Category Archives: Parenting

Ds is turning 12 – thoughts and reflections on raising a child with Down syndrome

Parenting, Trisomy 21

Today is our son’s twelfth birthday – I remember so clearly when he was born and shared with you here all about our surprise diagnosis of Trisomy 21 a short time after his birth.

There was a lot I didn’t know and a lot to learn about, but my biggest concern was what kind of life he would have. What opportunities would there be, would people be kind to him?

Last week we celebrated a milestone – after seven months of learning with his fifteen year old brother, ds12 completed his first tractate of Mishnayos. They stayed with it regularly for all of that time, despite having very different schedules, finding time to learn together and finally, they celebrated the culmination last week.

One of my married daughters was here with her family for that Shabbos and commented how emotional it was. It was a big deal. While this is a normative learning experience for a boy this age, most people would assume it to be out of reach for a child with Trisomy 21. He did this because he wanted to, not because we suggested it or pushed him to do it. And he did it well.

I don’t want to sugar coat or gloss over the challenges of raising a child with a disability. There have been times that have been frustrating. Very frustrating. There have been issues that went on so long despite my input and support that I sometimes felt close to despairing that we would ever resolve them. But even those tough issues have improved with time and are no longer the source of angst that they once were.

Sometimes I got lost in the close-up view of the difficulties and lost sight of how amazing he is, focusing on what needed to be improved instead of looking at all that was already so, so good.

But in the last couple of weeks I’ve stepped back to look at ‘the forest’ and am incredibly grateful for what I see. I see a child with a lot of self-confidence, who knows how to ask for what he wants and doesn’t give up. He is smart and capable, he loves people and people enjoy him. He’s kind, helpful, responsible and independent.

——————-

I went to a bris recently with the younger four kids and ds greeted the father of the baby at the entrance to the hall with a hug and congratulatory wishes.

We went inside and he sat at a table with men he knew, and he grasped their hands in a high five cross grip. Then he went to the rabbi of the community and respectfully shook his hand and greeted him appropriately.

My husband wasn’t there so he was on the men’s side by himself. Though most boys his age eventually got bored and played with the elevator and were running around, he stayed seated for the next two hours, joining in appropriately at each stage. (The hard part was when it was time to leave and he just didn’t want to go.)

I watched all of this and wondered, how does he know how to act differently and so appropriately with all of these people despite them all being in the same setting, without any guidance from me?

———————–

I attended his end of the year party a few days ago, and had mixed feelings while watching his class and the class above his perform with drums and songs. He’s in a special ed school, and while I watched, I kept asking myself what he was doing there. Yes, he has Down syndrome and yes, he benefits from extra mediation – but externally he seems to be more capable than the other children I saw. I’m searching for a better word than ‘capable’ and I’m uncomfortable making this statement at all because I have no desire to imply in any way a negative judgment of others.

There was a special breakfast for the mothers after the performance, and I listened to the conversation without participating. I drove a couple of the mothers home and we talked about an issue that came up in the group discussion, and I saw clearly that I think very differently than the other mothers. I don’t expect the school to raise my child; they are my partners and I’m appreciative of all that they do, but I see it as my responsibility to equip him for life. Not the school. This wasn’t their view.

Years ago a much more experienced mother of a child with Trisomy 21 told me that I think differently than most of the other mothers she met, and I didn’t understand what she was saying. She told me the way I take responsibility isn’t typical, and I finally understand her point now.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what academic framework would best serve him going forward. We’ve had a very difficult year because of difficulties ds has experienced on the school van – being hit, kicked and made fun of. When he reacted, I was told he was violent and not welcome on the van. The kids who instigated waited until the aide’s back was turned to say and do what they did, and it took four months until I finally learned what was happening from another mother whose child told her. It’s been a really rough year, and he’s spent a third of the year at home with me.

I’m very clear that there’s not going to be another year like this. I’ve already spoken to the person at the municipality who makes transportation arrangements and put in my strong request for appropriate accommodations for next year. (When I spoke to them at the beginning of the school year, they said they weren’t yet completely set up; when I spoke to them during the year, it was too late, and when I continued speaking to them, they said that ds is the problem and no changes would make a difference.) If they don’t provide appropriate accommodations, I’ll keep him home.

Ds enjoys school, he enjoys his friends – but it’s my input that is moving him forward.

I’ve thought seriously about homeschooling him next year but as someone who thrives on being with people, I’m hesitant because I can’t yet picture how we would fill that social gap.

The principal of the local yeshiva ketana that my teens are at has spoken to my husband and told him they’d like ds12 to join the yeshiva when he’s old enough – that would be in another year or two. (He knows ds because he’s sometimes come to learn with an older brother when it’s between the official learning sessions.) I’m very interested in doing that; perhaps he’ll continue in the mornings at the school he’s at and attend the yeshiva in the afternoons, or perhaps we’ll take him out of the school he’s in completely. We have time to figure that out.

Right now ds is beginning to learn to read his parsha (Torah portion to be read out loud for the congregation) for his bar mitzva; again, this is his initiative and something he wants to do. There’s no question I could do much more with him if he were home than if he continues at school – when he comes home it’s already 2 pm, and by the time he finishes eating lunch it’s time for me to pick up the other kids from kindergarten. So we don’t have quiet time together during the school year and I can’t focus on doing some of the things I’d love to do with him that would make a big difference for him.

So what does raising a child with Down syndrome look like twelve years down the road? We’ve passed the years when everyone looks at a small child and sees only cuteness. I worried when he was young that maybe we were living the best years of his life then and maybe it was only going to go downhill from there.

But now I don’t feel that at all. I see more and more maturity in him as he grows up, and have let go of most of those worries that I had in the earlier years. Now deep in myself I really believe he’s going to do great in life, he’s going to make friends and do things that are meaningful for him. I can’t guess what that will look like – we do talk a lot about when he gets married what will happen and I expect marriage to be part of his future – but I think it’s going to be really good.

So though I’ve had a year of challenge and I still have wishfulness about things I’d like to do and am not doing, at this stage raising a child with Trisomy 21 feels like hope and optimism, of relaxing and trusting the process as he continues on his path of developing into an incredible human.

Avivah

Foster care – trying to place children in schools

Foster Care, Parenting

Not long ago, a blog reader sent me a copy of an article that appeared in a Hebrew language magazine about foster care. It was so incredibly validating – I have said some of the exact same statements that were quoted, word for word, and I’ve experienced every single situation that was described.

Every single one. Money withheld and owed for a long time – I thought that when they owed me 6000 shekels for the expenses I laid out until I was reimbursed it was a lot. Then the office that the parents used to live in decided to decrease the stipend for the children, and then not to pay it at all, for months. When our social worker approached them about it, they said they want the new location to pay it, even though the file wouldn’t transfer until June 2024 (they began decreasing the funds in December 2023). That finally was indirectly settled when the GAL refused to let them transfer the file to the new area because she doesn’t want to work with new people.

Issues with not being the legal parent – ds7 didn’t have health insurance coverage at all for over a year and a half. Now he has coverage with the clinic associated with his bio parents. I’ve been trying for months to have him transferred to the local clinic that is a three minute walk from my home, where the pediatrician is excellent and is an endocrinologist, the specialty he most needs. Since I’m not his legal parent, I can’t do this; his bio parents have to transfer his file and they don’t want to.

The closest office for the clinic he’s associated with is a twenty minute drive away, and I still can’t take him there because I don’t have a member card for him, and he doesn’t have an Israeli ID number (and if he did, I don’t have him listed on my identity card as my child), so I have no way to get a card for him. His bio father has his card in his wallet. Effectively, that means for two years I’ve been unable to take him to a doctor or dentist, and that has been very stressful and upsetting at times. You might think this would be extremely urgent and would be taken care of very quickly. But no. I keep asking how for the first five years they able to put him on the same clinic as our family and why is it impossible now, but no one seems to know.

