Today’s Teens Are A Lot More Understanding

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is believed to be caused by overwhelming experiences, traumatic events and/or abuse during childhood. This came up today in association with a former foster care youth who had a terrible experience in foster care, is now in her teens and wants to share that with others.

One mature woman shared her experience – I went into the system at 3, taken from mom at 5, and emancipated through marriage at 16. I tried to share my story. I got a lot of rejection from other teens. That was a different time, though. Teens these days are a lot more understanding of trauma and mental illness and they welcome the opportunity to hold space for those who have gone through horrific experiences.

Another person was very supportive of this teen’s desire saying, It’s her story and she’s old enough to share. Will she receive backlash….possibly. But I bet she’s going to get more support vs. backlash, which is what she is seeking. She’s seeking a community that says “I hear you and I understand”.

Foster care children have been stripped of everything. It is hard to understand why people would take children into their home for foster care and not intend to make them feel at home. Examples –

Only buying the child the bare minimum or giving them hand me downs. One mature woman who was once in foster care shares – It always made me feel less than or like a charity case.. often I was given her biological daughters clothes/school supplies from the previous year etc. I remember the first time I got my own winter coat at around 7-8 years old. It was like Christmas to me.

It is no wonder children subjected to these situations develop personality coping mechanisms. Schizophrenia and DID are often confused with each other, but they’re very different things. Schizophrenia is a psychotic illness: symptoms include delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, disorganized thoughts, speech and movements and social withdrawal. It does not involve alternate personalities or dissociation.

People with DID are not delusional or hallucinating their alternate personalities. Individuals with DID may experience some symptoms related to psychosis, such as hearing voices, but DID and schizophrenia are two different illnesses. There are very few documented cases linking crime to DID. The idea of an ‘evil’ alter is not true. People with DID are more likely than the general population to be re-traumatized and experience further abuse and violence.

Personality disorders are a constant fixed pattern of feeling and behaving over time, usually developing in early adulthood. Personality disorders, like borderline personality disorder, involve extreme emotional responses and patterns of behavior which make it hard for the person with the disorder to have stable relationships and function in society.

DID is a dissociative disorder. Rather than extreme emotional reactions to the world, people living with DID lose contact with themselves: their memories, sense of identity, emotions and behavior. Unlike personality disorders, DID may first manifest at almost any age.

What Should Never Be

One might think this only happens in third world countries, children without a stable home being taken in for the free labor they can provide but it happens here in the US too and often through the foster care system.

Read an account this morning about a woman who wants to foster a teen in order to have a live-in babysitter for her younger biological children. She also expects help with the housework, other chores, as well as help for her business that is baking and selling cookies. Probably looks at it as another avenue of revenue (foster care stipends) as well.

She expects so much gratitude that the foster care teen now has a roof over their head that they will not require payment for all of the work she expects for free from the unfortunate teen. And after the teen turns 18 and ages out of the foster care system ? She’ll simply sign up for another one.

The woman was dumb enough to put her sister down for a reference. Here’s why that part –

The reference sister is 8 years younger than this cold calculating woman described above. For two years, the younger sister lived with her older sister and her husband and the two kids, a boy and a girl, who she does describe as typical siblings, mostly no trouble at all but squabble sometimes as siblings always do.

Living with her older sister permanently damaged their relationship. She felt that her older sister only saw her as free labor, money (forced to hand over half her pay from a small, part time job) and babysitting. She describes feeling taken advantage of and says those years were HELL. And even so, she does still babysit for her sister sometimes but does control the amount of time she is willing to give now that she has moved out.

So, I know that children in third world countries are often exploited as domestic labor and I can even understand some expectations in a foster home of at least not contributing to extra household work for the family by keeping picked up after one’s self. I have read about situations so bad, that the foster parents actually put a lock on the refrigerator and pantry shelves, severely controlling the amount of food a foster child is able to consumed.

Maybe the system is not always broken and there are genuinely caring people doing this for the right reasons but it does seem from all the stories I come across that there are a lot of opportunistic and exploitative people taking in youth with nowhere decent or safe to go and sometimes the unsafe and awful conditions are actually in that foster home.

None Of This Is Okay

And some of us don’t. I will be the first to admit that I have ZERO experience with the Foster Care system. However, I belong to a group that includes adults who were formerly in the foster care system. Back in the month of May that focuses on raising awareness about foster care, I chose a book written by a woman who had grown up in the system. I was able to get some sense of it by living her experience as shared in the pages of her book.

