scottcooks
Gold Member
- 1,938
Prayers requested for our DS "JJ" and his situation. Pray for his school authorities to not just C.Y.A. themselves and box him up and ship him away to 'somewhere else', but to apply some of their strength and nurture and support him through early transition to their community.
Warning - not always a pretty picture - long tale (many have said I should write a book, but how to change names enough to not be libel?) I'll use random initials instead of names...
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"JJ" was born to a very young and tremendously challenged couple who in time had 4 tots - bio m was 15 w/ first, 23 with 4. BioD was 29. There were drugs, regular physical wrestling/fighting, disrespect, blaming, yelling, no job, dyslexic and bipolar bioD, bio m would go for workFirst and be gone while bio d stayed home. He would lock my DS into a solitary room with no stimulus for 10-14 hours while older 2 would go to a park and play, baby g (our DD) in a crib in their bedroom. DS had no one to talk with, no crayons, games, TV, radio, books, anything. BioM and Bio D had forays into the occult and generational incest from BioM's bro - uncle "L". Came from a halfway house to stay w/ his sis but molested probably all 4 kids. Only familial support of any kind was paternal grandma who is on oxygen, but is a chain smoker, with quite a sordid past of hooking (yes that kind)in her youth with the boys at the local police acad. - soon these 'regulars' became cops in their town.
Prior foster families tried to take the tots back to that town b/c it had a great pediatric care facility, but within 1/2 hour of the kids being in town, the grandma showed up. She would copy license plates of foster parents down, send them off to buddies in 'the department' and show up at foster homes with gifts for the kids.
Yet as is the case for any and all of us nothing will ever be the same as his birth family - Bio M, Bio D, sis7, bro5, he4, sis2.5. My DS grieves for the loss of that unit, particularly his buddy and big bro, 1 year older.
The 4 were taken into state care when BioM and BioD engaged in domestic violence after 10's of concerned neighbor/social worker calls on various issues of concern for the family.
My DW and I came to the state as to-be-adoptive parents, and were led to this family; originally aimed to 5yob - we were invited to meet 4yob (my DS) and 2.5yog (my DD). My DW negotiated that we take foster care of 4yob and 2.5yog in a permanent placement toward adopt, rather than a temp care for 5yob where they were aiming us.
We took DS and DD into our care, adopted 10 months later, and that was 4 years ago.
In preschool, it slowly became apparent to us he was spending more time being coddled in the teachers lap, than engaging in learning.
In kindergarten, we struggled fiercely with outrageous running from authority and climbing and non-compliance so we pulled back from full day to halfday kindergarten, returning to full day by years end.
In first grade, we had an amazing rapport with teacher developed over summer prior, and it helped a lot to lessen his flares of attention-getting behavior.
Behaviors new (2nd grade) school is concerned with are running from authority, not coming in from recess, climbing (new school has several 2nd story balconies) whereby last Thurs he wouldn't come in from recess, ran from staff to woodsy area, climbed a giant tree none of the adults could navigate, so they called fire truck. DS heard fire truck coming and wanted to see it so came down and was disappointed it didn't stay longer.
Just got back from a school meeting (new school, more rigorous than previous one) where they want to do another sp.ed eval (good thing) but threw out possibility of sending him to district's behav.disturbed program. Bull S---!
I imagine it will be resolved well, but I didn't like the school's inuendos and repeated pointing that "there was a pattern of behavior that we're seeing again" like he will be doing this and the only expectation would be it would continue. He came a long way from first experiences to end of grade 1.
Pray for the sp.ed eval to aim toward resources to help locally, and not to shipping away - then DS and DD would be in 2 separate schools, hard on kids, hard on us, etc. etc.
DD is now in Kindergarten and doing well; DS is in grade 2 and struggling with the transitions. I see him manipulating the adults in his environment to assure himself close proximity to them. Maybe sp.ed with an aide would be a good thing, even if for a while.
My own alarm is over this new school staff who I want to respect, but now I am just seeing them be so nervous. Pray for peace in this whole thing. Pray for me and my DW. Pray for bio M who is still in picture but adds stress. Pray for bio D who is out of picture. Pray for DS's bro and sis and the family that adopted them.