Now I’m dealing with school issues and I’m getting very exasperated.

To preface this, when we were initially approached about the twins, I asked if they could be educated in a charedi school framework. That’s not their background, but this is our lifestyle and it was critical to me that they be raised the same as all of our children. I was assured that there was no issue with that; the parents are traditional and are glad to have the kids raised religious. This was a critical point; if they had said no, I wouldn’t have agreed to take the children.

In February, I began researching schooling options for the twins. I know how important it is to have children registered as soon as possible before the class fills up. I researched, called schools, decided on the best option and then checked with my social worker to confirm that I could send them there.

She needed to check. It took weeks to get an answer. Finally I got the response that any school that has the legal status of ‘recognized but not legal’ is not an option; they can only attend public schools. Boom – that took out almost every single charedi school in the country, which have a parochial school status.

I began having sessions with the therapist/foster care advocate, recognizing I’m going to need to build a paper trail to support any choice I make for the twins. That means I don’t make any move until it’s approved with her. In our first meeting, she agreed that the recommendation for ds6 to be placed in a small special ed classroom within a regular school was the right choice for him.

Two months ago I went to the local school placement official at the municipality. I told her I need a charedi school that has a public school status and a small special ed classroom in a charedi school. She told me she can’t help me until she sees the files for the twins, which she’ll need to request and will take two weeks. I told her that she doesn’t need to see anything first; she needs to tell me what the options are within the parameters that I described. She’s new and doesn’t know any of the necessary information, but told me she’s pretty sure there’s no option for a small special ed classroom for ds. I also told her that it was urgent that this happen immediately as the classes were going to fill up and they wouldn’t have a place.

She told me there’s no rush, placement for special ed schools hasn’t begun yet. I reminded her that dd needs a regular school and as it was the beginning of April, it was already very late to register her.

Meanwhile, I continued my own research and found there is one school in Tiberias that has the legal status that we need. I called to register dd and was told they were full, but I explained our situation to the principal and begged her to put dd at the top of the wait list and she agreed that I could register her as a standby. Which I did.

Back I went for a meeting for the foster care advocate with the new information that the school option for ds6 isn’t available. I was and continue to be very concerned they will place him at a school for children with emotional and behavioral issues, which would destroy him (I don’t mean that hyperbolically). The therapist agreed with me completely and said our next option to explore is for him to go into a regular first grade classroom with an aide.

Off I went to find a boys’ school that has the necessary status. I found one, called and was told they are full. I explained our situation and how important it is since I have no other charedi educational option available. I was told that I should have contacted them much earlier and what did I expect if I waited so long to register him. Very pleasant.

The following week I learned that dd won’t be accepted for the coming year since there’s no room in the school where I registered her.

I told a friend that I’m holding on to the belief that Hashem has something better for both kids because after a tremendous amount of time and effort, every door is slamming shut in my face.

I kept our social worker appraised of everything going on and at this point she called the municipality rep to get assistance. The representative called her supervisor to get more information and a few days later I got a call reminding me about our meeting six weeks earlier, and that now she had an option for a small special ed classroom for ds6 in a charedi school in a city an hour from us. I did a bit of research, heard really good things and a day later called her and asked her to submit his file immediately for registration. (Special ed enrollment has to go through the municipality.) I was ebullient and so thankful to have found a good option for him.

As far as finding a school for dd, I’m still looking.

I went into the municipality a couple of days ago to make sure the representative understands that dd has special ed status and is still entitled to transportation even if she’s going into a regular classroom. At that point I learned that she still hasn’t sent ds’s file in. Why not? I enquire. I thought it was a done deal and it was a huge weight off of my shoulders.

In order to transfer his educational file to the new school, she needs a signature from his parents on a confidentiality waiver. She’s been in touch daily with our social worker, because to get that signature the social worker has to forward it to someone else, who has to forward it to the parents social worker, who has to give it to the parents to sign, and then the process has to be reversed as it’s sent back. Over a week had passed with no signed waiver.

I called the school principal for the boy’s special ed track. I told him about ds, told him about our situation, and asked if he could please reserve a space for him in the first grade. No, he has numerous inquiries every week, doesn’t know who we are and if we’re seriously interested in enrollment, and even if he did, he hasn’t yet seen ds’s file to appraise if he’s a good candidate for their program.

I called my social worker to find out if I can physically drive the paperwork for the file to the principal and place it in his hands. No, that’s not legally allowed.

She explained that in the past it was very difficult to get the parents to sign this waiver. Both signatures have to be on the waiver and now they’re separated, further complicating the signature acquisition. One parent isn’t tech savvy and neither are motivated to sign this.

I am willing to drive to each of the cities the parents are living in and give them the paperwork to sign, but my identity is blocked from them so I can’t contact them directly. I asked, can’t the parents’ social worker physically give them the form and get the signatures? No, it’s not that important to them.

You know what is important to all the people involved? That they come to our home for another visit to inspect how pink the curtains and sheets in dd’s bedroom are. They’re right now preparing a group to come visit in the next week or two, with supposedly four different social workers (almost all who have already visited previously and given their approval) in addition to the supervisor of the foster care agency and the GAL. All coming from different cities to convene on my home because the GAL has been very negative about us so they want to have more eyes on our situation.

But I can’t get any assistance to get a signature so the children will have a suitable school placement.

I am mentally exhausted by all the meetings and phone calls that I’ve been involved with since February, and here we are at the beginning of June and neither of them have a school placement yet.

Well, they have to have a school, don’t they? Yes, they do. And if these options fill up before our children are registered, they will force us to enroll them in minimally religious or secular public schools, which would delight the GAL but would be antithetical to our home environment and put the children in a situation of dramatically conflicting values and behavioral norms.

Here’s a small example from when the kids first came to us and continued attending their secular kindergartens in the city they had previously lived in. I sent dd in dresses and knee socks, and learned that when she would wear a jumper, the assistant would take it off, supposedly because dd was hot (in her air conditioned classroom). Since she was wearing the thin dance shorts that many people use for little girls in place of underwear, they let her wear just this and the shirt, rolling up her shirt sleeves, pushing down her socks. Then they would put the dress back on when it was time to go home. I was appalled to learn she was running around her class in her underwear; the social worker got involved and learned the teacher had already spoken to the assistant and told her it wasn’t unacceptable to do something against a family’s wishes. It was such a relief when I sent her to a religious kindergarten this year and all the girls were dressed like her.

It’s really important for the children’s well-being that they are educated in a way that is compatible with the family they live with.

At this point the municipality representative is stressed about the time factor as well. I didn’t point out that if she had started the process two months ago when I first turned to her that there wouldn’t be the urgency that now exists.

This is why when I hear about how foster care agencies offer so much support and assistance, I mentally snort. I have found the bureaucracy to make everything so much more complicated and take so much more time. As I said above, it’s been two years without health insurance for ds7 and every time I ask about it, they tell me it’s in the process of being taken care of. Now this signature is in ‘the process of being taken care of’, and my past experience does not give me reassurance or comfort that things will be done in a timely way for the best interest of the children.

I do believe it will all work out in the end, so I’m trying to stay positive and optimistic.

Avivah

Stuck in the car for 5 hours with bored kids – an opportunity?

Parenting, Self-Growth

On Sunday morning, my husband and I traveled to Jerusalem with the five youngest kids (almost 15, 11, 7, 6, 6) to be with my oldest son’s family for the “chalake” (first haircut) of his three year old son.

