Seeing Patterns

Jack Tobin's situation is a tragedy. His best friend Alex Zolpis is gone forever and in the world’s eyes, he is to blame. We all know it could happen to any family at any time. Jack Tobin's troubles clearly began days after first receiving his learner's driver's permit, around the age of sixteen. It is at that stage during adolescence that behaviours must be analyzed. If an adolescent has displayed a large number of repeat infractions, one can assume that there were other worrisome behaviours surfacing as well. It is so much easier to chalk up teen (mis)behaviours to 'boys being boys' or 'teens being teens'. Clearly with this many infractions of the same nature peppered throughout one’s life, mistakes were not being learned from. It is up to the adult involved to look hard at this pattern and make the decision to intervene. Is there an underlying mental health issue? Severe ADHD? Impulsivity? Mood Disorder? Should a third party be called in? Does this teen require constant supervision, if only to save them from themselves? Does the parent need to take time off from work to get to the bottom of things, even if it causes professional and financial hardship? Is the school atmosphere contributing to the behaviour? The friends? The adults involved must ask themselves “Why is he/she repeating the pattern over and over again? Why is this child not connecting the dots and learning from the past? What can I do to intervene and remove my child from the current environment that may be contributing to the behaviours? Do I need to remove them from school, keep them home and show them how serious things are?” Sadly, as parents, we are so busy trying to get by, and often feel that once our child is into adolescence, they are on their way to adulthood and we can back off and relax a bit. I would argue that the opposite is true, and if a teen is showing any signs of troubling behaviour, that is an indicator for the family to stop dead in its tracks, evaluate all circumstances and take whatever measures necessary to get that teen back on track. We only have one chance to get them through these tumultuous years, and in order to keep them and others around them safe, it is up to us to step in early on, and take drastic measures if needed. There are many lessons to be learned from this situation, and one lesson should be for all adults to aggressively insert themselves into a teen’s life and halt troubling behaviour before it becomes a pattern. Patterns are very hard to break once established, and once that teenager is out on their own, all bets are off.

Fostering Siblings

Sibling Visits

When foster parents receive new placements, they are given a brief history of the circumstances that brought them into care, if available. Troubling and unhealthy family relationships are the norm. Sibling relationships are usually intense and emotional. Biological parents are often angry, resentful and highly negative and critical of foster parents. Foster parents are protective by nature, so the idea of encouraging and nurturing relationships with the very people that contributed to them being placed in care can be a very difficult part of the job. However, if the foster parent wants to build trust and develop a relationship with their foster child, they must always be positive and warm toward the biological family. Not to mention it is the mandate of all children’s aid societies to provide every opportunity for families to remain connected, if there is no risk to safety.
Sibling visits are often up to the foster parents to organize. Once the green light has been given for sibling visits, the planning begins. Usually it is planned and organized between foster parents (if the siblings are all in care and are split up), or they are planned between foster parent and biological child, particularly if they are older.
It is very easy and very tempting to make excuses for these visits to not happen. ‘We are too busy’. ‘I am afraid it will keep the child attached to their sister/brother and will not attach to us.’ ‘I am worried it will bring up painful memories.’ ‘That brother / sister is a bad influence.’ ‘I am nervous about what they will say about me as a foster parent.’ ‘I don’t like the look of that smoking brother/sister who is full of piercings and tattoos.’ It is easy because the agency is depending on you to make sure these visits happen, yet often do not follow up because they trust that the foster parent will keep their end of the expectation. It is tempting because none of us want to step outside our comfort zone if we don’t have to, and these visits can be nerve-wracking and stressful.
It is imperative that the foster parent not only make visits happen, they make them happen with regularity, with confidence. They must make each visit special, and they must make sure that photos happen. Foster parents need to ensure that their foster child comes away with the feeling that their sibling is special, likeable and important. The foster parent should adopt the: “If they are important to you, they are important to me” attitude with their foster son or daughter. If the foster parent is able to do this, it will help the relationship and will enhance attachment, not hinder it. The child will feel accepted and special, and will relax.
Memories are memories. Families are families. Bonds are bonds. Their grandma opening KFC boxes with a cigarette dangling out of the side of her mouth generates the exact same amount of love and comfort as reminiscing about your own grandma stirring gravy and baking a pie. This is not stereotyping, I witnessed the KFC story being shared between two biological sisters in care, and my own grandmother stirred gravy and baked pies. I witnessed the glistening eyes and the love in their voices and I identified with their memories. These siblings are already judged by the rest of society for being in foster care. They do not need to be judged for their warm, loving and precious memories.

