Are we really almost through August already?! It has been such a great summer, but it went by so quickly! Wanted to give a recap to those of you who haven't been able to catch up with us in person lately :)
Tony and I have been given the best gift this summer...baby A was placed in our care on June 22nd and boy, have we fallen in love! She is such a joy in our lives, we love watching her grow and change right before our eyes each and every day. I never knew how fun it would be to watch babies learn, and they learn and change so quickly!
We can't share all the details surrounding Baby A's case or why she came into care, but we can say that our job with her for the past 2 months has been to help heal her broken body (she had many broken and healing bones when we first got her), put some meat on her, and build her trust. The day she came to us she was just a few days shy of 5 months old, and weighed a mere 10 pounds. Earlier this week she weighed in at 13lbs 9oz, which is huge growth for her over the past 2 months. She is also working on crawling, which is amazing given that she had a broken leg 2 months ago! She has also learned to trust us completely, smiling and reaching for us daily which is something she didn't do for quite a while at first. She is such a resilient little gem.
For Tony and I, we are adjusting back into our regular work schedules. As we both work at schools, we have had a lot of down time together this summer, which has been wonderful! I loved spending my days this summer with Baby A while Tony worked a day camp at his school. Now it's back to the grind of 5:30am alarm clocks and lots of coffee to get through the days! We are so thankful for both of our moms and a friend who have rallied together to provide care for A during the week...we love knowing she is with people we love and trust. A has also just started to sleep through the night on a regular basis, which couldn't have come at a better time!
God has been working in our hearts through our interaction with Baby A. Our hearts for adoption have grown immensely. Of course we hope that we will be able to adopt Baby A, but God may have other plans in store for her. We do believe that His plan for us is to adopt one of His children though, and we trust that he will make that path clear for us in his timing. Foster care is a crazy system, and we never quite know what outcome to expect from any case we're involved with, so we just pray, knowing that God has His hand on it all.
We can't share pictures of Baby A publically on social media (for confidentiality reasons), but I would be happy to email a picture to anyone who requests one privately...feel free to send me a message with your email if you want one! We would love for Baby A's little face to be on the refrigerators of our friends and family as a reminder to pray for her and all the other little lives being affected by foster care :)
Hope everyone has a great start to their Fall...before we know it the leaves will be changing! I, for one, am so thankful to live in such a beautiful part of our country where God's creativity and love for us can so clearly be seen in the changing of the seasons...
With Love,
Tony, Emily & Baby A
living life to the fullest, and learning along the way
Friday, August 21, 2015
Monday, June 8, 2015
A New Chapter
Well...it has been entirely too long since I wrote an update about what's been going on in our world of foster care. Let's back up to April.
We were having a very difficult time with J-man. Every day was a battle from the time he came home from school till the time he went to bed. He became more and more angry and aggressive. It became un-maintainable, so we prayerfully and painfully submitted our 30 day notice to have him removed from our home. This was so painful because we thought we would never do that to a child - it felt like we were giving up on him, that we were just two more adults who have failed him. He returned to a residential facility on April 9th, where he is getting the kind of round-the-clock clinical care that we were unable to provide for him in a family setting.
Since he left we have done some healing, both from the hurts that he caused us and from the failure we felt when we let him go. We know that God had a purpose for J-man's time with us, but sometimes it is hard to understand those things this side of heaven.
After taking a month off, Tony and I have done some re-evaluating and have decided that we would like to pursue younger foster care placements. For a variety of reasons, we feel that younger children would be a better fit for our lives. We also realized that we really hope to someday adopt through foster care, so we are exploring our options in this realm.
We actually had a placement last week, as some of you may know from my frantic Facebook posts :) Little "D" was with us for only 20 hours, but we really enjoyed having him! He was a 14 day old baby who was born addicted to drugs. He had just been weaned off of his morphine treatment a few days before we got him. We got to cuddle him, rock him, feed him, and stay up through the night with him before we returned with him to FCCS where his grandmother anxiously awaited him. Although we were really sad to see him go (we attach very quickly, what can I say?!), we're thankful that he had a family member willing and able to take care of him.