I was apprehensive about attending; this was the first time since the twins came over a year ago that we planned an outing like this and I was concerned about how they would deal with the long travel time, the large number of people, and the kind of effort it would take to supervise them.

But they handled it beautifully! I marvel thinking about how carefully we had to navigate every small situation a year ago, and now there were loads of people in an unfamiliar setting with stimulation of all kinds, mostly things I didn’t know to expect so didn’t prepare them for – and they took it in stride and enjoyed it all.

The chalake was beautiful; our son and his wife are a great team, it was a beautiful event and of course our grandson is adorable. It was lovely to be with all of the extended family on our side and my daughter-in-law’s side, whom we only see when there’s a family celebration. The company and food was wonderful and we spent four hours there instead of the two hours we anticipated.

We finally headed for home at 5:30 pm but hit unexpected delays on the highway. By 7 pm, I thought it would be a good idea time to stop at a rest stop to give everyone dinner and let them run around. My past experience has been that stopping for a break at a time of congestion ends up saving travel time: by the time you get back on the road the traffic is flowing freely again so you can travel much more quickly.

That was unfortunately not the case that night. After an extended dinner and play break at the rest stop, I assumed the children would fall asleep quickly in the car; if we had been traveling faster than five to ten kilometers an hour, that probably would have happened.

Instead, our tired and overextended children couldn’t stop picking at each other, physically and verbally. I commented to my husband that all that irritability is why people have screens in their vehicles to keep their children occupied instead of having to deal with their boredom and behaviors.

We’re faced with choices every day; how you respond time after time determines the person you become. My husband and I could verbally agitate about our own exasperation at the unusual congestion at a time and place there is rarely traffic and the difficulties of dealing with the kids in this situation. We could try to control our growing irritation at the repeated picking at one another, and try to patiently remind them to keep their hands to themselves and speak kindly.

Or we could embrace it as an opportunity. If it was sent to us, there’s something better we could do with it than tolerate it.

We decided to put on some music to shift the mood.

It instantaneously changed the atmosphere in the car. Not just for the kids, but for me. I was driving and was so tired that speaking was an effort; I had been up since 4:15 am and it was about 8:30 pm by that time. Initially I wanted to listen to something different we hadn’t heard before, and then realized the kids would enjoy familiar music much more.

So my husband put on a song they knew well and the kids cheered in delight! That was the end of any conflict and quarreling for the next two hours. We sang song after song together for the next ninety minutes, sometimes with clapping, sometimes with exaggerated funny or happy voices.

At 10 pm the traffic finally broke up and after ten minutes of driving at a normal speed, the four youngest were all soundly asleep. I turned off the music and my husband and I enjoyed an adult conversation for the final forty minutes of the drive. (Yes, it took us over five hours to get home.) At 10:45 pm we finally got home and we walked the kids straight to their beds.

It wasn’t an easy trip, but it was a very good trip, and all of us were left with a good feeling about the entire day.

Avivah

Foster care – Changes we’ve seen in the last year

Foster Care, Parenting

This week there was a fire on the mountain opposite us. The kids excitedly ran around exclaiming over the airplanes that circled around repeatedly to put the fire out. It was interesting and fun…and it didn’t lead to meltdowns of any sort.

Eleven months ago, there was a fire on the mountain opposite us. You can read here to see the sensory overload I dealt with at that time in the same situation. SO much has changed.

The twins are doing remarkably well. Last week I began to write about the changes we’ve seen but detailing some of what we’ve done throughout this year to move the needle forward for them and thinking so much about how they were then left me so emotionally exhausted I had to stop writing for a few days.

Impulsivity – neither ds nor dd had any stop mechanism in them when they arrived. If something flashed through their mind, they did it. They didn’t have a concept of requesting to do or have something before grabbing it and using it. There was no thought of consequences. This is where the destructiveness that I’ve written about came from.

I’ve worked on this a lot with them, slowing them down and talking through what they’re about to do, and asking them to consider what will happen next. It’s amazing that often ds6 will now check with me before he does something – amazing that he knows there are things that are questionable and perhaps shouldn’t be done, and amazing that he thinks to check in with me first. They’re both dramatically less impulsive, though they’re still described by teachers and therapists as highly impulsive.

Thinking skills – ds had none. Literally, he didn’t have the ability to think at all. It was only impulse/reaction, all the time. He would ask repetitive questions again and again and again, not processing the answer. I believe that due to trauma his brain was shut down and this is why in the extensive educational evaluation done when he was living in his previous foster home assessed him as borderline mentally retarded. He needed to be taught to think.

Creating safety and security is critical for the brain to turn back on, and the underlying intention of everything I do and how I do it is to create a sense of security for them. In addition to that, I actively helped develop his cognitive skills. He now he asks questions and processes the information, and then will ask the next question, which takes into account information he previously received. I’m hoping to see a jump of thirty IQ points when he has his next educational evaluation at the end of the summer. (I don’t think an IQ test is the most valuable litmus test of intelligence but it will to some degree reflect his cognitive development.)

Emotional presence – in the beginning weeks, ds’s body was present but not his mind. I could talk to him and see his eyes looking at me, but he wasn’t there. Was he disassociating, was he used to shutting down inside to protect himself? I’m guessing he was. Many times I would talk to him, note the vacant look in his eyes and wonder what had to happen for him to be able to process what I said. It took time and it didn’t happen all at once; it was a slow waking up emotionally but he’s been present emotionally consistently for months.

About a month ago he suddenly shut down in kindergarten (there was no change in his behavior at home), and his teacher said, “I don’t know if you can understand what I’m talking about, he looks at me but he’s not present.” Oh, believe me, I knew exactly what she was talking about.

Socially distancing behaviors – the children didn’t have normative behaviors; they were always doing the best they knew how but they didn’t have any idea of what normal or appropriate behaviors were. It took me weeks to realize that ds was trying to be endearing and funny when he repeatedly said the same words in an irritating tone. Some behaviors like this one were only mildly annoying but others were very off-putting (to protect their privacy I won’t describe those) and caused people to sometimes look at them with distaste. Now people regularly describe them as cute and sweet.

They were both demanding, unappreciative, always wanting more and never satisfied with what they received. They’d use whatever they got for a few minutes before tossing it to the side, then demand something else. There was a lot of modeling and practice of appropriate ways to speak. They now generally request things politely – on the off time they say ‘Give me,’ I look at them with a quizzical expression and they immediately self-correct. They voluntarily express appreciation, even for small things ; we went to the store to get a loaf of bread, and on seeing it on the shelf, dd spontaneously said, “Thank You, Hashem, that we found bread!”

When they arrived they were extremely emotional and reactive; dd was given to outbursts of shrieking, crying and throwing herself on the floor multiple times a day. Now she’s much, much calmer. This kind of outburst is uncommon and if it happens it’s when she is overtired or overstimulated. She accepts not getting her way fairly graciously and is usually kind and patient with others.

Ds would get angry, yell and strike out, also multiple times a day; as with dd, I’ve spent a lot of time validating his feelings, given him a voice, giving him words to express himself, and giving him practice in using those words. I have low tolerance for hurting someone else. Now I usually only see these outbursts on days he goes to school and they are much less intense and short-lived. At school they tell me he’s the best behaved of all the boys.

Fear – Ds was extremely fearful and wary; even now after a year in our low conflict environment he jumps if we move too quickly near him. A couple of weeks ago I reached across him when they were getting into pajamas to get a clothing item for him, and he flinched as if I was about to hit him.