Fostering in Ottawa

See the link below for an article that describes some fostering experiences:

http://www.myvirtualpaper.com/doc/coylepublishing/oflsummer2011_v3/2011051301/#8

Fostering Adolescents

Fostering Pre Teens and Teens

“We have a 14 year old boy. He has been in 5 homes in 4 years.” “There is a 13 year old girl. She just wants to belong but doesn’t know how to show it.” “We have 12 year old twins, a boy and a girl.”

These sentences, usually stated over the phone, often in the middle of a busy day, may strike fear and uncertainty in the hearts of many. When I get this call, a feeling that is a mixture of protectiveness and empathy instantly wells up. I immediately start mentally rearranging the house and bedrooms to accommodate our new arrival. I imagine what they look like and wonder when their birthday is. I ask about food preferences, school, clothing situations and bio family interactions. Once we have decided to accept our new placement, the work begins. Grocery shopping to ensure we have familiar foods. Rearranging furniture. Prepping our kids. Waiting for the worker and child to arrive. Introductions. Appearing cool and collected when we feel anything but.

There are basic strategies that we have found that seem to work with most teens. Adolescents tend to respond very well to:

Fairness: All kids (but especially teens) have a keen sense of justice. They are extremely sensitive and are hyper-aware when they feel that they are being treated unfairly. It can be as simple as ensuring (to the inch) that a piece of pizza is the same size as the others, or as complex as being aware of their perception of your tone of voice and body language. Teens NEED to feel they are getting a fair shake and they need to feel that they are valued in the same way as everyone else in the house, from the moment they step foot in the door.

Tolerance: If four letter words and tales of graphic experiences make you uncomfortable, then fostering teens is not for you. Youth need to feel they can express themselves and need to feel they are good people, no matter what their past experiences have been. You need to be prepared to hear about hair-raising events , frightening experiences, and stomach turning parenting practices (often while driving or cooking or reading) AND, you need to hear it and stay calm and cool while listening. While listening, you will also need to think ahead to your careful and appropriate responses to ensure it happens again, as this is a wonderful and positive thing! Teens will often listen to you only after you have demonstrated that you can listen to them. Also, try hard (even if it is painful) to listen to their music while driving. Listen to the lyrics together. Get to the meaning. This is a good way to start discussions while driving. Don’t forget to call or email your worker and your child’s worker with any disclosure of any kind.

Honesty: By the time a teen in care reaches your home, they are knowledgeable, sceptical, cynical and guarded. They deserve the truth, and can detect a cover up a mile away. You owe it to the youth to be honest to the best of your ability and within Society guidelines. Not only do you owe it to your adolescent, you really owe it to yourself as a person trying to establish a positive relationship. If you lie or cover up, and the teen discovers it, they will probably never trust you again. They have been lied to and let down much of their lives, and you will now be just another person to add to that list. Your goal is to become the person they can always count on for the truth, and that you are reliable. Never, ever lie, and if you are ever unsure about what to say, then refer the teen to their worker or tell the teen that you will check with the worker and get back to them. You can never undo a lie and the damage will be irreparable. They will not forget it.

