Foster Child Gains Much From Previous and Present Foster Home

Happy Birthday Hannah
Posted by : Kelly in Foster Adoption Blog at 08:35 am , 590 words, 40 views Categories: Daily life

Hannah turns 7 today and she’s having a great day. Our family tradition is that you get breakfast in bed on your birthday (somehow I never get it on my birthday) and get to open your gifts while still in bed. What a way for a 7 year old to start the day.Hannah is a far cry from the 4 year old child that I first met. She was an angry little girl who screamed at the top of her lungs for eight hours. She was as oppositional as a child could get. She would not let anyone hug her, she would not cuddle with her mom, she tried to choke her older brother and so on. The little girl I have today is nothing like that. She hugs me every morning when I wake her up, she tells me she loves me several times a day, she asks for cuddle time before she goes to bed and makes me laugh on a regular basis. Her tantrums are age appropriate tantrums.

The thing that I come back to over and over again is that I feel for her previous family. The little girl I have is amazing and brings so much joy to my life. Her previous family deserved this little girl. They worked incredibly hard for her and did everything they possibly could to help her, but she wouldn’t let them. I didn’t do anything amazing to help her, but she let me into her heart. I know that her previous mom is thinking about her today and I know she will be calling Hannah after school to wish her a happy birthday. They still love her and I know this day has got to be hard on them.

They are happy for her that she is doing well and know that she would not have healed in their home, no matter what they did. However, there has still got to be a sense of loss. They DID work hard for her and put all of their hearts into helping her. That impacts your life forever.

Hannah is a better child having lived with them. She did allow herself to learn and gain some things and I don’t take credit for those. This little girl has the most wonderful manners, and I had no part of that whatsoever. She has a beautiful child’s faith in God that was instilled in her before I ever met her. She freely prays for people who are hurt or sick. I love that part of her heart. Hannah would not be the child she is if she had not lived with her previous family. They have helped me to create this amazing little girl.

I cannot fully celebrate with Hannah today. I have a bible study class out of town this weekend. I am surprising Hannah at school to have lunch with her and bringing a treat for her class. Her party is not for a couple of weeks due to scheduling conflicts, but we will enjoy it when it comes. I am happy for my little girl, but at the same time she is growing closer to becoming a young lady and I will lose this part of her. She is my last child (unless God has something up his sleeve) so I know it’s the last time I will go through some of these things. I’m trying to focus on the amazing child she is right now.

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A Little Boy Gets A New Chance At Love And Happiness

A Boy Named James

Today my heart was touched by a boy named James. James is 1 1/2 years old and has been placed as a foster child with my mother and father-in-law. So far all of Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop's foster children have had sad stories. They were all very young, mostly babies, and they all eventually went back to their parents. James' mother relinquished all of her rights to her son. He will be in foster care until he is adopted. The sad part of his story is that he was removed from a foster home last night. He arrived at my in-laws house at 12:15 a.m. this morning. His papers indicated that due to unfit circumstances it was necessary to remove him from his foster home. What the hell is that? It breaks my heart to hear that foster parents are neglecting the children. Their only doing it for a check. That's just not right. All children deserve a good caring enviroment. It doesn't take much to love a sweet innocent baby.

The best thing that could have happened to him was coming to our family. After Little D's soccer game we went over to meet him. Little D played a magnificent game, he was on offense the entire game, they won 3-1, by the way. I admit it, I'm a soccer mom. I have so much fun at his games.

James was sitting in his highchair when we came in and he was the saddest looking soul I've ever seen. After I let him get used to me awhile, I scooped him up in my arms and smothered him with kisses. He began to smile and trust me a little. As most little ones are, he is ticklish. So, of course, I had to start tickling him. Well, he belted out a laugh so deep that it instantly spread smiles throughout the room. This is when we bonded.

After I put him down, he outstretched his little arms toward me, so I had to pick him back up. He wrapped his little arms around my neck and snuggled into my shoulder. When Mom-Mom tried to take him, he screamed and wouldn't let me go.