For the first time, I asked him, “Did you think I was going to hit you?” He laughed as if that was funny and confidently replied, “No”. While consciously he knows we won’t hurt him, his nervous system is operating at a subconscious level and is still calming down. I try to stroke his cheek or pat his back frequently when I walk by him, to get him used to small sudden movements in his vicinity that are positive and loving.

Ds’s biggest issue was a behavior I was told was due to anxiety; that disappeared when he came to our home. Before they came when I met with social workers who were detailing what was involved with the twins, they told me about this and asked how I would handle it. I responded that if a behavior is a way for a child to reduce anxiety, it seemed to me that relieving the child’s fear that drives the anxiety would be the most important thing to do rather than focus on the symptomatic behavior. That’s been how we’ve handled this issue as well; I surmise that initially he found more helpful outlets for his anxiety in our home and didn’t need to resort to less effective stress relief, and later, he didn’t experience the fear and anxiety that had previously triggered the behavior.

I’ve written before about ds’s infantile talk, body movement and self-identity as a baby. He still sometimes speaks in a baby voice but usually it’s when they’re playing family and he’s the baby. When he came he grunted and pointed a lot instead of speaking; he no longer does that and speaks in full sentences. His mincing exaggerated baby walk/ran have been replaced with beautiful full body movements. His spindly little legs have turned into muscle. And most importantly, his self-identity has completely changed from being a baby to being big.

The two biggest issues we dealt with for dd6 was her attachment disorder and a food compulsion.

Attachment disorder – I wasn’t given a name for the the disorder but disinhibited social engagement disorder (DSED) is a very good match for the behaviors we saw. I wanted to calm the inner anxiety that manifested as a frantic search for connection with anyone and everyone she saw. (People would say, “Oh, she’s so friendly, how cute.” It was not cute, it was dangerous.)

My approach to addressing this was for dd to bond to me as her primary attachment figure, for her to know that someone was consistently there for her to take care of whatever her needs were. I gave her tremendous amounts of physical and verbal warmth, always trying to provide it before she solicited it. I limited connection to anyone outside of the family for quite a while because being with people she wasn’t yet attached to caused her to exert a lot of energy to make people like her. She’s still warm and friendly but now she’s very appropriate in her behaviors with strangers.

Food compulsion – Food scarcity is a common issue for foster children. Dd6 had classic behaviors of stuffing her mouth too full, eating too much, and constantly asking about when she would get food. I ordered the book Feed Me, Love Me by Katja Rowell, which details how to implement a responsive approach to eating specifically for foster and adoptive children. The book didn’t arrive until after the twins came and it was so extremely busy that I didn’t get very far in the book for a long time. Fortunately, the research I had done prior to reading the book, the bit of the book I did read and my instincts were enough to set us on a track for success. When after nine months I finally sat down to read the entire book, I was gratified to see that we had handled this well.

As I stated, my underlying effort is to create a foundational feeling of security for the twins. When the guardian ad litem came she asked me detailed questions about how I addressed the food obsession, which was no longer present by the time she visited. She asked me how I would handle a child who wants food right before a meal. I responded that now we’re no longer dealing with the food scarcity issue and clarified if she was asking how I would handle the request now that there’s no active challenge in that area. She said that’s what she wanted to know.

I explained that I make sure to offer food before the kids request it, have a lot of food on hand (I put a plate of snacks for them on the island for them to take whenever they want as soon as they get home from school), and am very relaxed about the kids eating between meals. If they want something else, they ask me if they can have it and generally I say yes, unless it’s ten to fifteen minutes before a meal. The GAL was furious with my response, and fumed, “What kind of people are you, that children have to ask for food?!” I was bemused that there was so much hostility expressed toward me about an issue that was no longer a problem. Regardless of her opinion, what we did was very effective in calming the anxiety that dd had around food.

Fear of being left alone – both dd and ds were terrified of being left alone. They needed me to be emotionally and physically present all of the time. Our doors were damaged to the point of requiring replacement because they kicked them repeatedly when I closed them to get dressed or go to the bathroom (which I tried not to do unless someone else was around to be with them for those few minutes). I’ve shared before that dd couldn’t bear the separation involved with me taking a nap or even not looking at her; she needed me to be awake and interacting with her all the time.

This little girl who frantically clutched me if she saw me begin to walk out of the yard (obviously being cared for by someone else at home when I needed to go out), now tells me she wants to walk from the car and into kindergarten all by herself. She skips ahead of me when we’re walking to shul, and I have to caution her not to go so far by herself! She waits patiently if a door is closed for it to be opened.

She used to seek constant contact and touch (it was labeled as obsessive but I don’t find it beneficial to negatively label behavior in that way), but she doesn’t do that anymore. Sometimes when I ask her if she wants a hug, she’ll say no. For a child who seemed insatiable in her search for physical and emotional connection, it’s just remarkable to see that she feels ‘full’ inside and can refuse loving contact.

Physical coordination – Dd was very clumsy; she would fall over herself a few times in an afternoon and was constantly crying about getting hurt. We spend a lot of time outdoors and all of the outdoor play gave her many opportunities to develop her physical abilities. It took her a long time to figure out how to coordinate herself on a swing, but now she does it effortlessly. She climbs, jumps, runs, swims – and rarely falls down and hurts herself.

Speaking English – Many people who hear the twins speaking to me in English assume they came from an English speaking home. No, not at all. The next assumption people make is they learned English via immersion in our English speaking home. That’s also not true. We switched our entire family to speaking only Hebrew when the twins arrived to increase their feeling of safety by understanding everything that was being said in their vicinity.

People have commented on how surprising it is that they’ve learned so much English in such a short time. My goal was that at the one year mark, I’d be speaking to them completely in English. I’m not quite there – when there’s something complex or corrective with ds, I speak to him in Hebrew to be sure he understands, and as I continue teaching new words every day I give the Hebrew translation. For the last couple of months I’ve reminded my husband, teens and married children that they can and should speak to the twins in English now. Our youngest four children got used speaking Hebrew to one another and still speak to each other almost only in Hebrew. But for the most part we’re back to being English speakers at home again.

That’s a summary of the last year! Despite the unexpected frustrations of dealing with the ‘system’ and the day to day challenges, it’s overall been a good experience for us all. Dd no longer asks me when they’re going to live with another family; they see themselves as family members and so do we.

Knowing that people may read what I write and consider doing foster care, I have to add a cautionary note that to see these results in this time is very unusual. (This is part of the issue the GAL is having with us – since she’s never seen this kind of result in thirty years, she doesn’t believe it’s possible.)

We’ve taken an unusual position of having the kids home as much as possible (home for three of the first four months, I don’t send them to camps, I regularly take them out of school for ‘vacation’ days when I feel they need more home time), combined with a trauma informed parenting approach. Also, just because we’ve gotten this far and the kids are doing well doesn’t mean the hardest behaviors are behind us. Trauma behaviors can show up out of the blue, even after years.

Avivah

A year into our foster care journey

Foster Care, Parenting

Here we are, a year after dd6 and ds6 arrived at our home. In some ways this year has gone so quickly but at the same time, it’s been full of intensity and opportunities to stretch myself as a human.

Last week I had a meeting with the therapist who I’m mandated to meet with for parenting guidance. Since neither of us feel that would be a beneficial use of our time, what she’s instead helping me with is to navigate the logistics of dealing with a system that seems more adept at making life difficult for foster parents and foster children than supporting them. I need to build a paper trail to protect myself when the next committee meeting takes place, and these meetings are an important part of that.

I didn’t know when I first met this therapist that she was the expert involved from the first day the twins were removed from their biological home, who provided guidance and direction to the social worker in their first foster home. I assumed on meeting us it was her first experience with them.

