I’ve been deeply reflective and feeling pensive about the foster care system for the last few days.

I shared with my social worker earlier this week how difficult it’s been for the last several months; I’m constantly dealing with emotional outbursts and one particular child who is seemingly oblivious to boundaries; it’s very draining and demands enormous patience. Ds7’s behavior has gotten quite obnoxious and all of us are finding it hard to be around him. (The therapist was happy to hear about this and told me they usually hope to see these behaviors at 2 – 3 years after placement so he’s ahead of schedule at less than a year and a half; I laughed and told her she’ll be even happier to know that dd7 is doing the same kind of things but less often.) It’s challenged me because there are things I have no tolerance for – specifically disrespect to parents – and his behaviors trip over that.

With the schools being closed and no other outlets outside of the home available due to the war, I’ve been stretched thin emotionally.

Usually I’m allotted additional babysitting hours during the summer or holiday months from the foster care agency. Since the kids can’t go to school because of the war, I requested additional hours, but this time was told I could have only a minimal number of hours, with the explanation that implied that I didn’t deserve more. I told the social worker I understand if they don’t have the funding now because everyone wants extra hours, but it’s very frustrating and invalidating to get the response I did, and I wonder if they understand the reality of living with emotionally needy and intense children.

I reminded her that we committed to what we were told would be involved, but more and more continues to be demanded of us without any additional support or even understanding of the difficulty of what we’re being asked to do being recognized.

She responded that she genuinely understands and any time it’s too much for us, I can tell her and they’ll rehome the twins (the likely placement would be to an institution).

I don’t know if the intention was to be reassuring – this is the second time I was told this, the first was after the harassment from the guardian ad litem – but I really wasn’t happy with this response.

I said very sharply, I’ve never said I want to find a new home for them, that’s not at all my intention and that’s not the point of anything I’ve said. Don’t you see the absurdity of spending 10 – 20,000 shekels a month on a dormitory school per child, but there’s not enough funding for even a few hundred shekels a month for respite for foster families, especially when everyone knows the outcome will be much better with a family than for children placed in institutions??

I’ve come to the realization that as well-intended as some in the foster care system are, the system itself is not there to help or support me as a foster parent – and that’s not the primary goal for foster children, either; in fact, their policies can work against the wellbeing of children. I see this again and again, that in the focus on minutiae the big picture is lost.

Here’s an example. The above conversation began when I was notified a couple of days ago that ds7 and dd7 won’t be getting therapy in school due to a shortage of in-school providers, despite the expectation that would be available for them. I was informed that as a result of this, I need to take them privately. To do that, I need to take each child to therapy, then drive them afterward to school, which is an hour away, and then come back home. That would be one entire morning every week of my time spent on one therapy appointment, for just one child.

But there are two children, so it’s not one morning, it’s two mornings. My schedule is already filled with commitments (like weekly speech therapy for ds7 and ds12 that takes one full morning, therapeutic horseback riding two afternoons a week and regular orthodontist appointments for two children). I have to go to parenting sessions as a foster parent because of the challenging situation we’re in so as to document our case and protect ourselves. That’s also hour away, every other week. Every other week I take the kids for visitation with their parents in the morning because there are no longer after school hours available at the mediation center, and then have to drive them to school. That’s four hours each time, so two more mornings gone.

I don’t have two mornings a week to dedicate to therapy. It’s not a question of unwillingness. I simply can’t. I told her I only have Friday mornings available – this isn’t exactly a free day; it’s the only day that my husband and I have that we don’t have commitments other than Shabbos preparations. Last year dd7 stayed home from school every Friday because I had to take her to therapy, and I’ve been really, really looking forward to some relief from that. While I offered to take them both on Fridays, which will take up my entire Friday morning and necessitate making all of my Shabbos preparations the day before, I can’t take two children to two different therapists in two different areas at the same time and the working hours on that day are limited. (Currently dd’s therapist is reaching out to other therapists in her area to see if anyone has availability so I could coordinate them both at a similar hour.)

There’s no possibility of anyone agreeing to them not having weekly therapy, because the law says the kids need to get it, and this is a good thing. It really is. They deserve every bit of support they can get.