I spent an hour with this little boy and probably showed him more love than he has ever had in his life. I'm so happy he is with the family now. He will begin to learn what it feels like to be held and snuggled, clean and warm, safe and sound.

I am Mom-Mom's babysitter because I live the closest, so James will be spending a lot of time at our house hanging out. I hope when this little guy finally gets adopted, it will be to a loving home with people who waited their whole lives to be his parents. Say a little prayer that James' life starts to turn around now before he gets old enough to start remembering his hard times. In the meantime, he'll be safe, loved, and most of all wanted.

This is a post from the blog site: My Random Thoughts And Hells.
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Grandparents Who Choose To Give Up Their Retirement Years To Raise Their Grandchildren

Grandparents becoming parents again
BY DONNA VICKROY, Staff Writer

It's been said that a mother's work is never done.
No one knows that better than a grandmother thrust back into the throes of parenting.

Candy Meeker's at an age when her life should be her own. Having raised her three children, the Crete woman should be spending her days as she chooses -- lunching with friends, gardening, welcoming the occasional visits of her five grandchildren.
Instead, she is shuffling 5-year-old Camren Morales from school to doctor appointments, from discount stores to grocery stores. She is tucking him at night, wading through piles of paperwork and worrying about how he'll get along with his new classmates.

A former cook, bartender and house cleaner, Meeker is one of 1 million single grandmothers raising their children's children. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 2.4 million families are maintained by grandparents. That's a 19 percent increase since 1990.
"It's hard," Meeker said. "I'm tired."

But she acknowledges she has little choice.
Two years ago, her son Tom, now 27, asked her take the boy in. Estranged from the child's mother, Tom was dealing with issues of his own.
"He didn't want Camren to end up in foster care," Meeker said. "And neither did I."
So she drove to Kansas City, where the boy was living at the time, and brought him back to the south suburbs. He's been here ever since

Financial challenges

Meeker now has custody and guardianship - and a whole new set of responsibilities.
But the energy required to raise a child when you're past your prime is a small challenge compared with the enormous financial burden of feeding, clothing and tending to the medical needs of a young boy.

Linette Kinchen, founder and executive director of Grandfamilies Program of Chicago, said lack of sufficient government aid is one of the biggest hurdles faced by grandparents who once again are diapering or helping with homework on a full-time basis.

Grandparents who are raising a grandchild are eligible to receive around $100 a month per child through The Department of Human Services Child Only grant, Kinchen said. The amount goes up incrementally with each additional grandchild under a grandparent's care, but caps at just under $400 per family per month, she added.
Compare that to the cap-free $444 per child per month a foster parent receives.
"This issue is just coming to light among policymakers," Kinchen said. "It's going to take grandparents coming together, working collectively, to make a change - like they did to get fair senior housing."

The issue has been taken up by the American Association of Retired People. In addition to lobbying on grandparents' behalf, the AARP has joined forces with five other groups to produce fact sheets specific to each state. The sheets include information on programs and resources specific to grandparents who are raising grandchildren. Visit www.grandfactssheets.org.

Kinchen knows first-hand the struggles such grandparents face. She raised three of her own. When she realized few services were available, she started her own help group in her small living room. That was five years ago.
Today, funded by small grants from organizations such as the Chicago Department of Senior Services and the Illinois Department of Aging, Grandfamilies Program of Chicago helps grandparents wade through the legal process and find emotional support. The group sponsors outings and events. It also helps needy grandparents acquire school uniform vouchers and grocery store gift certificates.

Average income among grandparent-maintained households ranges from $19,750 for those with just a grandma to $61,632 for those with two grandparents.
Meeker falls on the low end of the single-parent scale.

Doing the best she can

Since Camren came to live with her, Meeker's tiny mobile home has been crammed with the trappings of a small boy: action figures, books, stripedshirts and flip flops. She longs for a two-bedroom townhouse but know she can't afford much. She gets by on disability and a $102 monthly stipend for Camren.
"They should help grandparents more, especially single ones," she said. "It takes a lot more than a hundred dollars a month and food stamps to raise a child."