I keep reminding myself, we're all about redemption in this line of ministry. If families can be redeemed, then this is what God wants and in turn what we want. Knowing this doesn't always make it easier though! We are hoping and praying for another placement soon, as I have all summer off work to devote to these little loves. Please be in prayer with us as we walk {and at times stumble} along this path!
With love!
Tony & Emily
We were having a very difficult time with J-man. Every day was a battle from the time he came home from school till the time he went to bed. He became more and more angry and aggressive. It became un-maintainable, so we prayerfully and painfully submitted our 30 day notice to have him removed from our home. This was so painful because we thought we would never do that to a child - it felt like we were giving up on him, that we were just two more adults who have failed him. He returned to a residential facility on April 9th, where he is getting the kind of round-the-clock clinical care that we were unable to provide for him in a family setting.
Since he left we have done some healing, both from the hurts that he caused us and from the failure we felt when we let him go. We know that God had a purpose for J-man's time with us, but sometimes it is hard to understand those things this side of heaven.
After taking a month off, Tony and I have done some re-evaluating and have decided that we would like to pursue younger foster care placements. For a variety of reasons, we feel that younger children would be a better fit for our lives. We also realized that we really hope to someday adopt through foster care, so we are exploring our options in this realm.
We actually had a placement last week, as some of you may know from my frantic Facebook posts :) Little "D" was with us for only 20 hours, but we really enjoyed having him! He was a 14 day old baby who was born addicted to drugs. He had just been weaned off of his morphine treatment a few days before we got him. We got to cuddle him, rock him, feed him, and stay up through the night with him before we returned with him to FCCS where his grandmother anxiously awaited him. Although we were really sad to see him go (we attach very quickly, what can I say?!), we're thankful that he had a family member willing and able to take care of him.
I keep reminding myself, we're all about redemption in this line of ministry. If families can be redeemed, then this is what God wants and in turn what we want. Knowing this doesn't always make it easier though! We are hoping and praying for another placement soon, as I have all summer off work to devote to these little loves. Please be in prayer with us as we walk {and at times stumble} along this path!
With love!
Tony & Emily
Monday, March 2, 2015
Big Boy Tantrums
Before J-man was placed with us we were told that he has numerous mental health diagnoses, has major displays of defiance, and can become aggressive. During his weekend pre-placement visits with us we never saw any of this though...he was a perfect angel. His first few days with us were pretty great too. We got pretty confident thinking that WE made a difference...that because WE are social workers and WE are great parents he was going to defy the reputation that everyone who knows him warned us about.
we.were.wrong.
By day 3, we began seeing everything that everyone had warned us about. Imagine a tantrum you would see from a 3 year old, add 6 years of strength and "street smarts," then multiply it by 2 and this is what you have: MAJOR defiance, back-talk, cursing, throwing things, and threats of harm to himself and others - we've been calling this a "big boy tantrum."
So what to do? Everything in you wants to engage in the power struggle, argue back, and prove your authority. But every ounce of social worker in me screams out to resist this temptation, because I know that I will be working against myself. How many adults respond well to loud, authoritarian demands when they're in an already heightened state of arousal? I know I don't! Now imagine a child who has no idea how to regulate his own emotions...there's no way he will respond well to it either!
So, here are the strategies that we have been using. They definitely aren't effective 100% of the time, and we have by no means perfected this, but I want to pass them along in the hopes that they might help and encourage someone else:
1. Human emotion is contagious, for better or for worse. You're the adult, so guard yourself against "catching" their anger and frustration. Remain calm...eventually your child will catch your mood instead.
2. Set very clear expectations so there is no room for confusion. Our established rules are very simple and we repeat them anytime a rule is broken. Though he might claim to, J-man cannot "forget" a rule in our house because they are very clear and repeated often.
3. We tell him what we're going to do, and we follow through. The moment you don't follow through on a consequence, trust and respect is lost. He will think that he now has room to manipulate you. Tony and I always communicate to each other what consequences we have given to that we don't unknowingly sabotage our parenting effort. When we say "no iPad for the rest of the day," we have to follow through even when it makes our life more difficult as he complains about being bored for the rest of the day.
