Foster Kids Rule the World

Odd title, isn’t it? But it has been on my mind (and in my face) for about a year now, and in sticking with my promise to be honest about all the facets of fostering/adopting, I thought I ought to share.

When kids are taken into custody by the county (though the removal has to be done by a police officer), they are suddenly and acutely aware of a whole different dimension that exists in our society. It is the dimension where adults take everything a kid says as gospel truth. It is, in a way, a necessity, because you can’t really expect parents to be forthcoming about what has gone on in their home when you have just taken away their kids- especially if they face charges as a result. Still, the initial placement into care and the subsequent physical examination, psychological evaluation, and general ‘kid-glove’ approach of the whole foster care team send a very loud silent message about who is running the show when it comes to foster care. Everyone shows such pity for the kids, often giving them a ‘free pass’ on their behaviors. The kids pick up on this very quickly.

To complicate matters, the people caring for foster kids (i.e. foster parents) have a very limited scope of authority over them. They must get approval from a casework supervisor before having the kids treated at an emergency room (even if it is just for strep throat), are required to follow the county’s determination on education for the child, and cannot discipline the kids unless the disciplinary action is within the county guidelines. As I mentioned before, it is important to maintain the role of birth parents as the authority, because the goal is to send the kids home. It does create, however, an environment where no one is truly in full authority over the kids. The birth parents have say on haircuts and school activities, but can’t even take their kids home at the end of the day. The caseworker sets the visitation schedule and oversees the foster parents, but does not have daily interaction with the kids. The foster parents do the leg work of daily care, but are scrutinized on a constant basis. It gives the kids ultimate control, because all they have to do is play the authority figures against one another.

I have yet to meet a foster kid who did not take advantage of this situation. That is not, however, an indication of the depravity in which they were raised, because not all kids are being abused or neglected. Foster care comes about for many different reasons, and even kids whom you might classify as having a ‘normal’ family life will play the system. The Word says that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, and it is so true. Give that foolishness fuel, and it will manifest in even the best of kids. Sadly, adopting those foster kids does not really change anything. The names on the birth certificate change, and the caseworker is no longer a regular visitor, but the kids have not forgotten the way you as foster parents were under the thumb of the system. They will continue to try and test the boundaries, knowing they have the fall-back of crying wolf to get them out of it if they push too far.

Here is an example: You adopt a child who was the center of attention at home. I mean seriously the center of attention- to lengths I will not disclose here. The child is removed from that home and sent to you along with her siblings. You, not understanding the unspoken rules of the home they lived in, give equal attention to all the children. The golden child becomes enraged and decides to use your lowly status against you. She begins to refuse to eat in an attempt to get attention that is being misdirected to other children. You ignore the behavior, knowing that to engage her is to start down a road you cannot come back from. She continues to refuse to eat, testing to see if you will give in eventually. You hold your ground, knowing that to give in to her now is to set up a life-long meme in her mind of using threat to get what she wants (the threat is getting you in trouble and having all the kids removed from you, and they know this well because every time they see the caseworker she asks if they are happy in your home and if they feel safe). Just when she is about to give up on this method of terrorism, the doctor notices that she is not even registering on the growth chart for her age, and gives you instructions to feed her whatever she will eat. Because you now have the threat of being in trouble with the doctor who can make a call to child services and turn you in for ‘abuse’, you have been put under the heel of a child. Life becomes a living nightmare as you take the child grocery shopping, watching her fill the cart with donuts and chips and cookies, and you scramble to not only pay for a whole different set of food, but to try and keep the other kids in your house from mutiny over the fact that their sister gets to pick and choose and you are making them eat squash and salad and baked potatoes. She is getting that special attention she felt belonged to her after all.

But I haven’t even told you the worst part, yet. There is a double-edged sword when it comes to society and the ‘it takes a village’ mentality. When that child becomes sick from lack of vitamins and fiber, and starts to gain weight to the point of being fat, you are responsible for that as well. Parents in general are walking a tightrope anymore, but it is especially true for foster/adoptive parents whose kids have no loyalty to them and who will manipulate any situation for personal gain. Parents have had their children removed because they are too small and have no muscle tone, and parents have had kids removed for being overweight and unfit. And everyone involved knows that if they come to take the neglected child (because that’s what they classify underweight/overweight kids as) they take ALL of your kids and ask questions later. I’ve had the kids say to me at times ‘if you get in trouble for _____, they’ll take Maggie and Chloë too’. It is a taunt. Sadly, it is very true.

Then you have the time when kids get older and begin to think of themselves as adults. I do not believe in teenage rebellion as a physical phase of life but rather a cultural phenomenon. Too many kids in other countries go through the teenage years without rebellion for it to be a biological change. Instead, we have made kids rulers of their own world when they are not ready to make adult decisions, and the result is a constant struggle between them and the parents who cannot control them yet are still liable for them. This cultural disease we have created is ten times worse in foster/adopted kids because they have nothing to lose. They are fully aware of the fact that you cannot physically make them do anything, and they exploit it. Here’s another example:

Your 13 year old daughter does not want to do anything. I mean literally anything. She says she intended to spend her summer in bed reading. You say no, because not only is that not fair to anyone else, but it is not healthy to stay indoors all the time doing nothing. You try your best ‘member-of-the-family, we need teamwork’ speech, and assign a list of chores for each kid. Because she is the oldest, you have given her the task of mowing the lawn. She doesn’t want to mow the lawn, so she sabotages the job- mowing down your sapling trees, missing large strips of grass, and finally running over a rock which breaks the mower and gets her out of the job completely. So you assign her the job of weeding the garden because, after all, she does eat. Well, you should have known better, because she feigns stupidity and pulls up the plants. OK, fine. Maybe letting her work inside will be better. You ask her to sort the laundry and put it in rooms (we let everyone fold their own, so there wasn’t even folding involved). She puts things in the wrong places on purpose and when you come in to check, there is still a pile of clothes in the living room but she is in bed reading. You are about to blow like Krakatoa at this point, but try diplomacy. You ask her what it is that she would like to do, besides reading, since she is a member of the family and needs to contribute. She says cooking. Well, you can’t just turn her loose in the kitchen because she has no experience, so you leave the outside work to come in and make lunch together. The menu says Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes, so you ask her to start peeling the potatoes. She is clearly miffed, and cuts so much off that the potatoes look like water chestnuts. When you ask, you are informed that she just wanted to stand at the stove and stir. By this point, you’ve had it and inform her that she is not going to tell you what she will and will not do. She starts to throw a tantrum, which scares the baby because why would someone as big as that be acting that way? So you say ‘go throw your fit in the barn where you won’t scare the baby’.

So off she goes to the barn. She is gone all day and doesn’t come back, but you figure she is letting off steam the way she does when she ‘needs to be alone’. Dark falls, and you can see her in the haymow from the yard, but she still will not come home. It’s a stand-off, and again, your common sense says that if you give in, you will be setting her up for a lifetime of believing the way to handle a situation is through threat (that, and your husband demands that you not go get her because she has, in effect, run away from home and has to come back on her own). Lucky for you, your neighbor happens to have just finished her degree in social work and finds your child hanging out the barn window wailing like a baby. Long story short, you get a call that your daughter does not want to come home and that neighbor spends the night debating about whether or not to report you to child services. So guess who has gotten her way as far as lying in bed and reading all summer? Because of the same threat that if we get in trouble, everyone will be taken away. YET, come fall when she has a vitamin D deficiency and we take her to the hospital with a violent flu, we will be responsible.

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