Mary Pat Frye, director of the case coordination unit for the Senior Services Department of Will County, said funding starts slowly. An issue, she said, typically needs to be 20 to 30 years in existence, with data to back it up, before government services catch up.
"There are some financial programs for grandparents raising their grandchildren in Will County, but they are very limited," Frye said.
The Senior Services Department can help grandparents investigate those programs, as well as navigate the legal system, she added. For example, she said, a grandparent must have legal custody or guardianship to be able to enroll a child in school.

Despite its challenges, Meeker said she wouldn't think of relinquishing her grandchild to the foster care system.
"My brother and I were adopted after our mother died," she said. "Even though we had a good life, I would not want to do that to my own grandchild."

So she does what most grandparents who are raising their grandchildren do: she manages day by day, hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute.

Camren has anger issues. He's recently been diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. He has a counselor and a psychiatrist.
"It's a lot of work," Meeker said.

Kindness of others

Sometimes, people help her out. Her son will pay for field trips and daycare. Her brother recently bought her a car.
Her son is a salesman for a local alarm company.
"He travels a lot," she said. "He plans to take Camren back in one day, when he's ready, when everything's set up."
Until then, he's Meeker's responsibility.

But any parent knows that raising a child goes well beyond attending to needs alone.
She wants this child to have fun memories, to be included on the playground, to be carefree.
So she does what she can. Meeker and Camren are regulars at local festivals and the Olympia Fields McDonald's, which hosts a free rock 'n' roll night on Wednesdays.

When word came recently that a pair of Nikes might be available for Camren, the news made her day.
A volunteer from Together We Cope, in Tinley Park, called and asked what size shoe Camren wore. She just might have a pair in his size.
"Oh, that's great, just great," she said.

Another friend told her about free karate lessons through the Beecher police department.
"You hate to ask for things, but they're not for me, they're for my grandson," she said.

Although this story is not about fostering, I found it to be very interesting. I just heard a radio program a few days ago about the very of issue of today's aging baby boomers having to take in and raise their grandchildren at a very alarming rate. Some do take in these kids through the foster system, some go on to adopt, some simply take over legal guardianship of their grandkids. It is an admirable effort on the part of grandparents everywhere who undertake this important task of raising a second family. It certainly seems as though the government should be working as hard and quickly as possible to get financial aid to these grandparents. At least with fostering your own relatives, you do receive a little bit more than what the lady in the above story is receiving. I hope everything works out for this lady and other like her, and for the hundereds more grandparents who will shortly find themselves in this same situation. God bless them for loving enough to put their own needs aside in order to help make sure these kids get as normal a life as possible.

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There Is Too Much Society Does Not Know About Child Abuse.

The Hidden Child Abuse in Your Community

Much of society is not educated in one very important aspect of child abuse. Yet this one aspect is at the heart of years of undisclosed incest, child porn, child couriers for drugs and other forms of child exploitation. Many children targeted for such activity grow up to be not only victims of long-term child abuse, but also eventually victims and outcasts to their family, friends, and community—including law enforcement.
The children who grow up with the survival mechanism of dissociation are blessed from memory of the abuse at the time it happens…and are plagued with it decades later when the memories may begin to bleed through walls of amnesia. A sizable segment of pedophiles know dissociation inside and out and use it to their advantage. What is better for a pedophile than a child who has no memory of being assaulted repeatedly for years?
The common factor for these child victims is that abuse begins so early in childhood that damage has occurred predominantly by age six and almost always by age nine according to leading experts on childhood dissociation. The extreme of dissociation is where our nation is misinformed and intentionally misled. It was formerly known as multiple personality disorder. The current term is dissociated identity disorder (DID). To those with DID, they are grateful for a childhood where they were saved from such memories.
The media has provided us with incorrect and sensationalized depictions of DID along with propaganda about "false memories" coming from our most wounded victims of child abuse. Why? Because when the child becomes an adult and begins to remember (usually between ages 35 and 45), he or she may recall the abuser(s). We can’t have that now, can we?
Pedophiles know that a dissociated child cannot tell others of the abuse because there is no conscious knowledge of the abuse. Pedophiles take advantage of that dissociation. No one in that evil world of child abuse wants either a child or an adult survivor of dissociated childhood abuse to be believed. Child porn and sex rings prey on children coming into this world as babies and children kidnapped at an early age. They know how to traumatize an infant or young child systematically to cause dissociation, thus ensuring a child who will likely never tell during most of her lifetime. A pedophile is assured of having sex for the victim’s lifetime through child alters as the victim ages, unless or until the victim begins to heal and can pull herself out of a very dangerous environment.
Networks of sophisticated pedophiles exist everywhere. (Sophisticated, for purposes of this article means to have knowledge of how to use dissociation in their favor.) What happens when a dissociated child—a victim of long-term childhood sexual abuse—becomes an adult? These sophisticated pedophiles who are aware of adults still fully dissociated know how to cause a child part to respond. Even more devious is child parts can be called out with a cue (given to the victims by the abusers in a state of terror) for purposes of sexual abuse, trafficking drugs, and other illegal acts without any conscious knowledge on the victim’s part.