So, here are the strategies that we have been using. They definitely aren't effective 100% of the time, and we have by no means perfected this, but I want to pass them along in the hopes that they might help and encourage someone else:
1. Human emotion is contagious, for better or for worse. You're the adult, so guard yourself against "catching" their anger and frustration. Remain calm...eventually your child will catch your mood instead.
2. Set very clear expectations so there is no room for confusion. Our established rules are very simple and we repeat them anytime a rule is broken. Though he might claim to, J-man cannot "forget" a rule in our house because they are very clear and repeated often.
3. We tell him what we're going to do, and we follow through. The moment you don't follow through on a consequence, trust and respect is lost. He will think that he now has room to manipulate you. Tony and I always communicate to each other what consequences we have given to that we don't unknowingly sabotage our parenting effort. When we say "no iPad for the rest of the day," we have to follow through even when it makes our life more difficult as he complains about being bored for the rest of the day.
4. Refuse to engage in power struggles. When we feel the arguing begin, we give a clear choice and provide him with a way out. "I know you're being dishonest. You can come clean now and we will talk about it, or you can continue to lie and you will lose ______ privilege."
5. Provide an opportunity for a re-do. When he slams his door or uses an inappropriate word, we ask him if he would like a chance to correct his poor choice. He almost always takes it, because he knows he will receive a consequence if he doesn't (this goes back to setting very clear expectations from the beginning and following through).
6. Notice when the goal of poor behavior is for a reaction or pure attention-seeking, and choose to ignore it whenever possible. There are times to address bad behavior, and there are times to ignore it in order for the situation to diffuse first. These times are different for every child. We have gotten to know J-man very well, and we know when correcting a behavior in the moment will result in more defiance, so we ignore it and address it later when J-man is calm. For example, in the middle of a "big boy tantrum" when he throws out a curse word we ignore it and choose to address it after the tantrum when we're processing.
6. When all else fails and the battle rages on, love him through it! There are times when every attempt of ours to avoid the "big boy tantrum" fail. In these cases we stick it out with him. We stand patiently in the room while he's raging, looking calm and speaking even more calmly. We remind him that we care about him and want him to make good choices. We don't give out consequences until the tantrum is over, as this counteracts any kind of positive message we give him. And in the aftermath, we always affirm him and help him to understand his feelings, providing him a chance for redemption and always forgiving.
Is this easy? No! But it's important, and it's worth it. And isn't this how our heavenly Father reacts when we come crawling back to him from rebellion? 1 John 4:19 reminds us that "we love, because he first loved us." And at times, it's only by and through His love that we can pour it back out on others.
5. Provide an opportunity for a re-do. When he slams his door or uses an inappropriate word, we ask him if he would like a chance to correct his poor choice. He almost always takes it, because he knows he will receive a consequence if he doesn't (this goes back to setting very clear expectations from the beginning and following through).
6. Notice when the goal of poor behavior is for a reaction or pure attention-seeking, and choose to ignore it whenever possible. There are times to address bad behavior, and there are times to ignore it in order for the situation to diffuse first. These times are different for every child. We have gotten to know J-man very well, and we know when correcting a behavior in the moment will result in more defiance, so we ignore it and address it later when J-man is calm. For example, in the middle of a "big boy tantrum" when he throws out a curse word we ignore it and choose to address it after the tantrum when we're processing.
6. When all else fails and the battle rages on, love him through it! There are times when every attempt of ours to avoid the "big boy tantrum" fail. In these cases we stick it out with him. We stand patiently in the room while he's raging, looking calm and speaking even more calmly. We remind him that we care about him and want him to make good choices. We don't give out consequences until the tantrum is over, as this counteracts any kind of positive message we give him. And in the aftermath, we always affirm him and help him to understand his feelings, providing him a chance for redemption and always forgiving.
Is this easy? No! But it's important, and it's worth it. And isn't this how our heavenly Father reacts when we come crawling back to him from rebellion? 1 John 4:19 reminds us that "we love, because he first loved us." And at times, it's only by and through His love that we can pour it back out on others.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Consider It Pure Joy
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face
trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces
perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and
complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4
These words of wisdom have been my mantra these last few days. Tony and I have faced more challenges in foster parenting than we anticipated...but I've been trying to see this as a blessing rather than a nuisance, as God is maturing and completing us. Only by God's grace is it working! Only when we persevere through the trials can we see the blessings that follow.