What’s not good is that the system loses sight of the forest for the trees – if I can’t get them to their appointments, then I’m not fulfilling the necessary requirements as a foster parent. It isn’t relevant that we are a home that provides much more therapeutic emotional support than is usually available for foster children, and as a result, the children have been doing much, much better than the norm. In order for them to get a weekly 45 minute session of play or art therapy, they would be placed somewhere else if we can’t take them to these appointments – and this is intended to benefit the child. But when looking at the whole picture, it brings up the question if that really is to their benefit?

I can twist myself more and more into a pretzel to do all the things I’m told I need to do, none of which are unreasonable but have become very burdensome for me when taken as a whole. It’s hard to add these things in when the schedule for the year was planned and committed to, each activity having been considered for the value it brings and the price it will exact, before I was told about the changes for therapy and visitation that necessitate at least an additional ten hours a week of my active involvement.

Or I can tell them to take the kids and I’ll go back to living my more peaceful life that was quite full but had more white space.

But there’s no point in talking to anyone in the system, in sharing my thoughts or opinions or experience about anything. I thought that communicating would have some benefit, that some adjustments could be made, there would be some understanding or willingness to adapt or find solutions, but now it’s clear that they really have no help to offer except to rehome the twins. They aren’t being callous or unfeeling to offer that – it’s literally the only way they can offer support. It would devastate the kids and everyone knows that, but nonetheless that’s the only offer.

I’ve felt disappointed that due to the extremely full days with the kids home I haven’t had time to do a yearly cheshbon hanefesh, a spiritual review of the past year and make a plan for the areas I want to work on in coming year. But working through so much to move past the compassion fatigue and burnout, to remind myself why I’m doing this, and to renew my commitment to be the best parent I can to all of our children is my spiritual process at this time.

G-d knows I’m doing my best in a challenging situation. There’s so much I want to be doing that I can’t do, and I’ve had to work on letting go and putting to the side what I wanted to be doing at this time. I’m accepting that G-d has different plans for me than what I planned for myself. I can fight it and be frustrated and annoyed that this isn’t how it’s supposed to be, this isn’t what I committed to, this isn’t how I want to be using my time. Or I can go with the flow and consider that there are new ways to grow and learn that will benefit me on this path that I’m surrendering to.

The therapist gave me a gift today, a book called The Man Who Planted Trees. She said since the first time she met me she’s been continually reminded of this story when speaking to me. (Here’s a free pdf of the book – it’s a short and inspiring story.) It’s about planting seeds for the future at a time that those efforts seem small and unlikely to effect change, while holding on to the vision of the future results you want to have; small and consistent effort in the direction of your goal will yield beautiful results.

May we individually and collectively experience the coming year as one of peace and abundance of all sorts.

Avivah

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

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

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

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

I’ve been struggling lately with some things going on after the last committee meeting for the twins. I can jokingly say that parenting by committee is not for wimps but honestly it’s so defeating that last week I felt like quitting – not because of the kids and the complexity of their issues, which I feel capable of dealing with, but because of the system.

Recap: the kids are doing amazingly in every area by everyone’s (sometimes grudging) opinion, far better than anyone expected, and certainly not in nine months. Their emotional and psychological health was given token attention at the committee because they needed to focus on what’s really important.

Dd’s bedroom – it must be pink, have two pictures on the wall and a rug between the beds. I already bought the sheets (with unicorns and rainbows), curtains and rug and am still looking for suitable wall hangings. While it looks cute, as I was hanging the curtains and changing the sheets there was resentment instead of pleasure to have been dictated to in this way. I was warned by someone who knows the person involved, who said she can and will pull the kids if we don’t do exactly what she said.

The other complaint was that dd’s clothing drawer needs to be better organized. I don’t think I previously mentioned that our visitor had all the kids open their closets and drawers for inspection when she came. Even though she had asked specific questions about how dd gets dressed and knew that dd chooses her clothing herself (with my guidance to make sure things match) and therefore jumbles her clothing in the process, this is something I’ve been told needs to be corrected. It’s frustrating because I already organize her drawer every day or two when I put clean clothes in, and the focus on this drawer when the entire house was neat and the boys’ drawers were organized is ridiculous to me.