She’s made a couple of comments that indicated she knew much more about their background than I do. At our last meeting she said something more specific about the harm they experienced than what my statements to her would reflect. I told her I specifically asked about details regarding their background before they came, and was told they didn’t experience what she seemed to be referencing.

She replied that she understands why I was told that, because it’s not written in their paperwork outright. She explained that she’s seen every report and evaluation on the twins from the time they were removed, and combined with her expertise with the foster care system and knowledge of who the parents are, she is able to fill in the blanks of some aspects of their previous home life. She told me the reason I was given for their removal is only a contributing factor to a child being removed, never the exclusive reason.

She is working on writing a detailed narrative that will accompany their file to fill in these blanks so all the professionals involved better understand what their history is. Right now the official story is much more mild than the reality and that is important to correct because there is currently active discussion taking place about letting the twins visit their parents outside of the supervised environment that they now meet in.

A number of times I’ve wondered what was the cause of their significantly delayed emotional and intellectual development. The background described to me didn’t seem to account for what I was seeing. The therapist’s statements confirmed my suspicions that the home environment was much more damaging than I was told.

I’ve been told by several people involved that the twins’ situation is considered unusually complex, and this therapist told me the only thing that gives her any hope about them is that they came to our home. She is matter of fact and even understated when she speaks, not given to hyperbole. She stated it was “a literal miracle that that they were placed with you, because you have the capacity to hold all of their complexities and there are very few people who could do that.” I understood she wasn’t using the word ‘miracle’ casually or lightly.

She went on to explain that eighty percent of children in Israel who are removed from their families are placed into institutions. (In most countries the statistics are reversed; eighty percent go into foster homes and only twenty percent go into institutional care.) This would have been the expected placement for the twins. She said that absent the emotional care that they need to heal, many children from hard places become sociopathic and end up in closed institutions/mental wards; this is what she described as the predictable trajectory for the twins if they hadn’t come to us. She soberly concluded, “When you agreed to take them, you saved their lives”.

Obviously there was a lot I didn’t know when I was approached about taking the twins, but what I felt then and continue to feel is that this is the mission that G-d sent us. At times it’s asked more of me than I wanted to give and at times it’s been more gratifying and enjoyable than I anticipated, but from the very beginning and every day since I’ve felt we’re partnering with G-d.

Avivah

Bonding a goat mother who rejects her baby and disinterested human mothers

Homemaking, Parenting

Our second goat has given birth! Once again I missed it, this time because I was at the store when it happened.

It was when I was at the store that I got a worried call asking me what to do.

Right after birth, we want to see a mother cleaning off her baby by licking it. She’ll stay close to her baby and protect her – Mocha has a calm and steady temperament, but when another goat comes near her kids – boom! She body slams them against the wall so hard it shakes the roof. She knows and trusts me so when I hold her kids she’ll continue whatever she’s doing without coming over to check on them, but yesterday the twins were with me and as soon as dd6 lifted up one of her babies, she got anxious and came over immediately to nuzzle them.

She’s a great mother and she does all the right things to keep her babies safe and fed.

Brownie is a first time mother, and having a kid of her own is a new experience for her. Brownie doesn’t have any of the right instincts. I wonder if it’s in part because her mother didn’t accept her at birth.

As soon as her adorable female kid was born, Brownie attacked her newborn by head butting her. She didn’t recognize the baby as her own and considered her an intruder. As I arrived I watched as the doeling began to approach her mother, and using her horns, Brownie flung the baby through the air. It was brutal.

This is a really problematic situation because if a mother rejects her baby, the baby will starve to death very quickly. Not to mention she can be injured by the treatment she’s enduring.

If Brownie continued to reject her baby the other options were: 1) encourage Mocha to take the baby on as her own; ironically, Mocha was much kinder to the newborn kid than her own mother. 2) Bottle feed the baby.

I wasn’t interested in bottle feeding if there was any way to avoid it. A baby is always going to do better when nursing from its mother; it’s not just the nutrition in the milk that is important, but the benefit of touch, stimulation and connection. The easiest option was for Mocha to become her adoptive mother but I still believed the best option would be for Brownie to bond with her own baby.

To do that, we needed to get Brownie used to being around her baby and feeding her. Once enough milk has gone through the baby’s system, the smell of the baby will be recognizable to the mother, and once the mother recognizes her baby as her own, she’ll take care of it.

The question was how to bond them, when the baby was in danger any time she was close to her mother.

To address this, one of our boys restrained Brownie’s head so she wouldn’t hit the baby with her horns, and the second held her legs so she wouldn’t kick the baby. This allowed the baby to nurse.

The first time they did this, Brownie’s eyes narrowed and she looked mutinous. As soon as she was released, she tried to attack her baby again.

A few hours after birth – ds18 in the back is holding one leg while holding the doeling in place with the other hand to help her latch

Two to four hours later, they did it again. This time she was more tolerant. They continued doing this every few hours, and each time Brownie was more calm and stopped actively rejecting her baby.

The second day when I held her baby, Brownie came over to me. I cautiously put the doeling near her face, and instead of butting her, she sniffed her. She turned away after a moment, but when I put the baby down, Brownie didn’t try to attack her. She began to tolerate her baby being in her vicinity, even though she didn’t let her nurse.

Today, two days after we began the bonding process, Brownie allowed her baby to voluntarily nurse, without needing any restraint. The boys kept an eye on them throughout the day to be sure that the baby was nursing regularly, and she was. Now they’re in good shape and we’ll no longer need to intervene in their relationship.

My mind wanders to the experience of human mothers who are disinterested in or apathetic towards their infants.

Erica Komisar has a wonderful book that I highly recommend called, Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters. She writes that when a woman is disinterested in her baby, that’s not natural and it’s a problem that should be addressed rather than excused or justified. Socially we explain that women after birth are hormonal, or to a woman used to the stimulation of the working world or other pursuits a baby is boring in comparison.

Erica Komisar explains that when a woman shows signs of physically or emotionally rejecting her baby, it’s a red flag. While some will say that a mother who isn’t connecting to her child should hand the child over to someone more attentive to care for her, Erica’s belief is that all mothers want to be the best mother she can be and wants her child to have the best chance they can. If the warning signs of disinterest/lack of attachment/depression are present, Erica suggests that more effort should be made to help the mother and baby connect to give them the best chance.

Could something similar to what we did with our goat be done with human mothers who struggle to connect with their infants? Could warm and interactive support in the beginning of the relationship, modeling what to do and how to do it, slowly dropping the support as the mother became more capable, help a mother to attach in a healthy way to her child?

I would think so.

In any event, our goats are all so far doing well. We’re still waiting on one more mother goat to give birth.

Avivah

The work involved in hosting married children

Parenting, Self-Growth

I met a friend on the last day of Pesach and she said to me, “How is your holiday going? Probably wonderful.”

Yes, it was wonderful. We enjoyed having almost all of our married children and grandchildren with us throughout the holiday and it was really, really nice. They scheduled their visits so that they came one after another (other than the youngest two couples who came together at the end). Since they didn’t overlap, there were only sixteen of us from a few days before Pesach until a couple of days after Pesach ended, so there weren’t huge numbers at a time.

We all appreciated having time with one family at a time. Though it’s beautiful to have everyone at once, it’s nice to have the slower and quieter pace that allows us to spend time with each family in a more meaningful way. Though to outsiders it could seem like effortless and seamless teamwork because things run harmoniously, even sixteen undemanding people for three meals a day is still a good bit of work.