Today, I read a thread that indicated there are foster parents who say that they’d NEVER let their biological children share a room with a foster child. The reasons are what is troubling about that statement. Some will even say foster children are “damaged strangers” let into their home (I guess for the revenue they bring into that home with them).

One of the concerns seems to be about the potential for abuse from a foster child towards the biological children. In reality, abusers are more often actually family members. One issue I became aware of in reading the book – Foster Girl by Georgette Todd – is how often the biological children in a foster home abuse the foster child.

The reality is that not all children who end up in foster care came out of situations of neglect or abuse and even if they did ? That does not mean they are deviants. Try a little compassion. It’s scary enough being a foster kid and being brought to a new place or home but imagine, if you are then shut out and locked in a room alone. This is totally cruel and guaranteed to heap more trauma on the unfortunate child.

It may be that even an unruly child is only crying out for love and patience. How can you make a wounded child feel safe and comfortable, if you’re afraid of them ? In the best circumstances, they may need their own room so that they can feel safe when they are feeling stressed, angry, overwhelmed, upset, etc.

Sadly, there are too many foster parents in it for the money. They provide only the most basic necessities. I don’t think that’s helping a foster youth with the traumatic and stressful situation that is the precursor to being placed in foster care.

Not Always Sunshine and Rainbows

From a foster youth’s perspective –

Hello all! I’m a 22 year old female that started my journey in foster care at the tender age of 4 years old. My parents were addicts which seems to be the case for most kids in care. Most children are set up to fail and they assume where they may end up will be much better then where they come from and thus sadly wasn’t my truth.

I luckily only ended up in two foster homes but one became long term until I was essentially kicked out at 17 because my foster mother no longer was getting benefits for me.. she will not admit that but it’s the truth.

She took in me and my bio brother, she had two golden children of her own and always made it a point at any given time to segregate us. Her children could do no wrong and me and my bio brother often got the brunt of things. Punishments often included cold showers, forced to eat food we didn’t like, public humiliation, physical and emotional abuse.. I remember a lot of name calling, threatening behaviors and often time ignoring my need for love and attention. I was often berated over my weight even though now looking back I was an average child along with my brother.

I was told around 9-10 that they would love to adopt us and make us “part of the family” only to turn around a week later and say “we decided we won’t be adopting you because the financial burden would be to much and we get money for you now”.

That always weighed heavy on my heart as a child, I felt like a pay check to them and never truly wanted.

Fast forward to my teens I began to search for my bio parents, with a failed attempt on bio moms side.. but found my father and started building a decent relationship.. it strange how I felt an instant connection even though I hadn’t seen him since I was 6-7. He passed away this past November and we were finally at a peaceful place in our relationship and I’m now dealing with another wave of grief and abandonment even though this time I know it’s not by choice.

My bio mother still remains a mystery to me that I hope some day I can figure out and fill that empty place in my heart. I just wanted to write this to let people know adoption and foster care is not always the sunshine and rainbows you see on tv and often times can leave children with scars that last way into adulthood.

Please protect us, protect the little girl I was, protect us at all cost and try to understand our hurt.

Modern Orphanages

From a generally anti-foster care perspective, a question was asked –

Why did the government move away from orphanages/group homes to children living with foster carers ? Bottom line is that it is about money. It is cheaper for the government to give foster carers a stipend than provide for the full needs of children in a modern orphanage or group home.

My mom spent a few months as an infant at Porter-Leath, an orphanage in Memphis TN. Her original mother took my mom there only for temporary care while she tried to get on her feet and estranged from her husband, the father of my mom, who was most likely tied up one state over fighting a SuperFlood on the Mississippi in 1937. He was in Arkansas working for the WPA and that was where most of his own roots and family were. That is how Georgia Tann got involved and my mom ended up adopted.

My family visited Porter-Leath in 2017. It is now an amazingly peaceful place and much changed but still provides some sheltering for runaways who need a safe place to go.

The discussion was not about orphanages of the past though. It was about facilities that are geared towards children’s best interests. A revamped system. An environment where the kid never has to become someone else to fit in with a family he isn’t related to. One that is very consistent and stable. That is vital for kids.

And no competition with a foster carer’s biological kids, or being made to feel like a burden or an inconvenience compared to the carer’s biological children. Modern orphanages are really structured. Everyone there is on the same playing field. It totally eliminates the foster vs biological conflicts. The experience of former foster youth is that biological kids are horrible towards foster kids. Full of disdain and resentment for these strangers being in their homes.

I was intrigued by the mention of modern orphanages, I found a link to an Atlantic article highlighting Palmer Home for Children in Mississippi that is fairly current.