Pray for me to set this aside enough to book shows and get $$ to give us some flexibility - am so cash-poor right now!
And Bless You!
Warning - not always a pretty picture - long tale (many have said I should write a book, but how to change names enough to not be libel?) I'll use random initials instead of names...
.
.
.
s
c
r
o
l
l
d
o
w
n
.
.
.
"JJ" was born to a very young and tremendously challenged couple who in time had 4 tots - bio m was 15 w/ first, 23 with 4. BioD was 29. There were drugs, regular physical wrestling/fighting, disrespect, blaming, yelling, no job, dyslexic and bipolar bioD, bio m would go for workFirst and be gone while bio d stayed home. He would lock my DS into a solitary room with no stimulus for 10-14 hours while older 2 would go to a park and play, baby g (our DD) in a crib in their bedroom. DS had no one to talk with, no crayons, games, TV, radio, books, anything. BioM and Bio D had forays into the occult and generational incest from BioM's bro - uncle "L". Came from a halfway house to stay w/ his sis but molested probably all 4 kids. Only familial support of any kind was paternal grandma who is on oxygen, but is a chain smoker, with quite a sordid past of hooking (yes that kind)in her youth with the boys at the local police acad. - soon these 'regulars' became cops in their town.
Prior foster families tried to take the tots back to that town b/c it had a great pediatric care facility, but within 1/2 hour of the kids being in town, the grandma showed up. She would copy license plates of foster parents down, send them off to buddies in 'the department' and show up at foster homes with gifts for the kids.
Yet as is the case for any and all of us nothing will ever be the same as his birth family - Bio M, Bio D, sis7, bro5, he4, sis2.5. My DS grieves for the loss of that unit, particularly his buddy and big bro, 1 year older.
The 4 were taken into state care when BioM and BioD engaged in domestic violence after 10's of concerned neighbor/social worker calls on various issues of concern for the family.
My DW and I came to the state as to-be-adoptive parents, and were led to this family; originally aimed to 5yob - we were invited to meet 4yob (my DS) and 2.5yog (my DD). My DW negotiated that we take foster care of 4yob and 2.5yog in a permanent placement toward adopt, rather than a temp care for 5yob where they were aiming us.
We took DS and DD into our care, adopted 10 months later, and that was 4 years ago.
In preschool, it slowly became apparent to us he was spending more time being coddled in the teachers lap, than engaging in learning.
In kindergarten, we struggled fiercely with outrageous running from authority and climbing and non-compliance so we pulled back from full day to halfday kindergarten, returning to full day by years end.
In first grade, we had an amazing rapport with teacher developed over summer prior, and it helped a lot to lessen his flares of attention-getting behavior.
Behaviors new (2nd grade) school is concerned with are running from authority, not coming in from recess, climbing (new school has several 2nd story balconies) whereby last Thurs he wouldn't come in from recess, ran from staff to woodsy area, climbed a giant tree none of the adults could navigate, so they called fire truck. DS heard fire truck coming and wanted to see it so came down and was disappointed it didn't stay longer.
Just got back from a school meeting (new school, more rigorous than previous one) where they want to do another sp.ed eval (good thing) but threw out possibility of sending him to district's behav.disturbed program. Bull S---!
I imagine it will be resolved well, but I didn't like the school's inuendos and repeated pointing that "there was a pattern of behavior that we're seeing again" like he will be doing this and the only expectation would be it would continue. He came a long way from first experiences to end of grade 1.
Pray for the sp.ed eval to aim toward resources to help locally, and not to shipping away - then DS and DD would be in 2 separate schools, hard on kids, hard on us, etc. etc.
DD is now in Kindergarten and doing well; DS is in grade 2 and struggling with the transitions. I see him manipulating the adults in his environment to assure himself close proximity to them. Maybe sp.ed with an aide would be a good thing, even if for a while.
My own alarm is over this new school staff who I want to respect, but now I am just seeing them be so nervous. Pray for peace in this whole thing. Pray for me and my DW. Pray for bio M who is still in picture but adds stress. Pray for bio D who is out of picture. Pray for DS's bro and sis and the family that adopted them.
Pray for me to set this aside enough to book shows and get $$ to give us some flexibility - am so cash-poor right now!
And Bless You!