Our oldest couple will be celebrating their seventh anniversary in six weeks and I’ve never written about the topic of hosting married children because I’ve been concerned that someone might read what I wrote and think I was being negative or critical. I deeply appreciate all of our married children and feel blessed that each of them have married someone we all like so much, so my comments aren’t coming from a negative place at all.

We are extremely blessed that everyone gets along and is respectful of one another so although there are a lot of personalities present, we have a minimum of conflict even with a lot of people coming and going. However, the physical effort of hosting is always present and I’d like to share about that since I think it’s an issue many struggle with it but don’t talk about; it’s a reality that needs to be navigated both physically and emotionally.

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Working together and getting things done as a family is something I value. This is in part because we’ve been a large homeschooling family for years, but also because we’ve lived on one income throughout the years. That meant making conscious choices about how we spend money; it was a reality that if we didn’t pay someone else to do the things we wanted or needed done, we were going to have to do it ourselves.

That meant washing our dishes instead of using disposables, cooking our food rather than eating out, cleaning our home rather than hiring cleaning help, and later on, learning DIY skills to upgrade our home rather than not have the renovations done at all due to the cost being too much. If I ask our children to do something, they generally do it with a willing attitude, and working together has been a positive dynamic for us.

Every family has their own values, their own expectations of how much children participate, what kinds of jobs they do, how much guests help out, and how married couples are hosted. Obviously families can’t and shouldn’t all be the same as ours, and as our children have gotten married, there are different expectations from different people.

One married son told me on Pesach that most families don’t expect their children to help out in the way that I do. That’s very likely true, since most families don’t do most things the way that I do. During the same conversation I learned that my position on a different but related issue is ‘old school’ so maybe the way I do things is out of date. If it’s true that kids don’t help out that much, how do families get things done? Someone has to do them, so who is picking up the slack? It’s not fair or reasonable for it all to fall on the mother.

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Here are some general points to take into account when hosting married children.

For starters, young couples are into each other. Their focus is on each other, and usually they spend most of the time they are visiting interacting with one another rather than the rest of us. They will generally just show up for meals and sometimes not even for all of the meals. Even at the meals, their interactions are mostly with each other.

When a woman is pregnant, she’s tired and wants to rest a lot. She won’t be around except for the meals.

When they have their first child they are busy with their child. This child will take up all of their time and energy; they’ll be tired from being up in the night, from the work of parenting…. When there are more children, it’s so much effort to take care of children in someone else’s home, on a different schedule, and it’s so much work to pack and travel to make the visit – being a guest in someone else’s home is already a big contribution on their part. They’re exhausted and need to rest.

Someone told me that no daughter-in-law likes to be at her in-laws home; this was said so I wouldn’t take the lack of enjoying being here personally and understand it’s a global phenomenon. As a mother-in-law who wants all of our children to feel comfortable, that’s a discouraging thing to hear but I certainly understand it’s more comfortable to visit the home in which someone was raised and where everything is familiar. In raising children I’ve found boys to be more easygoing than girls, and have also found this to be true of sons-in-law.

People have different strengths and different ways to show their appreciation of the efforts being made to host them. Even for those who want to make a significant effort to help out, their capacity is limited because they need to be present for their spouse and children.

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As more and more children get married, the dynamic continues to shift. When our first son got married, I still had two daughters in their early twenties who were extremely helpful, along with my next son. There was plenty of help around me and the extra work involved in hosting a young couple didn’t create much pressure.

Then my two daughters got married within nine months of my son’s wedding. We then had three couples coming to visit for Shabbos, and just one older teenager helping out at the same time that I still had a lot of young children around; the youngest was a baby and the one above him was about five. Our eight, nine and eleven year olds helped out but it’s not the same as the help of older children (everyone was homeschooled at the time so there were no quiet mornings to clean up or cook in advance).

This becomes the reality for most families – the work that was shared by many becomes shared by fewer and fewer people at the same time the number of people being hosted increases.

As our children have married, my husband and I have shouldered most of the work that was previously done by that child. We are still raising a house of children and tending to many other responsibilities, and our work load keeps increasing. As much as I enjoy the holidays, it’s a massive amount of work beforehand, during the actual holiday, and then afterwards (cleanup this year includes washing sixteen sets of guest linens after Pesach).

Thank G-d, I’m organized, I work quickly, I have good stamina, I usually have a good attitude, our teen boys are very helpful – and everything gets done.

As I’m doing all that I do, I continually wonder how other mothers are doing it. Because while they may not have young children around as I still do, they are often older and not necessarily in as good health as I am. There are a lot of expectations and even if you keep things as simple as possible, there’s no way to bypass the work involved unless you take everyone away to a hotel.

I remember asking my first mechutenaiste (mother of the person our child married) after our children were engaged how she had space to have all of her married children at once time. My thought at the time was only on the logistics of hosting everyone together as our family expanded.

She answered, “Avivah, you’re going to see as you get older that you don’t want to have everyone over together. It becomes too much work, too much noise, and you’ll have one family over at a time.” I’m at the point where I’m seeing that shift happen.

To do the cooking for Sukkos back in October, I got up at 3 am for the two days leading to the holiday so that I could cook uninterrupted before the younger kids were around and would need most of my focus. For Pesach I didn’t get up earlier than five in the morning, because I don’t have to supervise the twins as intensely as I did then, so I could also work when they were awake.

Generally I’m glad that I can do all that I do and grateful for my visiting family. Sometimes, though, I feel my efforts are taken for granted and that’s very hard for me.

My primary love language is quality time; I’ll make the effort to spend time with others and appreciate when they do the same. My secondary love language that is almost as strong as my primary language is acts of service; that means I’ll extend myself and work hard for those I care about, but it also means that I perceive love when those around me, help me. Every person perceives and receives love in the way that they give it. When family members don’t want to be around except to eat and don’t offer to help, it’s a double challenge for me, and I have to make a conscious effort to remind myself that it doesn’t mean they don’t value or care about me.

Now, at the same time that I want to appreciate each person as they are and be accepting if helping isn’t something they want to do, I don’t want to be a martyr. I don’t think I can or should do everything on my own, so the issue becomes how and from whom to ask for help. Some married children notice how much I’m doing and want to step in and make it easier for me; others aren’t as geared towards helping in this way.

I try to honor my own need for rest and do what needs to be done in a way that won’t wear me out. For Sukkos and Pesach I use disposable dishes to reduce my workload. I make larger amounts of fewer dishes to simplify the menu. I don’t offer to babysit grandchildren in order to give their mothers a break, though sometimes when asked will agree.

I set boundaries around what I can and can’t do – for example, I’ve told them that we can pick them up from the bus stop twenty five minutes away to save them from needing to take a connecting bus that comes directly here, but not after a certain time of day and if more than one couple is coming, they have to coordinate among themselves because I no longer will make that pickup more than once.

One married child wanted to visit the Shabbos a week before Pesach and stay for a few days. At first I agreed, clarifying that they would have to take care of their own meals and meal clean-up, but then was honest with myself that it was too much pressure for me to have guests at a time when I had so much to do, and told them we would welcome their visit a different time instead.

With time everyone continues to shift and adjust, so I’m very much a work in progress. I would love to hear your experiences and insights into being a married child or parent of married children when being hosted or hosting; please share in the comments what makes things run smoothly or what have been the pitfalls and how you’ve learned to avoid them!

Avivah

Helping kids regulate emotions -look at them with positive eyes

Parenting, Self-Growth

When the twins came eleven months ago, they had absolutely no ability to moderate themselves in any way.

