I Just Had a Long Talk with Sunny's Foster Mom
He would sometimes do the same thing at his foster mom's house... wake up the whole house at 5AM on a Saturday morning by screaming as loudly as possible.
She used to take him out to the car too!
I feel a lot better now. She has a ridiculous amount of parenting experience. She has four or five biological adult kids, four special needs adopted kids and has fostered for decades.
She talked for a while about how she noticed a huge difference in kids that she parented "straight from the hospital" versus at two or three years of age (like Sunny). The ones that came to her older had control and attention issues (like Sunny), and the age was a lot more of a factor than things like drug exposure.
She wasn't talking about attachment in and of itself, although it's definitely attachment related.
I'd emailed our worker earlier about the tantrums, and she asked me if the adoption finalization might be a reason behind this increased turbulence. I don't think it is. I asked Sunny tonight if he was sad about it, and that it was OK if he was sad, but he didn't seem to be interested. As far as he's concerned, the finalization is just a boring adult ritual that means he can finally get a magical thing called a passport that will let him visit Japan.
I also asked him if he was sad because mom might have a baby. I told him that I wasn't sure if that was going to happen or not, just like I wasn't sure BB was coming to live with us, but I hoped it would all happen because then he would get to be a big brother. He seemed more mildly hopeful than sad. I showed him that clip of the easy no-blood natural childbirth scene from The Business of Being Born, and he was really impressed, and asked me if that was happened when Mommy ___ gave birth to him. I said I wasn't sure, but that it was probably like that.
I asked him if the trip to see his foster family was making him sad. He said that it was... that he really wanted to go, but sometimes he was sad thinking about the trip.
I'm trying to wrap my head around that. Maybe he knows he's going to be reminded that he's not integral to their family anymore. He'll be a visitor, an outsider.
Ultimately, I don't know if we're going to be able to untangle the emotional logic behind all this. We just have to stay consistent, yet flexible, and above all, keep a cool head and not screw up.
Foster Care System Perspectives
2 comments:
I'm sorry you're in a rough patch right now. I understand more than you can know.
Slugger has been in a rough patch since the beginning of January. Tantrums, very violent rages, rampant defiance, lying about everything, school work suffering, calls from school every day, etc.
The thing is, he had a rough patch this time last year, too. And when he was with his previous adoptive family, this was the time of year that everything went to hell.
I think -- though it's hard to be sure -- there's a little "memory of the heart" thing going on. This is the time of year that he first entered foster care (when he was 5). He bounced around a lot (3 super short stays in foster homes, back to birthmom, two short stays in foster home, back to birth mom again). Then he finally went to his first long-term foster home in March of that year.
I brought it up to Slugger, thinking I'd ring some sort of bell with him and he'd have a little breakthrough of sorts. Nothing. Totally flat, emotionless expression.
Still, I think on some unconscious level, he feels displaced and upset at this time of year. I'm kind of at a loss as to how to really help him with it, other than to be consistent and patient with it.
Good luck with your kiddo. Wish me luck with mine.
Absolutely wishing you luck, Maggie. I'm sorry to hear you're in the same boat.
I guess the season can be a factor in other ways, too. Daylight, temperature, activity level... who knows?
Sunny also went into foster care right about this time of year, shortly before he turned 3.
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