When adopting kids from foster care in Franklin County there is a team of people
involved in the decision of matching adoptable kids to potential parents. For
these two kids, dozens of families were interested in adopting them (which
should tell you how AMAZING and ADORABLE they are)! Out of these dozens of
families, the adoption worker narrowed the choices down to four. We are one of
those four families.
Then there was a matching conference this past Wednesday (2/25/15), in
which the adoption worker, adoption recruiters, the kids' therapists and
advocates, their foster parents, and the agencies representing the potential
adoptive parents met together and discussed the needs of the kids, as well as
how those needs might be met by each family. We were told that there would
likely be a decision made within 24 hours of that meeting. So we sat by the
phone and waited.
I got a call Thursday afternoon from our agency...and she told me we
would have to wait some more. Boo!! The committee of people in charge of this
BIG decision want to be very thorough, and have decided to hold off on their
decision until they have interviewed the TWO families they have now narrowed
the search down to (that's right, we are now one of two). This meeting is
scheduled for next Tuesday, March 3.
Our hearts and minds are in limbo, but we wait knowing that God has
already decided which family they kids are meant to spend forever with. Of
course we hope that it is us, but we also trust that He has a plan for their
lives even if it's not. Until then, we will try our best to "consider it
pure joy" through this waiting period. Will you pray with us while this
decision is being made??
Monday, February 16, 2015
A Roller-Coaster, Zero to Sixty!
That's what it feels like has happened to our lives over the past 2 weeks...we went from lazy evenings at home together to evenings filled with homework, appointments, bio family visits, video games, phone calls with case workers & therapists, hour-long tantrums, cartoons, and laughter.
The first day that Joc moved in was chaotic. I picked him up after work at the county facility, and boy was he energetic! He told me how excited he was to be discharged from his residential treatment facility and come to live with us. We saw new energy from him that night, most likely from all the excitement of the transition. When we got home we had 3 visitors within the first hour - Joc's caseworker, our agency case manager, and Joc's guardian ad litem. We signed a bunch of paperwork, received a bunch of documents & instructions, and finally they were all on their way out the door. We spent the rest of the evening having fun together.
The next few days we spent getting him ready for school - going clothes shopping, supply shopping, getting him used to our family schedule, introducing a chore/behavior chart, etc. In addition to school, Joc started at Latchkey before school and did great at both for the first 2 weeks...we got nothing but good reports. He was good for us at home for the first week too...then the honeymoon ended.
I'll write some future posts about behaviors we have seen and how we have used our social-worker brains to come up with interventions and solutions, but for now all I will say is that we have been struggling. Everything culminated on Friday when I got a phone call from his school saying that I had to come get him. After some intense interventions on our part, the part of our foster care agency, and the police...we have had a very peaceful couple of days! I'm praying as we head into another school week that God continues to provide us with supernatural patience, wisdom, and love for this amazing and hurting child he has placed in our lives. Will you partner in prayer with us?
Monday, January 5, 2015
Respite and a new placement...
Happy New Years to our friends and family! Tony and I just started back to work today from a two week break...in a lot of ways it didn't feel like a break at all though! We kept busy celebrating at different events with family and friends, as well as bringing some kiddos into our lives! Here's the lowdown...
We got the call on Friday, December 19th that we are officially licensed! I got another call about an hour later from our foster care agency asking us if we would consider taking a respite placement from December 27-30 for a foster family who greatly needed a break from their 6&7 year old kiddos, brother and sister. We celebrated Christmas looking forward to the excitement that kids would bring into our home afterwards. We got another call on December 22 about a more permanent placement too...but we'll get to that in a minute :)
We hosted 6 year old boy "D" and 7 year old girl "B" for 4 days - and boy was it a whirlwind. The kids were sweet and we had a lot of fun with them - we went to the park, watched them ride scooters, went to Magic Mountain, read stories together, cooked together, watched cartoons, and played board games. As much fun as we had, we also had a very difficult day with "D" on Monday. Think of the worst tantrum you've ever seen, multiply it by about 10, add aggressive behavior, and repeat it three times - that was our day on Monday. Tony and I loved and disciplined him through it and came out only a little worse for the wear on the other side. This served as a reminder for us that foster care is not easy, and we have to rely on God every step of the way to give us strength and courage to love kids well even through the rough days. It also reminded us of the spiritual warfare going on for these troubled kids' souls - pray for "D" and "B" when you think of it! We will continue to support their foster family through prayer, monthly respite, and a listening ear when needed.