Emotionally, if something upset them there was an immediate outburst. Dd6 went from beaming with happiness to throwing herself on the floor and screaming in an instant; there was no buildup or warning. Ds5 would rage and throw things or hit/kick someone or something. They lashed out or had an emotional outburst about anything that bothered them, which was most of the time. They verbally picked at one another and fought constantly.

The lack of regulation wasn’t only seen when they were upset. When they weren’t supervised, even for a moment or two, their expressions of impulsivity left me wondering, “What in the world were they thinking?”

There were endless instances – literally all day long, and I could never predict what they would do because there was nothing in their brains that told them to pause and consider the consequences. Their behavior was like a very young toddler but they had the physical capacity to get into things that a young child doesn’t have. I’ll give examples but these aren’t necessarily the worst or most difficult, just what comes to mind.

In the beginning I took them on an outing twice a day and would start each day by going somewhere with them. One morning I told them we were going to the park and they jumped with joy. Everyone was dressed, except ds6 didn’t yet have shoes on. Every night I put his shoes in the same place, and knowing he could easily find them, I told him to go put his shoes on. He went into his room, and emerged a few minutes later – without shoes and without a stitch of clothing on his body.

He pooped in the yard daily, no matter how many times I told him to use the bathroom. He even pooped in the pool – we emptied out all the water and I explained we were doing that because when he pooped in it, it made it dirty and we want the pool to be clean for them to swim in. I explained that a number of times that morning (he used to ask the same questions again and again and again). While we were refilling the pool, my husband agreed that they could stand in the pool. As I was sitting there watching them, ds pulled down his pants and began to poop in the pool!

Coloring/smearing poop on walls, making holes in walls/pool/trampoline net, cutting down fruit trees, breaking toys, ripping books, emptying full bottles of shampoo down the drain when they went to the bathroom – we had thousands of shekels of damage. It happened very quickly and within just a minute or two of not watching them. They took out anything from anywhere, no matter how high a shelf it was stored on. I could never guess what would happen next because there was no rhyme or reason that I could see. Whatever impulse came to mind is what they did. It wasn’t purposeful malice – there was simply no ‘stop/pause/consider’ process present in their brains.

While we’ve seen huge improvements in this area, the twins are both still impulsive. Just yesterday I went into their bathroom and saw a bath towel stuffed in the toilet. When I took it out, there was a cereal bowl and a crushed mini aluminum pan underneath. Why? Because someone in that moment felt like doing that.

The evening before, I called them in from play for dinner – “Everyone come inside and sit down at the table!” They came running in, bypassing the living room to go directly to dd’s room, climbed up the bunkbed where I had a short time before put a pile of clean laundry, and approximately ninety seconds after I told them to come in to eat, I went into their room and found them gleefully flinging the clean clothes all over the floor.

I can’t put into words the intensity of living with highly dysregulated children. It was physically and emotionally exhausting, and daily I felt challenged in a way that I hadn’t been stretched before. That’s one part of the unseen backdrop to the last eleven months.

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I’m rereading a great book called Dirt to Soil, by Gabe Brown; it’s a fascinating read about a man who completely shifted his way of thinking about farming from the conventional poison-the-dirt approach to a regenerative approach of healing the planet. He quotes a speaker at a conference who said something like, “If you want small changes, change what you do. If you want big changes, change the way you think.”

This statement deeply resonated with me because this is true of so many things, certainly parenting. When you shift the way you think about your children, you see significant qualitative changes. The way you think about what you see and interpret it is critical. If your bottom line belief is that your child is always doing the best he can and you view their misdeeds with compassion and even curiosity, you’re going to respond very differently than if you view them in a negative way.

I’ve talked before about the importance of moderating your own emotions, but I have to state it again because this is the most important thing you can do as a parent before any other response.

There are many times a child has done something annoying (see above and then imagine that every single day, throughout the day) and my first thought is to correct them. And often I do and that’s appropriate. But sometimes I pause and ask them – not demandingly, but with genuine interest – why did they do that? Sometimes there’s impulsiveness as described above, but sometimes it becomes clear the child has a good intention to do the right thing but the results look like a problem.

For example, I saw a large pile of things on the floor in the hallway – ie a big mess – and there was water all over the floor. I went into dd’s room to see what was happening. She told me she and ds11 were cleaning for Pesach – so they had taken a lot of things out from where they were supposed to be and swept them into a pile outside of her room, and now were washing the floor. If I were to get annoyed, think how badly the child would feel – it’s a terrible feeling to be trying to help and do something good, and then have someone be angry or disappointed with you. I was able to thank them and be appreciative, and then let them know what we do with items like those, and show them how to finish cleaning the floor.

Ds6 exhibits a lot of aggressive behavior when I pick him up from kindergarten; I’ve learned he needs time to decompress before he can interact appropriately with anyone. Sure enough, a short time after arriving home dd6 started screaming because he spoke to her in an unpleasant way. I looked at him and thought with compassion about how hard it is for him to be surrounded all day by kids who struggle with emotional regulation.

He was sitting on the couch looking defiant so I went to sit next to him. He glanced at me warily, knowing he just said something inappropriate. I looked at him kindly, put my arm around him and gave him a big side hug without saying anything else. His hostility instantly melted; he immediately looked at dd and said sincerely, “I’m sorry”. I wasn’t trying to get him to apologize. I wasn’t trying to get any result, other than for him to know he was seen and loved as he was in that moment.

That’s not my response in the majority of situations. Usually I would take his hand and look into his eyes and say, something like, “How do you think it makes dd feel when you speak to her in that way? Is there a different way you could tell her how you feel? What could you do now to make the situation right?” I use the incidents as an opportunity to replay the situation and model how to appropriately communicate.

When I’m feeling irritated and annoyed, nothing positive or helpful is going to come out of my mouth; at the best it will be neutral and that’s what I strive for in moments that I’m feeling out of sorts – and that’s an accomplishment when so many negative things could be said in a moment of frustration. However, I know that when I think about my child kindly, it instantly changes what I see and what I say to a higher level interaction, so I’m constantly striving to increase my compassionate view of our children.

Avivah

Foster care – a really good meeting with dd6’s therapist

Foster Care, Parenting

Sometimes I wonder how foster parents can work outside of the home. I have so many meetings that I simply wouldn’t be able to do all that is necessary if I weren’t home full-time. When I exclaimed over last week’s five meetings and this week’s four meetings to my husband, he asked me if it was more than I bargained for when we took the twins.

I thought as a foster parent for over six years when they came that I knew what was involved, but their situation is much more demanding than I anticipated. He asked me if I ever regretted agreeing for them to come to us. I told him that the hard parts are balanced out by the children’s progress being much better and faster than I expected. While I believe in the amazing power of connection in healing, I didn’t dream that we would see the gains we’ve seen in the time frame they’ve been with us. No, I don’t regret having them come even though their situation makes demands of me in ways I didn’t expect.

Two of last week’s meetings were with therapists for each of the twins.

Dd6 has weekly play therapy sessions; two weeks just her with her therapist, the next week I join her, the following week my husband joins her, then we both meet with the therapist the week after.

Her therapist doesn’t usually write reports but is making an exception for us due to the need for documentation that we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing. Before going over the report, she told us that while she doesn’t in any way condone the skepticism and hostility of the guardian ad litem, she understands the challenge the GAL is having in processing who we are and what we’ve done for the kids.

She said that in over twenty years she’s never met parents like us in her professional or social spheres. She detailed many things she’s seen us do and how we do them, and said she keeps asking herself how we can be real, how is it possible for parents to do all that we do.