And what happens when an adult who might still be a victim of abuse begins to heal and tries to get help from law enforcement? You respond, for instance, to a rape and find an adult woman in a state of panic or terror speaking and behaving as a child. Typical response, unfortunately, is to dismiss the woman as crazy, thus ensuring amnesty to her current abusers as well as punishment for having tried to tell. Using a dissociated child state of an adult is reprehensible rape. We have no word for a pedophile who abuses a dissociated child state of an adult because society has not wanted to know about such things.
A most insidious aspect of organized pedophiles is the extent they will go to change the environment or their own appearance to create a bizarre memory for the person being abused. This also happens with children who have not dissociated. Pedophiles have tactics to make sure that whatever the child reports will not be believed. This includes use of masks, costumes, frightening paraphernalia, animals and reptiles that usually evoke a terror response, and more. A trauma memory encases aspects of the environment in which the abuse occurs. Think about how much this makes sense in a world designed to abuse children. The world would have you believe that survivors of sexual abuse who remember such atrocities as "satanic cults" or other seemingly bizarre or unbelievable scenarios have somehow all been brainwashed or are crazy. It is an intentional guise. It is abuse being ignored on a global basis because of the centuries old deception. It is the dirtiest secret behind child abuse. If we, as a nation, wake up and figure it out, they will no longer have free reign over our children.
If society could set aside the environment remembered for child sexual abuse and focus on the abuse and begin to work with dissociation, the premise on which pedophiles build their porn and sex rings might begin to crumble. It will take all helping arms of a community to come together to begin bringing down the very high and sturdy walls these child predators have been hiding behind. No one wants this in their back yard. The good people of the world do not want it on this planet.
Healing our society needs to start with one community at a time. Why not your community?

T.G. Spencer, M.A. is a psychotherapist who works with trauma and dissociation. She is a member of the International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation and maintains a network of blogs on this topic. Visit knowdissociation.blogspot.com for more information.

The following are very interesting comments posted regarding the above article. To see original article, click on main title of this post.

Grace2288:
The blog http://dirtiestsecret.blogspot.com has more detail about pedophile tactics. The related blog http://believethechildren.blogspot.com profiles a 6 year old boy's disclosure and his double language. A tactic I just recalled is use of opposite terms so the child has a backwards language. This young boy who has been safe for several years is still having problems in school with left, right, up, down, etc. His abuse was under the term "time out". When had visits with the safe parent, he would tell them his bio-mom and/or mom's boyfriend put him in time out. The response would be "They did? What did you do?" So the child was having the message he somehow had done something wrong reinforced each time he tried to tell. It's so deceptive.


defend
The most dangerous pedophile is the one the court forces the child to live with particularly when the protective parent is forbidden from seeing the child. Caregivers, generally parents, killed about 1500 American children each year in America. www.DefendTheChildren.com Children all over are being force to live with abusive and often pedophile parents with the nonabusive, loving and protective parent losing part or all custody because the child was brave enough to report the abuse. It is important to note that when a pedophile gains custody,he or she is still a pedophile==because the pedophile is a parent with custody, that pedophile has the same rights as any other parent and therefore can and does go to your child's school, playground, take picture of children at dance rectials, soccer games etc. Please also note that pedophile often use pecular names for sexual parts such as noodle, frogman, alone with the typical terms for the penis etc. Innocent words like flower, cookie might mean genitalia. Yes, they make the children sound like they are making things up and not creditable. We need to demand that the children her listened to and protected.