Parenting: No matter how much they resist, teens in care are fundamentally no different than any other child. They think they are tough, cool and they think they know more than everyone (especially you, the parent figure). Just remember, they want to be parented, and they are really just overgrown children. They feel valued when there are limits. They enjoy a good fight, but are secretly glad that you care enough to make the effort to argue. They need you at their school, advocating for them. They want someone to make their lunches. They need to be reminded to brush their teeth. They need limits and fair consequences. They need you to be involved and know who their friends (and their friend’s parents) are. Persevere. Don’t give up. They also like treats and rewards and spontaneous moments of silliness and fun.

Don’t be afraid of teens. They can be our most difficult placements, but they can also be the most rewarding. They will remember everything you say to them. You can and you will make a real difference in their life path, but only if you are confident in your heart that you really want to.

A Gradual Path, a Sudden Turn.

As with everything in life, one's activities, goals and priorities must be pulled out, examined, re-ordered and re-prioritized from time to time. Being a parent and foster parent requires an ongoing revisiting of strategies, routines and focuses. When it seems as though suddenly everything is in turmoil, it may actually be that conflict and stress have been building slowly and silently, coming to the surface, seemingly as the result of a particular incident. Our most recent need for re visitation of our life goals, routines and priorities came as a result of several mitigating factors converging at once and causing a brief moment of havoc in our lives. However, as experienced parents, responsible adults and flexible work situations, we are now sitting at the other side waiting to see if our changes will result in calm waters, if only for a little while. I believe our need for a drastic change came about as combining result of:

• a foster child arriving


• another foster child leaving


• a job loss


• 2 foster children arriving in sudden flurry


• a job gain


• troubling teen behaviour


• a significant job reduction

All of these factors built up, converged and caused a sudden need for drastic re-prioritizing.

When a foster child arrives, there is a readjustment period. Even if the child is a positive addition to the family, it is always stressful for all involved to adjust to new routines, new rules (in this case the child was much younger which required a change in TV programming, video game censoring, dinner table discussions, evening routines).

Soon after, another boy left to go home quite suddenly, and not necessarily to an emotionally healthy environment. This created a sense of loss and worry for all.

Then came a surprise job loss 2 weeks before Christmas for the father of the family, which created a new dynamic with him now at home all day. Enter in 2 foster children arriving in a flurry, add in a job gain, and through all of this, one teen in the family was quietly going about unproductive and self damaging behaviour, which required a sudden halt to everything and a readjustment to home priorities. It seemed like it all happened at once, but looking back, one can track the gradual path that was being trampled down, like the subtle path down our front yard where the kids cut through the hedges to walk to their bus stop.

Where we are sitting now is the father is back at work, but the mother has almost completely cut back hours to be in the home much more. This has caused a loss of income but a gain in psychological comfort. We rationalized that we made a conscious decision when we had children that I would stay at home and raise them until the youngest was in school full time. I would now argue it is equally important to remain physically and emotionally available when kids are navigating through the tumultuous teen years and all of the choices to be made there. Parental supervision is only one of many duties during these years. In fact, for us, we are now actually back to where we were at the beginning of our child rearing years, when ironically I always envisioned the teen years to be the end of the child rearing years. I feel I am actually needing to step up my parental involvement rather than wind it down!

The decision that we made as a couple for me to leave work and stay home this time around has come with mixed feelings. I am feeling the loss of my identity, my personal and professional satisfaction and (let's face it) my pride in myself of being someone who could always hold it all together, despite what was being tossed at me. That said, I am also feeling the strength of having made that decision to put my kids first and sleeping at night knowing in my heart it is the right thing to do for our family at this time. Maybe this is what separates some from others. Upon reflection, perhaps this is why our family is able to care for other family's children ;the fact that as parents, we are able to put our children's current needs (and other's children's current needs) above our own? That is a thought for another time.

For now, we are navigating new waters with a new family dynamic, a renewed hope that things will get better, and a view to being ready for whatever is coming along at the next fork. Whatever comes at us next, I am sure we will not feel prepared, we will stumble and question ourselves as parents and we will need to reorganize our life around it again, and will settle back in to whatever that new reality brings. One day at a time.