Those were the official complaints. Sounds good? Let’s continue.

Onto the bio parents feedback. They see the children once or twice a month for an hour during supervised visitation. I was surprised that they acknowledged that the kids seem to be doing very well; I didn’t think they would have that level of awareness even though the change in the kids is visible.

When they spoke to the committee they claimed the children have dirty fingernails, ds smells like urine, they wear clothes that don’t fit properly, they don’t bathe regularly and I don’t tend to their appearance. I was taken aback when I heard this but more shocked that what they said was being considered as evidence.

Ironically, all of these claims were what was said about them and documented for months before the kids were removed from their care. My husband and I both believe they’re trying to make a case against us because they want to get the kids back, and these are things they know are a problem.

We not only have a thirty year history of parenting visibly well-cared for children, we’ve been foster parents for seven years and had monthly social worker visits and school checks all that time. Not only have we never received a complaint, but I get regular compliments on how cute dd always looks (people don’t usually comment on boys’ attire). The teachers have all told the social worker the kids are always clean and dressed appropriately, and dd’s teacher filed a report in which she stated that dd’s hygiene and clothing was at the highest level – which the social worker has seen herself every time she’s done a school or home visit.

None of the facts matter, and I was perplexed why the statements of the parents were being taken as evidence of my neglectful care, particularly in light of their own history. It’s typical of bio parents whose children are in foster care to be very critical of small details; that’s a known phenomenon. But why is the positive testimony that contradicts these false claims being ignored?

It also seems irrelevant how amazing the progress of the children has been.

We are now mandated to have twice monthly meetings with the social worker with a walkthrough of our home each time. Previously she came once a month. We had a walkthrough once before ds7 came as part of the approval process, then never again. For the twins, we had a walkthrough/inspection prior to them coming, and then again when the guardian ad litem came. So having inspections twice a month is out of the norm, particularly when there was nothing wrong except the two points above (lack of pink and the jumbled clothing drawer).

Our social worker is embarrassed to have to do this and has told me though it’s completely unnecessary she has no choice.

Additionally, the guardian ad litem is planning a surprise visit. She will come unannounced when the kids are home and expect a walkthrough of our home on the spur of the moment. We have no idea when this will be.

This has been very stressful to think about, as she has a very critical eye and no tolerance for a mess, regardless of the circumstances. You can imagine if she was upset about the lack of pink sheets and the clothing in the drawer when the house was very neat, what she’ll say when she comes into an actively lived-in home during the most hectic hours of the day.

I don’t understand how this is legal – in the US, police can’t enter the home of suspected criminals without a search warrant. But I haven’t done anything wrong …and still have to have this imposed on me? Having this person in my home feels unsafe to me.

I told my social worker I can’t understand why I’m being treated with suspicion despite all the evidence to the contrary. It just doesn’t make sense.

Since we’re also now being mandated to have parenting classes every other week, I set up a meeting with dd’s therapist. She called our social worker to find out what is going on and thanks to her, learned something that made the puzzle pieces fall into place.

I knew that my social worker was holding back on things this person said about us (before she ever met us ) from a couple of comments about hoping this person could let go of her prejudices once she met us. At the end of our meeting, our therapist explained that the legal rep won’t believe any of the feedback of teachers who see the kids daily because they are all religious, and “It’s known that charedim have a low standard of hygiene.”

This seems to be why what the parents said is taken as factual – because it supports her bigoted beliefs about religious Jews. It’s clear to me that the truth is irrelevant and nothing I do will change her perspective. In fact, I think she’s looking for something that will validate her strong opposition to us before the kids came, to prove to everyone that she was right to not want them here. She thinks we’re lying and so is anyone else who says something in support of us.

I’ve been feeling angry and frustrated and distressed about this for over a week. I’ve tried very, very hard to see everyone involved in a favorable light but at this point there’s not a bone in my body that believes that what is good for the children is the priority.