MindreaderIV
Excellent. As a therapist, I can concur with this author's comments


nvrhdatckt
Very enlightening and compelling article. I hadn't ever thought about the fact that pedophiles have networks and share knowledge about effective methods to pursue, traumatize and contol their victims. Most people don't realize that children can more or less take themselves out of body when being abused in order to cope. They just take themselves away mentally. Its too bad that this subject isn't talked about more so that victims could receive better help and pedophiles caught. and taken out of circulation. (Permanently) Excellent article.

Just Sitting and Waiting!

I haven't posted any news about my own foster daughter recently, so I thought I would go ahead and catch up on that today.

Our foster daughter, A., is beginning to get more and more nervous and agitated as the date for her mom's final fitness hearing draws closer. This happens everytime one of these hearing get close, but this one is particularly bad because we all expect birth mom's rights to be terminated this time. She just hasn't been able to change the particular aspects about herself and her life that resulted in her kids being taken away in the first place, so everyone is fairly certain about the outcome of the hearing. A. came into our bedroom around 10:00 p.m. the other night, tears running down her face and you could tell she looked like she felt her life was a nightmare. Well, it really has been! Any child who has been taken from their birth parent(s) must feel varying degrees of anquish over the separation. A.'s birth mom emotionally loves all of her children, but she has not been able to care for them and keep them safe. At least A. has started to show signs that she understands why her mom behaves the way that she does. Birth mom is simply a product of her own abusive background which she has never been able to overcome. It is not her fault that she was messed up as a child. However, even people who are "messed up" as children have the responsibility as adults to do whatever they can to "get it together". Especially if they go ahead and make the decision to have a baby, and then another, and then another, and then another. That is where my sypmathy begins to fail me a bit. At some point, it is time for this adult to grow up, get whatever help she may need, and be a decent parent to her kids, or else let them go so that the kids at least have a chance at a normal life with someone else who WILL take care of them properly and love them as their own child.

I get so frustrated when A.'s birth mom continues to act as though she is doing all that the foster care agency has counseled her to do, when in reality she is doing all the wrong things that she has been told NOT to do. This has been hardest on her oldest child, who happens to be our foster daughter. I fight feelings of extreme dislike for A.'s birth mom, trying to keep an amount of compassion within myself, because I know she had a horrible childhood herself. But like I said, she had the choice as an adult to get the help she needed in order to be a functional, loving, nurturing parent to her kids, and she has really blown it.

So, at the moment, we are sitting and waiting for the date of the hearing. It isn't for several more weeks yet. In the meantime, birth mom is facing criminal charges on something that A. does not even know anything about yet. The trial for that case is very soon and I can't even imagine what A. will feel when she learns of this situation. My heart hurts for her; I can't imagine what her heart feels like.

It won't be long before me and my husband will be faced with the final decision of whether or not we want to adopt A. We do want to, but we are also realistic with our knowledge that A. is most likely going to be an extremely challenging teenager. She did not grow up with any boundaries or rules and that has been very hard on her at our house. We argue every week over the fact that all of her friends have cell phones and that she feels she should be allowed to have one. Cell phone? These are 10, 11 and 12 year old kids!!!! What in the world do kids need with cell phones? Giving these kids unlimited access to each other is not a good choice for anybody. And in the case of a foster child, who do you think she will be calling from that cell phone? Yep! Her mom!! Forget it. I don't even want to think about her having one when she is older, but I know we will have to face that when it comes.

So, that is where we are at today. I can't wait until everything has been finalized and we can get on with our lives in a more normal way. Or, will it ever be normal again? I suspicion that we will probably never know life in quite the same way we did before we brought A. into our home. Well, I'm not sure that is all bad - but it certainly is not all good either!

Help A Child - Speak Up When You See Abuse Happening!