Her feedback for my husband was that he does well with dd and while she can give him some tips, it’s not necessary. He’s glad for the opportunity to get some guidance because there are behaviors that are typical for foster children that are hard to navigate that make it unpleasant to be around them. The therapist said he doesn’t need lessons from her, that I understand how to interact with them, but there’s something nice about a neutral person being the presenter of information. (Prior to this meeting, when my husband came home from his first session with dd he commented it was striking to him that the therapist sounds just like me when she speaks to dd. Since this meeting, he’s consciously paying attention to the way I communicate with them.)

I found it fascinating to hear the interpretation of dd’s play as it relates to her inner world. She explained that children don’t talk about their feelings; what they do is transfer their feelings onto the items or toys they interact with and it’s by observing what they say and how they play that their inner feelings are revealed.

For example, for several weeks dd took paintbrushes from one container and transferred some of them to another container, each time explaining that the brushes are moving to a new house and are happy in their new house because it’s good for them there. The therapist explained this is an expression of dd’s feelings of being happy about moving to our home.

She also noted that when dd played with a mother hamster and her baby, she put them each in different containers, stating that it’s good for the parent and children to be in different houses (alluding to her bio parents).

I didn’t have this awareness before of what play can reveal and am now listening with a more attuned ear to the things that the children say when they play.

In her report she stated that overall dd’s emotional health is good. She is impressed with how far dd has come in such a short time (she said she wants to learn from me what I did), and attributes it to her having received therapeutic parenting around the clock from the beginning.

She also commented that dd6 feels very secure and trusting of me, and this is remarkable after such a short time (eleven months feels like a long time to me but the therapist said this is a very short time to see these results).

Something else she talked about is how highly effective an emotional regulator I am for dd. Sometimes I feel self-conscious that to a casual onlooker I might seem controlling or nitpicky with dd (and ds6 as well), when in fact she needs a lot of external help regulating herself. It’s a reassurance to know someone is seeing what I’m doing and recognizing how powerful and important it is, rather than thinking I’m too strict. I’m very consistent and clear with dd about boundaries of all sorts, all the time.

It’s nice to hear expert feedback like this. Someone recently asked me about foster care and I stressed that while your average child can tolerate sloppy parenting, foster children can’t. They need skilled and specific parenting that takes into account their trauma background. It’s not enough to be a nice and well-intended person. That person kind of dismissed my comments and I realize that what I do to untrained eyes doesn’t look much different than being a nice parent. This therapist was able to recognize many purposeful things that I do with dd that are helping to facilitate her emotional healing, and it was validating to have that recognized.

I’m hesitant to write the above since it might seem that I’m tooting my own horn, and for that reason didn’t share the full report as it regards to me. I’m extremely grateful and gratified that dd is doing so well and it’s wonderful to be able to to be part of the process. But what I’m doing isn’t magic that only the lucky few have access to. There are ways of effectively interacting with children that can be learned.

Avivah

Confronting my son’s bullies

Parenting

I shared in my last post the steps I took before Shabbos to set up a supportive framework to help address the bullying issue. The final step was his big brothers.

On Friday night, my twenty five year old son went into that shul with ds7 and ds11, and asked a kid if he was X. “No,” the boy exclaimed, and then asked, “Are you his father?
The principal already dealt with him. Are you here to hit him because of what he did? “

My son responded using the same language the boy used, “No, but I’m here to tell him he’s going to get hit if he hits this boy (ds11) again.”

“That boy has older brothers,” the boy told him.

“He (our eleven year old) also has older brothers,” my son said.

“But his older brothers are gangsters!” warned the boy. (Probably true.)

“His older brothers are even bigger gangsters!” my son said. (Definitely very far from it.)

That was Friday night. The next morning, my twenty five year old, eighteen year old, sixteen year old and fourteen year old went into that shul together to find the bullies. As soon as they walked in, all the younger boys in the shul started asking them if they were there to deal with X (last name of two of the boys who attacked my son).

My sons learned that the teenage brother of those kids was there, told him his brothers had attacked their younger brother and his younger brothers needed to apologize to our son.

“They aren’t here. But tell me where you live and they’ll come to your house to apologize,” he answered. Yeah, right.

The younger boys present in shul hastened to show them which boys were the ones they wanted – right in the same room. I was a little surprised when I heard about this afterwards that there’s so little loyalty to their friends.

One of my teens was itching to take these violent kids into the field and beat them for the things they’ve done to younger kids in our shul, not only his sibling. He’s watched things happen for the last four years that are reflective of deep systemic issues and he’s burning at the injustice.

These boys are really problematic kids and a strong physical response probably would have been best, though I warned all of my boys not to lay a hand on any of them, no matter how provocative they were. (That son told me afterward that as angry he was, he realized he wouldn’t be able to hurt a younger child who wasn’t actively at that moment doing something wrong.)

There are some in that community with a criminal history or mental health issues and my sons were aware they have to be careful not to paint a target on the back of our family and trigger older siblings/parents who could retaliate with a level of violence that goes beyond normal disagreements. Whatever they did, it had to be something that no one could find fault with.

They had a verbal exchange with the boys who hurt my son, who vigorously denied any wrongdoing. My son doing the talking persisted and told them they know they’re the ones behind the attacks. The older one protested (with a wounded angelic expression), “No, I never hurt anyone. Tell me the name of even one person that I hurt,” he challenged.

“XX,” my son told him. The boys were clearly taken aback that we knew the names of other kids they had attacked. When they refused to apologize, my boys went over the older sibling again.

They told them his younger brothers were right there (obviously he knew that and was lying previously), and said they needed to apologize right then. They did, though my eleven year old was so frightened to see his attackers speaking to him that he hid behind his older brother’s back when they apologized. They thought that was funny and were smirking until one of my teens asked them in a hostile tone if they thought that was amusing. It wiped the smile off very quickly.

A couple of adults came over to see why my sons were there, since their presence was unusual. One was a neighbor, and when he heard that a group of boys had jumped my son and attacked him, he told us that if anything ever happens again to our son, to tell his son (who is part of this peer group) that he needs to tell us who was involved (rather than stay silent and protect his friends).

Overall we were satisfied with the outcome. It wasn’t dramatic, but we did what we could and hopefully it will be helpful in preventing more children from being hurt.

On Sunday I was driving my (almost) eighteen year old to the bus stop to go back to yeshiva. We stopped to let someone cross at the crosswalk, who nodded his head in a friendly way to my son. My son ignored him. The young man did it again, more deliberately, and my son still didn’t move even a muscle in his face as he looked back at him. I asked why he wasn’t acknowledging him and he told me it was the older brother of the kids who hurt my son.

I told him even if he is convinced the older brother is a two faced liar and he can’t stand to look at him, it might be beneficial to be civil so they see us as people they don’t want to harass, rather than be seen as the enemy. We’re walking a fine line right now between trying to get the wrongs addressed and staying on good terms with the adults in that community.

Does this story end here?

My married daughter on Shabbos morning was walking to my house when she passed a younger boy walking in the opposite direction. She also saw kids who were hiding across the street start to come out towards him (presumably to attack him). She turned around to watch him so the bullies would know he wasn’t alone; simultaneously, four men came out of their shul towards the boys. She couldn’t tell if it was a coincidence of not, but I would like to think they all came out because members of their community are now (after the behind the scenes conversations and police involvement) cognizant of the need to keep an eye on what these kids are doing.

Is this something that will be sustainable long term? No. They need security cameras and a police presence for an extended period so that it’s clear to all that the protection of the children is a priority and is being taken seriously.

If at the very least these bullies understand they shouldn’t touch my son, there’s been some gain but I can’t know that yet. That would be a significant gain. At the same time, I want all the kids in the community to be safe, not just my own child.

Avivah