructive can happen.

This is the key. Claiming the child and knowing that you will never give up on them. They might not always be able to live with you, but regardless of what happens, they will never cease being your child. And if you can make this commitment, which you can, you can keep it.