I’m being treated like an employee who has to do what she’s told, but social services is the last ’employer’ I’d want anything to do with if not for my desire to help the children. I don’t have a voice at all, I can’t say anything to defend myself or explain during the committee meeting – everything is decided on and then handed down to me without my input or clarification.

Generally I move away from dysfunctional people and unhealthy situations and minimize engagement; I don’t try to defend or justify myself. Now I’m forced to deal with an unhealthy system that I’d rather stay far away from, and I find it upsetting that I have to detail how often I bathe the kids and wash their hair, how often I cut their nails, explain that I dress the children in clothing that fits appropriately, etc, etc, etc.

I’ve been tempted to take a picture of the coats I put them in and contrast that with a picture of the oversized coats the parents gave them that will fit them in a year or two (They claimed they had to buy them coats because what I gave them was much too big.) Or to ask the supervisory social worker to note in her report that she has yet to send in, that ds never smelled like urine except for when he wet himself during a visit with his parents because they didn’t take him to the bathroom.

Being told what to do and how to do something will always negatively impact someone’s intrinsic motivation. There was more conversation regarding expanding visitation with their parents and educational choices that may be mandated that may be very different than what we would choose for them, that even further created a question for me as how to stay lovingly engaged with the children when it feels safer for me to detach.

It’s been challenging as I’ve been working through all of these emotions that were stirred up. It’s only today that I found inner calm about it all, and was able to put it all emotionally to the side. It is what it is, and I don’t want to give away my peace of mind to anyone involved.

Avivah

After two weeks of waiting, I finally got feedback on the foster care home visit that recently took place.

The tone of the entire meeting was one of negativity and even hostility towards me. Major positive changes in the children were dismissed with an exclusive focus on external details. I didn’t react to provocatively phrased questions, or to the insinuations that I was lying.

My social worker later told me it was upsetting to be present at the meeting and see how I was treated, but I didn’t take it personally. I trust this person is concerned about the welfare of the children; it’s critical that there to be oversight and supervision for foster children, even if the way it comes across to me is uncomfortable.

Since the meeting took place, I’ve tried not to guess what the reaction or resulting demands on me would be. But I did have some guesses about what kind of things I would hear, based on what elicited the most negativity.

I was so, so wrong.

Nothing that I guessed about was mentioned. Nothing.

During the visit I was asked many detailed questions about different aspects of raising the twins. Here are the criticisms of our foster care arrangements:

-The decor of dd’s room doesn’t feel enough like a girl’s bedroom. Dd’s linen is a floral set with lace edged pillowcases (pale yellow and light blue). When the war began we moved a second bunk bed in since her room is the safe room (in case of missile attacks we would need to have more children sleeping there), and I put matching light blue fitted sheets on each of the other bunks to protect the mattresses. It matches her set and looks nice. But it’s a fact that other than her sheet set the room is gender neutral.

I was told there should be more girls toys displayed. I don’t know if she didn’t notice the two dolls on dd’s bed and admittedly the doll strollers were outside, not in the room. She didn’t like that at the beginning of the meeting that all three children were playing with Duplo (a ‘boy’ toy). I would never have dreamed someone would have looked at that scene of three children playing nicely together in creative ways, and seen the color of the blocks as an issue.

-There isn’t a separate area in dd’s room for her to do projects, or a place on the wall for her projects to be displayed. She doesn’t have a ‘pina shekeita’, a quiet corner of her own.

In our home, bedrooms are mostly for sleeping, and sometimes for playing. But never for crafts. When I take out art supplies for the kids, I put them on the dining room table or outdoor table, and whoever is interested draws or creates there. We display projects on the fridge or sometimes the front door; no one has their own display area. Ironically, dd6 is the only child in the house who has her own room, and while she has a quiet place to play alone, she adamantly doesn’t want to be alone.

The social worker said that if I had a picture of a unicorn and rainbow on the wall the person who complained would have been happier. I laughed and told her dd’s backpack and lunch box are both pink and have unicorns and rainbows on them, she has plenty of pink clothes and feels very happy as the only girl in the family at this time. I don’t think she’s beleaguered by the lack of lavender sheets or pink magnet tiles, but I don’t have a problem with making her room more feminine.

