Fostering The Love In Kansas

Part of being a foster parent is knowing that the kids that come into our homes have a base level of trauma.  That's just, out of the gate, trauma due to removal.  But then there comes the trauma with the background a lot of the kids come from.  The domestic violence, substance abuse, neglect, etc - it all causes trauma.  We're warned about this trauma but I know in my case, I was never trained for trauma.  I was never trained for the heartbreak that comes with loving a child with trauma. I was never trained to find the help my kiddos need.  I was never trained on how to parent a child with special needs. I never knew this was what I was signing up for. But the damage is done. I have a child with special needs.  And the damage is already done to him.  The more I learn about him and his disabilities, the more I know I was put in his path so we both would find what we needed. The damage done to my Little Man is not repairable.  These last...

Over Christmas break, I got a call from KU Med Center Childhood Development.  We had an appointment set for March but over break, I got a call that there had been a cancelation and could we come in.  YES!!! So, of course, the day of our appointment was a huge snow storm.  KU Med is an hour away on a good day.  This day, it took us over two hours. And I was totally stressed out. What happened was a total of an hour where they asked me about Little Man and "observed" him.  What I was expecting, was to have something definitive or something I can now assign to him. What I got was that he is NOT autistic.  He's social.  That's what ruled it out.  He makes eye contact, he talks to people, he loves people.  That is what ruled it out, the only thing that ruled it out. I guess, in order to be diagnosed with autism, you have to fill all three criteria.  I don't know what the three criteria are other than the social one. I'm kind of unhapp...

I met with Little Man's teachers and therapists this week.  I had a friend of the family who is a retired special needs teacher with me, his foster agency therapist and his social worker at the table too.  There are so many people advocating for this little guy, it's amazing. It never ceases to amaze me how many people are rooting for him. On the phone was his mom.  I'll admit, I did not want her there or even having any say in this. I know that's not right or nice.  I know that, but it doesn't stop me from feeling that way.  She is not advocating for him and I'll explain that further later, but I will say that I was actually able to keep my cool and talk to her on the phone, at one point, because she wasn't able to understand what was being said. I was able to reassure her that he is doing well and that he will continue to do well. His IEP is totally different from his first three.  It shows how far he has come in the little amount of time he's been...

So I was asked by Little Man's teacher to meet with her after school today.  Only 3 days in and I'm being brought in...I honestly had a stabbing moment of fear that I forgotten something in his backpack or had done something wrong...like I was being called into the principle's office. But it turns out that my initial concerns with putting Little Man in kindergarten are confirmed.  After 3 days, his teacher is not sure he's mentally capable of being in kindergarten. He just doesn't understand what is being asked of him in class, he can't comprehend what they are doing.  He just isn't there. He is struggling and it's just stressing him out.  Which I see...he has huge dark circles under his eyes, he's angry and he's tired. My options are now limited.  I've called to ask the principle for a meeting. I have to call the group that does assessments and request them to reassess him rather than go off an old IEP. But since he's 5, it...

I'm coming to realize that the only limitations that Little Man has, are usually ones I envision for him.  I was really concerned about his first day of school.  But he did great.  He got a little overwhelmed when we made it to his classroom and I told him no when he wanted to run over to a bucket of letters.  He started to pout, but I quickly diverted his attention. I left him there and walked home.  I didn't cry (much) after that but I worried all day.  Not because I thought he would be harmed but that he would be too much for them.  I did get an email from his teacher half way through the day and she pretty much told me what I was worried to hear.  He's seriously behind and they are going to have to evaluate how to deal with that. And it's not academically that he's behind but that his motor skills are like a 2-year-old.  He uses his index finger and thumb almost exclusively to eat and pick things up, he doesn't know how to hold a...

I finally got the last 3 years of IEP's from the bio mom for Little Man.  As I read through them, going from when he was 3 years old, all the way up until July of this year...I am very quickly aware that while they were able to pinpoint a lot of his weaknesses and areas that need to be improved on, NOTHING has really been done to help him. The same things they saw at 3 years old, he still has at 5 years old.  So why is that the case?  I know part of it may be because of his home life.  Mom noted in his first IEP at 3 years old that he had a "wandering eye" and would get it looked at, but Little Man still has a lazy eye. They talked about how his vocabulary is many years behind his actual age.  And this is still true. They talked about how his motor skills are poor and need work.  And this is still true. So what has been done to help this little man? And trying to get him enrolled at the local school is going slow because they honestly don't know w...

Here is what I have learned from being a foster mom for 43 days (that's 6 weeks and a day): 1. Telling a child to stop picking their nose will increase the number of fingers up said nose. 2. As a foster parent, I am in the dark when it comes to what is happening outside of what Little Man and I have going on.  It's incredibly frightening to think that things are being decided without any input from me. 3. I have never known exhaustion like I know it now. 4. Getting enrolled in school is easy until you introduce foster care and IEP from a different county.  I'm not sure what's going to happen, but it's not cut and dry. 5. Halloween seems to be a foreign concept to Little Man, but we have a costume that I would not have picked out for him.  But he chose it so we are going as Mario. Now to explain trick-or-treating.