Carolyn Hax: Witnesses didn't aid victim of child abuse
By CAROLYN HAX

Dear Carolyn: My stepfather physically, verbally and emotionally abused me until I fled at 15. His power trip was mostly conducted at home, but sometimes it would happen in public, and sometimes it would happen in front of his loser buddies. The years I lived with him were so hard, but it was vastly worse when someone would see it happening and do nothing. Then, the problem wasn't my stepfather -- the problem was the world.

I'd have taken 10 extra beatings with a smile if any stranger had ever stopped and communicated, directly or indirectly, that I was right to believe that what was happening was wrong. I can assure you I got those 10 beatings anyway -- they happened all the time and on any pretext -- just without the quiet anesthetic victory that a stranger's concern might have been.

For reasons that are probably obvious, I am enormously conflict-averse as an adult. But I hope so much that if I ever see a child suffering in any of the ways I suffered, I will be able to stand and speak. I hope anyone would.

This happens more often than people realize. Please, be ready to speak up if you ever see a child being abused. You may be the only person in the right place at the right time who would possibly be able to give this child a chance to be removed from their abusive situation. If we don't speak up, who will save these children?

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Haitian Home Remedy Results In Couple Being Found Guilty of Child Abuse

Couple cleared in baby's death but found guilty of abuse
But found guilty of abuse for giving feverish girl vodka
By Jon Burstein South Florida Sun-Sentinel
August 30, 2008

The tearful father looked up, said, "Thank you Jesus," and clutched a Bible to his chest. The mother shut her eyes tight as her tiny frame quivered.

Emotion overcame Mardala Derival, 24, and Mackenson Dantus, 27, as a Broward County jury acquitted them Friday of manslaughter in their 3-month-old daughter's death.

Makeisha died on Valentine's Day 2004 with a blood-alcohol level that authorities said would have been nearly six times the legal limit for a driver. While the Fort Lauderdale couple was found not guilty of killing their daughter, they were found guilty of child abuse for giving vodka to the feverish baby as a Haitian home remedy.

They each could face up to five years in prison when they are sentenced by Circuit Judge Susan Lebow.

Attorneys for Derival and Dantus said the new parents rubbed a little alcohol on the sick baby's face and put two drops of vodka in a bottle mixed with water, sugar and salt. The defense attorneys said authorities used a flawed formula to calculate the baby's blood-alcohol level.

When Makeisha died, she had pneumonia and a bacterial infection, according to a forensic pathologist for the defense.

"It was a real tragedy for them to be held criminally responsible for the death of their own child," said Sandra Perlman, Dantus' attorney. The couple spent nearly 1,000 days in jail awaiting trial. Perlman said that at one point during the two-week trial, Derival collapsed to the floor, sobbing under the defense table, "My baby! My baby!" The jury had to be excused.

The couple hope to soon be reunited with their other child, 4-year-old Christina, who has been living with relatives, said Michael Weinstein, Derival's attorney.

"They are looking forward to hugging their daughter," Weinstein said.

Assistant State Attorney Julie Vogel declined to comment on Friday's verdict. She had argued that the couple recklessly caused their daughter's death by giving her a lethal dose of alcohol.

Jurors — who spent more than 6 1/2 hours deliberating before reaching their decision — declined to discuss their reasoning."We've been through enough," one of the jurors said as they got onto an elevator together.


Is this a case of child abuse? I have learned not to judge too quickly what I read in the news. I do not know these people so I do not know all of the surrounding circumstances that surround this case. while I do not agree with giving an infant alcohol, there are many old home remedies that people use and swear by and which actually work. It just seems to me that if this couple grew up with this vodka mixture as something that was often used to treat this type of illness in babies, then they were not doing anything cruel or abusive to the baby, they were simply doing what they had learned to do to treat an illness. I would hope that no judge would give this couple give years in prison for simply being what they considered to be loving, caring parents to this baby. I would rather think that the parents could use some parenting and basic first aid classes. Unless there is more to this story than what I am reading about on the surface, then this couple has suffered enough and their sentence should be no more than the fact that they will be living the rest of their lives without their child.

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