I was concerned that the committee was once again going to impose something on my that would compromise my family, and this focus is a relief to me. While to me this feels like minutia I understand others have a different perspective on what is important. In any case, it’s all very easily remedied – I’ll spend a couple of hundred shekels on pink curtains and pink sheets, and maybe find a girly looking wall decoration. Voila. A suitable foster home for a little girl.

For someone who has an critical eye to find so little to complain about feels like a major accomplishment, and I’m pleased with the outcome.

Avivah

Last week we had a home visit with our social worker, the head of the foster care agency, and the guardian ad litem (court appointed legal representative for the twins – GAL).

It’s taken me until now to find a way to consistently feel neutral towards the GAL after this visit. I’ve repeatedly told myself she means well, but every time I think that to myself, the phrase ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’ pops into my mind.

Prior to her visit, I took time with myself to think about how I wanted to interact with her. I guessed she would be very detail oriented and more interested in facts than feelings. That proved to be very accurate.

My own intention was to communicate without allowing myself to be put on the defensive and not worry about what she thought of me, and that was also very appropriate.

I’ve written and rewritten this post, trying to describe a little bit of what it was like as cautiously as possible. My husband has said that since my blog can be publicly accessed, he doesn’t think I should say anything. As such, I’ve deleted all descriptions of what happened.

Overall the meeting went extremely well. I presumed good intentions on her part and stayed calm and composed throughout the entire visit. Dd6, ds6 and ds7 were all home and they couldn’t not have been more well-behaved or responded to her questions better than they did.

It’s not easy to do so much for these children, to see so many positive changes, and have everything peremptorily dismissed as not even worthy of comment. Perhaps it’s common for lawyers to speak to people outside of the courtroom as if they are a defendant on the witness stand, asking leading questions and badgering the witness.

The thing that is hardest for me about foster care is seeing that our children are pawns in a system that doesn’t make their well-being the most important concern. I keep reminding myself that Hashem sent this person to us and she’s doing exactly what she’s meant to do.
I have no way to overcome prejudices that someone else holds that have nothing to do with me.

The reason I didn’t want to write about this until now is because I’ve been searching to put this interaction into a positive perspective, to find a way to give the benefit of the doubt. I don’t like thinking negatively about people and I’ve been trying to feel compassion for this individual, but wasn’t succeeding at all.

Yesterday I spoke with the man who founded the speech method that I’ve recently begun studying. He mentioned that one definition of apraxia of speech is that it can’t be treated. What happens when someone develops a method which has helped hundreds of children who supposedly can’t talk, learn to speak?

Do they rush to his door and ask to learn what he did? Do they tell him how amazing it is that he did something they didn’t think is possible?

No. They stick to their conviction that it can’t be done, even in the face of evidence that shows otherwise. He said this is the natural reaction of the established system in every area.

This comment was like a thunderbolt to me. I had been asking Hashem to help me find a way to think positively about this person, and then I heard this. I realized she’s just reacting the way people in an established system react to something outside of their experience.

There was a lot of focus on the negative behaviors that were part of the past file of one of the children. She said she’s never seen negative behaviors like this dissipate so quickly like they did when the children came to us, and that she can’t see how it’s possible.

If the baseline assumption is that this kind of change can’t be possible because she hasn’t seen it before, then there are only two options: 1) to consider that there’s something to learn from this new outcome and explore how it happened – but there was absolutely no interest in what we did and how that might have positively impacted the children.

Option 2: to insist that it’s not possible and solicit confirmation for her initial decision to oppose placement with us as not being in the best interest of the children.

Thinking about this being a normal reaction to something unfamiliar and unexpected makes this so much easier for me to accept. I don’t want to see her as an enemy who is trying to make my life miserable

It’s also helped release the tension I was feeling trying to anticipate what demands she’s going to impose on me when the committee meets for a follow-up. Now I’ve been able to return to my initial feeling that whatever will be, will be, and trust everything will work out as it’s meant to.

Avivah