A Womb-Wet Infant

I love this image because my youngest son actually had such an unhappy expression as he was pulled out of my womb via c-section. But that really isn’t the topic of my blog today.

So many hopeful adoptive parents only want what those in the adoptee community call “womb-wet”. I remember when my husband decided he wanted to become a father after 10 years of marriage, we once discussed adoption. His uncle had adopted a son. My parents were both adopted. Yet, not even knowing what I know now, we felt that adoption was not a good choice. So glad we didn’t go that route. The route we went was complicated enough but the results are generally satisfying.

So in my adoption community (which includes all variations from original parents who surrendered to adoption, to adoptees, to former foster care youth, to adoptive parents, to expectant single mothers and to hopeful adoptive parents) came this woman’s comment –

We are attempting to foster kiddos 0-2. We were basically told that we will most likely not receive an infant placement and that school age kiddos are where the need is. As a family, 0-2 fits our needs for many reasons. I guess I don’t understand. With as many kids in the system, wouldn’t they rather have a home ready for placement when the news arrives instead of fishing around when the need arises and there isn’t a home available? Please no hateful responses. Looking for advice as we are beginners.

The truth is that adoptees and former foster youth are given priority to express even their raw and unfiltered feelings in this group, hence the plea for “no hateful responses”. That doesn’t guarantee there will be none. For some members, it takes a bit of getting used to but I have learned so much being a part of this group.

The first response went something like this – “Am I wrong in saying she’s contradicted herself? When she says that there’s so many kids in the system wouldn’t you rather have a home ready….right after saying how the need is for home age kids…..? Also am I correct when I say fostering isn’t about your needs but the needs of the children?”

Another reply was – “Age 0-2 fits their family’s needs better…yeah right. I think the term they are looking for is blank(er) slate”.

There are MANY older children in foster care. Therefore, one person commenting rightfully noted – “Wouldn’t they rather have a home ready for placement? Translation – doesn’t want to be ready for children already in need.”

Another wrote – “I will literally never understand the baby thing. How do you decide to become a foster parent because babies are cute? I mean really . . . can “fit in/meet needs” or whatever weird phrase you want to use WAY easier than a baby who you can’t even begin to try and explain the situation to and therefore can’t even start to comfort or calm completely for weeks after they are placed.”

Another said – “Really sounds like a spoiled, entitled brat, who’s stomping her feet, pissed off that she’s not getting what she ordered, the moment she ordered it.”

I really urge all of you thinking about becoming foster parents or hoping to adopt someone else’s newborn baby to consider how you could use your resources most effectively and your passion to help families by focusing directly on helping families stay together. Sadly, fighting for reunification as a foster parent really isn’t enough. Sadly, for kids in foster care, the damage is already done.

Systemic Constraints

Foster care is a system full of constraints. There are the legal ones and the social ones and the physical ones. Regardless of good intentions, anyone choosing to be a foster parent will have to recognize, acknowledge, work within, make the system fit their actual circumstances and do the best they can without ever being able to end the constraints. It is fraught with problems.

The foster care system is simply corrupt. As a foster parent, you can’t change it from the inside. There are those that would love to just burn it all down but it is too overwhelming and entrenched to make any difference. Better to acknowledge as a foster parent that you are not special nor are you are privileged enough to change anything.

No matter what you do, if you have a corrupt social worker, they can and will do whatever they want to. A parent should not have to fight Child Protective Services or the Department of Human Services to regain custody of their own kids. Foster caregivers should not have to fight these same large bureaucratic agencies. Those seeking a kinship solution for their young family members should not have to fight the system. But all of these do and often fail to achieve success.

One foster parent recently shared her own perspective informed by direct experience – These agencies had an premeditated, well executed plan in place, before they even let her know what was happening. They made it where she, the agency she works through and the kids’ parents have no way to stop the forward trajectory of that plan expected to culminate in adoption. And she has tried and pulled out all the stops in defense of this family.

She now has a plan to show up at the court house with these 4 kids and their parents in order to try to beg and plead with the judge to intervene. She acknowledges that at this point, the judge is the only one that can stop the removal of these children from their parents and the permanent termination of those parents’ rights to their own offspring.

She explains the damage she saw when she took the children to visit their parents. The expectation was for a long afternoon filled with swimming, music, cooking and fun. Yet the devastation in the parents overwhelmed the prospect of a joyful occasion. All she saw in the parents’ eyes were tears, sadness, worry, defeat, anger, hopelessness and confusion. These emotions infected the children. The mom, dad and brothers spent most of their time together crying off and on. These children face that permanent end to their natural familial relationships in only a couple of days. It weighed heavily on every one in the family.