And now on to the news about our more "permanent" placement (I say permanent because we never really know how long we will have them - it's a crazy system)! I got a call from our foster agency a few days before our respite was set to start, asking us if we would consider taking a 9 year old boy into our home who is being discharged from a residential treatment center within the next few weeks. After receiving as much information as we were able about him, we prayerfully decided to pursue this. His case worker wants to transition him slowly from his current placement, as "J" doesn't do well with change. The day after our respite kids went home, we drove about an hour east to meet up with "J" for lunch as McDonalds. "J" was shy and took some warming up, but he is a very sweet kid. We learned that he is athletic, artistic, and enjoys superheroes and video games - a typical 9 year old boy! Two days later we drove to his residential treatment center to take him out for a day of fun and get to know him better. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed seeing his little personality shine as he warmed up to us. Our next visit with him is scheduled for this weekend, when he will come to stay with us for a night or two! We are very excited and love him already.
Sorry for the long post, but this is what you get when I don't have time to write due to a busy kid-filled schedule (as I'm sure many of you can relate to)! More updates to come when we have them!
Love,
Tony & Emily
We got the call on Friday, December 19th that we are officially licensed! I got another call about an hour later from our foster care agency asking us if we would consider taking a respite placement from December 27-30 for a foster family who greatly needed a break from their 6&7 year old kiddos, brother and sister. We celebrated Christmas looking forward to the excitement that kids would bring into our home afterwards. We got another call on December 22 about a more permanent placement too...but we'll get to that in a minute :)
We hosted 6 year old boy "D" and 7 year old girl "B" for 4 days - and boy was it a whirlwind. The kids were sweet and we had a lot of fun with them - we went to the park, watched them ride scooters, went to Magic Mountain, read stories together, cooked together, watched cartoons, and played board games. As much fun as we had, we also had a very difficult day with "D" on Monday. Think of the worst tantrum you've ever seen, multiply it by about 10, add aggressive behavior, and repeat it three times - that was our day on Monday. Tony and I loved and disciplined him through it and came out only a little worse for the wear on the other side. This served as a reminder for us that foster care is not easy, and we have to rely on God every step of the way to give us strength and courage to love kids well even through the rough days. It also reminded us of the spiritual warfare going on for these troubled kids' souls - pray for "D" and "B" when you think of it! We will continue to support their foster family through prayer, monthly respite, and a listening ear when needed.
And now on to the news about our more "permanent" placement (I say permanent because we never really know how long we will have them - it's a crazy system)! I got a call from our foster agency a few days before our respite was set to start, asking us if we would consider taking a 9 year old boy into our home who is being discharged from a residential treatment center within the next few weeks. After receiving as much information as we were able about him, we prayerfully decided to pursue this. His case worker wants to transition him slowly from his current placement, as "J" doesn't do well with change. The day after our respite kids went home, we drove about an hour east to meet up with "J" for lunch as McDonalds. "J" was shy and took some warming up, but he is a very sweet kid. We learned that he is athletic, artistic, and enjoys superheroes and video games - a typical 9 year old boy! Two days later we drove to his residential treatment center to take him out for a day of fun and get to know him better. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed seeing his little personality shine as he warmed up to us. Our next visit with him is scheduled for this weekend, when he will come to stay with us for a night or two! We are very excited and love him already.
Sorry for the long post, but this is what you get when I don't have time to write due to a busy kid-filled schedule (as I'm sure many of you can relate to)! More updates to come when we have them!
Love,
Tony & Emily
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