You Sure That You Want To Do This?

Chapter three:

So you want to foster and/or adopt kids? What for? Why? What is your motivation? You really want to prayerfully think it over before you consider such an undertaking. It’s not always a thrill a minute. In fact, at times, it can be a very thankless undertaking. It will change your life forever. It will change you. It will affect and change those who are close to you.

If you are married, you certainly want to make sure that you and your spouse are in one accord. You see, it takes a very special love and a strong commitment to the extent that even if the very worst that can happen, actually happens, you have what it takes not to bale out. When things get tough, the tough keep on keeping on! There’s no room for failure. Once you’ve made the commitment, you’re in it for the long haul. If you can’t handle it, don’t even start.

When people ask us why we do what we do, we simply tell them, “We don’t know any better. We think it’s great!” It’s a love thing. It is a strong commitment, as Christians, that this is a part of our ministry outreach. Kathy’s dad wanted to know why we were taking on kids when we should be gearing down and looking forward to doing the lifestyle that retired folks do! As time has gone on, he has respected our decision. In fact, he has become very supportive, which we appreciate.

In training, those who run the classes attempt to give worse case scenarios so that there is no doubt in a person’s mind that it is often a very tough mission. By the time that a child reaches your foster or adoptive home, he or she has been through some pretty tough stuff. Their trust levels are normally pretty low. You may have good intentions however as a care giver, you will be tested by these kids. All too often, these kids will really test you to extremes. They want to see if you are really for real. They want to see if you care enough to hang in with them no matter what they may throw at you. Rest assured, as a foster and/or adoptive parent, you will be tested.

Kathy and I have been doing this long enough that we’ve seen a wide variety of scenarios. As I write this, we have three of our adoptive kids still living at home. We also are involved in treatment foster care, which is quite challenging, to say the least. Kids in treatment foster care have a variety of issues, physically, emotionally, or mentally ill. They’ve been neglected, beat on, raped or about anything else that can happen to kids. They haven’t asked for any of it.

These kids are the victims of adult birth parents who all too often have no idea as to what constitutes a real mom or dad. If they did, they wouldn’t treat their offspring as they do. Such parents are often drug addicts or alcoholics who are so caught up in their own situations that they can no longer properly love and care for their kids. They’ve become their own worst enemies, on destructive courses, destroying their own hearts and lives, along with those who are closest to them. Some situations are redeemable. There are cases where the kids are taken away from them and then later returned after the parents have been redeemed through various rescue efforts and programs designed to bring them back to the point as to where they can be effective parents again. However, there are many more who can never return to their original families and who need continual loving guidance and assistance to enable them to go on to live productive lives, in site of what has happened in their past.

As such, these kids often have a variety of unresolved issues that result from their past situations. They come with a lot of baggage that needs to be dealt with. They are often angry or violent. It is not unusual for them to need therapy and/or psychological counseling, needing a variety of medications to help them cope with daily situations. There are behavioral issues that surface, due to frustration, uncertainty and a variety of issues that they need releases from.

We had two foster girls, Alieza and Shana, who got out of control one afternoon. Aliza had displayed a variety of behavioral issues. We had been patient with her, discussing situation as they came up. There reached a point where her bad behavior continued and had to be dealt with. We cannot treat one kid differently than others. Can we? Well, in reality, you may very well have different standards and methods that you’ve been used to using with your own kids. You will discover that they may or may not necessarily match what is taught to you and expected of you in training classes.

At any rate, after lots of discussions, letting them know what we expect of them, so that there is no doubt as what our standards and expectations are, continued bad behavior leads to necessary action. That’s what happened with Alieza. She kept up with the offensive behavior as though we’d never said a word. The last offense may not seem all that much. But it was the principle of the thing.

I had bought Alieza some candy at a time when her behavior was better. She decided to pull it out and eat it in front of the other kids. Kathy had told her that she could eat it but to do so away from the other kids as this was her special treat. But instead, she defiantly walked out and sat herself between our two boys, opened the candy wrapper and began eating it in front of the boys, as if Kathy had never said a work. So I went out, discussed why this was wrong and grounded her from certain privileges for the next week.

I got along fairly well with both girls, overall. But Shana hated women. She was fine with guys but wanted little to do with females. So, when Kathy asked her to do something that she didn’t want to do, she went to head-butt Kathy. Kathy reacted quickly, dodging the attack, grabbing her by the wrists and setting her down in a lawn chair. I talked to Shana and we got her calmed down. Kathy went into the house to find Alieza on the telephone, screaming, “Grandma, help us! Call the cops! Get over here! They’re trying to kill us!” She was obviously feeding on Shana’s actions. So now we had both of them acting out at the same time. Kathy told Alieza to hang up the phone. Instead, Alieza hit Kathy in the face with the phone, resulting in Kathy getting a bloody nose and a black eye!

After we got things calmed down, we called our social worker, who talked to both girls on the telephone, getting them both to promise that they’d behave. Shortly after, they ran away together! So this involved the police, social workers, a state investigator from the state agency, and even medical workers. It seems that the girls called the police, telling them that their foster parents had beat them up and that they needed help. So the cops picked them up, took them to the country hospital for checkups, and called other authorities. Soon, Kathy and I were being interviewed by various authorities. Fortunately, everything had been done by the book, according to our training. So there was no problem with the restraint or resultant issues.

We were told that the girls would be placed elsewhere. Shana was on probation and so they debated on arresting her but decided against it at the time. But then the next day, our local director of The Bair Foundation, said that we weren’t allowed to use restraints. We questioned why they had taught us to do so in the first place if it wasn’t allowed. We also questioned them as to what they would suggest as to how things could have been handled differently. They agreed that Kathy was put in a position where she had no other choice. However, rules were still rules and she was put on a probationary status, by our local director. It didn’t matter that the police, the state investigators and other social workers all told us that we did the right thing and that the situation was obviously not avoidable.

The only thing that I could think of that might have been different is that if Shana would have come at me like that, I suppose I could always have stepped aside quickly and let the momentum of her attack launch her head into the porch railing. Then someone still would have questioned why we let her shed her blood as she busted her head open on the porch railing. I suppose that could have been done. However, some idiot would probably have rebuked us for not restraining her! So our director insisted that Kathy take another training class, one that we’d already taken and had both done fine with.

She insisted that it wasn’t a personal attack. Kathy clearly feels that it is. I can’t say that I blame her. Our director seems to have decided that, even though all of the investigators clearly decided that Kathy had done nothing wrong, she needed to punish Kathy. So she did. Not only did she have to retake that class, but we were restricted from taking in more kids for a few months! Neither punishment was necessary and prevented us from the ministry to these kids that we feel so clearly called to do!

Why do I relate this account to you? I do so because you simply don’t know at any time when something will happen that is beyond your control. There have been cases where men have been accused of sexually assaulting girls, simply because a girl decides that she does not want to be in a particular home any more. And in cases like this, a man is assumed guilty until proven innocent. A stigma hangs over his head and his home long after he is shown to be innocent and declared to be a fit parent after all. Fortunately, I’ve never had that one come at me, but we know that this has happened to innocent families who are trying to simply give loving guidance as they feel the Lord leading them to do. Yes, taking in kids is truly risky business! As a foster parent, you have to constantly be on guard to avoid negative situations.

Overall, there are lots of kids out there who simply need a break. They need those of us who are willing to lovingly reach out to them, giving them the loving guidance and the stability that they so desperately need. We have personally met a lot of these kids. As such, we are determined to obediently follow the Lord’s calling that is such a crucial part of our ministry. Yes, as His Word says, in James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” [New International Version].