It is a helpless, angry, sad, worried, and defeated feeling. This foster mom had to drive by the local Department of Human Services in her way back out of town after this visit. She admits to having felt so distraught that if she had had a lighter and some gasoline, she would have been tempted to burned the place to the ground.

She judges that none of this okay but that this is the foster care system – corruption, an abuse of power and the application of a kind of oppression that traumatizes the children and their parents. As a foster parent, she experiences a lack of support and compassion from the system. It is her feeling that they don’t care about families. She believes monetary issues based on a for profit adoption model are what matters in this case.

Admittedly, this is the story of a poor family with 10 children. The issue here is with the 4 youngest who are babies or toddlers. This age group of children is easy to place for adoption because there is more demand to adopt babies than a supply of such children.

Her feelings are such that she warns people thinking about becoming foster parents to just don’t. Do not be part of the problem. She warns that if you are, then you are participating in a corrupt system that intentionally tears families apart. Not to be deluded into thinking you will be one of the “good ones” who is going to change anything. The system doesn’t care about the foster parent and they have no power within it. The system will trample on a foster parent, just like it tramples on everyone else.

If there were no foster homes and child welfare agencies, then there would be billions of $$ available to create family supports for everything from abuse to addiction and everything in between. There would be no harm and resources would be plentifully available for struggling parents.

Need convincing monetary issues are involved in people becoming foster parents ?

Let’s suggest a realistic figure of $77/day/child for foster parents. $77 times 30 days = $2,121/month/kid. If there are 3 kids being fostered that is $6,363/month total. If the foster care lasts for a year then that is $76,356. And it isn’t unusual for a foster home to house as many as 6 kids for a year, netting these people $152,712 for that year. It is easy to see that providing foster care can be considered a good way to make one’s living. And this calculation doesn’t even begin to factor in the money the whole adoption industry makes providing children to hopeful adoptive parents.

The number of child welfare workers known to lie to kids and their parents, or withhold information from them, in the effort to prevent a reunification within the natural family, is appalling to those with direct knowledge. This is a system that needs to change but for which any change seems impossible to achieve.

Feeding With Love And Good Sense

My topic today started out being about foster parents who resent feeding their foster children. Of course, not all foster parents are that way but it seems that some are. It appears that some people foster solely as a source of extra income.

It is well known that foster children often have some very serious traumatic effects that cause them to display a variety of behaviors. Picky eating has been linked with psychiatric problems, including anxiety and symptoms of depression. The mental problems sometimes worsen as the picky eating becomes more severe. That untouched plate and look of disgust on your child’s face at mealtime might be a sign.

My older son was eating Salmon at 18 mos of age. This amazed my parents. At the time, I had read a book by Ellyn Satter titled Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense. Because of what I read in this book, when a family friend made a separate meal for her daughter, I thought it wrong but kept my judgement to myself. Satter advises – It is a parent’s job to put good quality food on the table. It is the child’s job to eat. And mostly I agree.

Except that along came my younger son. I believe he has texture issues. He also developed car sickness at only a few months of age, which we eventually treated with a preventive tincture of ginger and peppermint with definite success. There is no way you can force this kid to eat anything he doesn’t want to. He’ll simply throw up and we have so much experience with those outcomes in the car, we have no desire to cause more of them.

Even so, he is healthy and according to his pediatrician of normal weight. It’s hard to tell with kids while they are growing up. They bulk up and then shoot up. I do my best to provide him with nutritious meals – even though some could be questioned by dietary purists. And I do cook for him separately.

Even so, my kids are not traumatized. I simply cannot understand any person willing to take on the challenges of children who have ended up in foster care and then take a hard-hearted attitude towards feeding them.

Related statements from a foster parent –

“When you get a child that comes to you and their family was on food assistance etc. – which I have nothing against but when they say ‘I don’t eat leftovers’, it really erks me. We had to use assistance many years ago and the amount they give you, was more than needed. You could buy name brand everything and eat like kings. I just said, ‘we don’t have that luxury, we have to pay for our food. So you’re going to have to get used to it.’ And its only maybe twice a week and definitely, I am not making something just for her.”

Some additional comments from a couple of foster parents to the above –

“We’re not personal chefs. Prepare them for the real world.”

“Foster kids eat what they get. I serve the same thing until they eat it. If they don’t like it, they can go to bed hungry.”

Personally, I do NOT believe ANY child needs to go to bed hungry, if it can be avoided. Period. In my family, no one is forced to eat leftovers but thankfully, my husband thinks they make a great, quick lunch. One final note – this country has an obesity epidemic and the causes are multiple. However, I do believe that allowing children to only eat what they feel like eating, teaches them to read their body signals. In fact, in our household, only the main meal is served as a family. The other times we eat, is when our hunger drives us to seek satisfaction.

Humanity’s Messed Up Attitudes

It often boggles my mind – how messed up humanity is when it comes to sex. It is a global sickness. When sex is part of a truly loving relationship, it is simply a human reality and need for connection. That is not what it always is. Case in point – catholic priests. Perverse sexuality was also a part of the story in the book Foster Girl by Georgette Todd that I recently reviewed here.

Now to my awareness today comes yet another case and this one involves child pornography, sex with children and foster care all in one. My heart almost cannot bear up under this but the story is all too real and I fear way more common than it should be. The news came out related to two arrests.

One was a young soldier and one was an older man who was a former foster parent. According to statements by the young soldier, he would meet with the older man for consensual sex. The solider revealed under interrogation that the two discussed engaging in sexual activity with children. He then claimed that the older man once sent a very young child into the bathroom where the solider was for the purpose of allowing the soldier to have sexual contact with the child.

The arrests came when Homeland Security Investigations found a user of a smartphone communication application posting sexually explicit material featuring children. Use of cellphone applications and other Internet-based technology by criminals to exchange child pornography is not uncommon. The older man was a certified foster parent in Arizona from 2002 until January 2015 when his license was suspended. The reason is protected by confidentiality laws.

It is just too much – all of these details – for my own heart to bear.

Adverse Childhood Experiences

For several months now our entire country and most of the world has been living with toxic stress. It’s the kind of stress that puts you on edge and keeps you there, day after day after day. If you have felt stressed, imagine what it would be like to experience adversity and/or abuse — not having enough to eat or being exposed to violence – then think, what if the one experiencing this is still a child.

Factors such as divorce, domestic violence or having an incarcerated parent are called adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Four or more ACEs can result in chronic health conditions such as heart disease or diabetes. In the long term, living with ACEs or other negative factors, such as poverty, can literally change your brain chemistry.

What does it look like for a young person to live with several ACEs and no supports ? What does a foster parent experience when bringing a middle school or teenage foster youth into their home ?

It might be not being able to sleep without a light on. Or it could be eating even when one is full or not hungry. Some children become “runners” — they leave school whenever they become upset.

And the symptoms can become even worse. The child may become a cutter; may be suicidal. Such children can have trouble forming appropriate friendships. Maybe they trash their room; in one fight-or-flight moment, climb out of their window and tumble to the ground. Even jump out of a moving car.

A foster parent could find themselves restraining the child physically by wrapping their arms around the child’s shoulders or waist, using all their strength to keep the child from leaving or hurting their self. Maybe you raised your hand only to motion toward something and the child flinched or even ducked.

And your heart breaks for this young person. You had hoped they knew you would never hit them. You are a foster parent. You signed up for this because you thought you had something to give — time and care and love — to kids who desperately need that.

You might become the person the county calls when a child is removed from a home and has nowhere else to go, or when a foster family needs a break. This is known as emergency respite.

Most foster kids want to be happy. After a lifetime of abuse and neglect, they may not know how. A foster parent is also there to be a support for reunification with the biological family.

The best foster parents build a fortress of protective factors around their foster children. Protective factors are those things that most of us take for granted — a friend to call when we need advice; someone to help whenever we aren’t enough on our own.

Some of us are born privileged to have built-in protective factors (a supportive family, enough money). Most foster kids will need to collect them from somewhere else (perhaps a chosen family made up of friends). At school, they require trauma-informed teachers and staff who understand how ACEs can be reflected in behavior.

National data shows that more than 20 percent of children up to age 17 have experienced two or more ACEs. Beyond abuse (physical, emotional, sexual) and general neglect these include the loss of a parent to death, divorce and abandonment. A family member addicted to drugs or alcohol. A family member that is incarcerated. Being exposed to domestic violence and mental health issues among the family’s members.

Brain toxicity exists. A child can have post-traumatic stress disorder. ACEs are not limited to low-income neighborhoods, domestic violence and substance abuse take place in higher income homes and are every bit as toxic. Learn to look at all people through a trauma-informed lens. Ask, if you suspect this, “What happened to you?” and then listen without adding your own opinions.

Every domestic-violence shelter worker or child-care provider, anyone who works for child-protective services, anyone associated with family court, law enforcement personnel and physicians – ALL need to be trained appropriately to deal with trauma related behavior

Trauma is not the fault of any child. Understanding ACE impacts allows adults to see the reason behind the behaviors. Baby steps in a positive direction are progress.