Teeny tiny fingers and toes. Little nose and ears and lips. I love little babies. Of course, who doesn't? I know its not all flowers and butterflies caring for a little one but I will take this any day over never having kids.
As we think about possibly adopting from foster care in the future I can't help but think about the fact that rarely are the children babies. It does happen on occasion but when it does of course there are lots of families that want a baby rather than an older child.
It seems like many children that you adopt from foster care would be toddlers or older. We are open to accepting toddlers but I think how hard it would be to miss out on all the baby stages that they go through. I want to be there for all of that.
I'm not sure domestic newborn adoption will be our best option with each subsequent child. Reasons for this include cost, waiting times, lots of families to "compete" with. Plus, these children in foster care need families that are willing to provide them a safe, nurturing and stable environment. Why not take a child out of the system?
Just something I've been thinking about lately.
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Monday, December 19, 2011
Permanence & Attachment
Well we've had 3 sessions of foster care training. We have a 3 week break due to the holidays but we have lots of reading and studying to do in the meantime.
So far I LOVE it. Its hard to contain my feelings on it but each session I leave feeling more and more interested in helping these kids and their families. Aaron is really enjoying it as well. Its kind of funny though because we watch little clips of movies or read short stories, and afterwards we have to share what we think about them. Aaron says its too much of talking about our feelings and emotions. I thought that was funny, but definitely a guy statement.
I'll give you a little insight into what we've learned so far from Sessions 2 and 3
Session 2
-Teamwork towards permanence- This is every member of the team (social worker, counselor, teacher, foster parent, birth parent, etc.) working towards creating permanence for the child.
-Permanence is defined as having a sense of one's past, having a legal and social status that comes from being a family member and having safe, nurturing relationships intended to last a lifetime.
-Two things to look at when trying to determine how to establish permanence for a child are "connections" and "continuity".
-Connections are referring to long term and ongoing relationships with people who have a lifetime commitment to the child. In most cases this is your parents, grandparents other family members. These connections provide a child with belonging and stability.
Continuity refers to the child's ability to understand and make connections between past, present and future.
The other thing we talked about was all the needs a parent provides a child. This is something I never really thought about. You think about your parents feeding you, clothing you, providing you with shelter. These are all physical needs. But there are also emotional needs, (advice, guidance, stability) social needs, (acceptable behaviors, how to form relationships with others) cultural needs (religion, values, beliefs, morals) and learning (school, helping with homework, life skills, definition of right and wrong)
Just talking about these really made me think. Really, it wasn't something I had thought about before. I guess what I'm trying to say is Aaron and I always took this for granted. Our parents did all these things for us and we didn't realize it growing up. I mean we did but we didn't. It wasn't something we thought about because we always had it. We just figured all parents did this for kids. But these kids that end up in foster care don't have that. For whatever reason the parent(s) couldn't provide for all those needs.Their parents might have provided physical needs and learning but not emotional and social needs.
Session 3-Attachment
One of our instructors said that this is her favorite session. So far, it is mine too.
-This one was about understanding physical, medical and emotional indicators of physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, maltreatment and how those affect attachment and a child's growth and development.
-Tips on how to build positive attachment with your foster child.
-How to handle the bad behaviors and explain this to other children in your own (if you have biological children or adopted children) Something that we wouldn't find acceptable behavior for our own children but that we have to handle differently due to what the foster child has been through.
One cool thing we did was draw a jigsaw puzzle. It had 8 pieces and inside each piece was a way to describe a child I guess. I'm not sure how to describe it. But for example the 8 pieces were chronological, appearance, intellectual, school, emotional, social, cultural and life. We had to put down the chronological age of the child and then put down how old we felt the child was in all the other areas. Kids with abuse or maltreatment might be 8 years old but look like they are 6 or act like they are 4 but have life experiences that are similar to an adult (witnessing drug use, domestic violence)
That is kind of a few points from those sessions. I am just really enjoying it. Its also great to hear the experiences of the other people in the class.
I'm really praying to see what God has in store for us with this. Just adopting from foster care or actually fostering. I'd like to do both but we'll see what happens.
On a side note I'm so thankful for our families (especially our parents) for providing us with all our needs all the time. We didn't know how good we had it. We want to do the same thing for our children and hopefully have an impact or influence on kids that might come into our home temporarily.
So far I LOVE it. Its hard to contain my feelings on it but each session I leave feeling more and more interested in helping these kids and their families. Aaron is really enjoying it as well. Its kind of funny though because we watch little clips of movies or read short stories, and afterwards we have to share what we think about them. Aaron says its too much of talking about our feelings and emotions. I thought that was funny, but definitely a guy statement.
I'll give you a little insight into what we've learned so far from Sessions 2 and 3
Session 2
-Teamwork towards permanence- This is every member of the team (social worker, counselor, teacher, foster parent, birth parent, etc.) working towards creating permanence for the child.
-Permanence is defined as having a sense of one's past, having a legal and social status that comes from being a family member and having safe, nurturing relationships intended to last a lifetime.
-Two things to look at when trying to determine how to establish permanence for a child are "connections" and "continuity".
-Connections are referring to long term and ongoing relationships with people who have a lifetime commitment to the child. In most cases this is your parents, grandparents other family members. These connections provide a child with belonging and stability.
Continuity refers to the child's ability to understand and make connections between past, present and future.
The other thing we talked about was all the needs a parent provides a child. This is something I never really thought about. You think about your parents feeding you, clothing you, providing you with shelter. These are all physical needs. But there are also emotional needs, (advice, guidance, stability) social needs, (acceptable behaviors, how to form relationships with others) cultural needs (religion, values, beliefs, morals) and learning (school, helping with homework, life skills, definition of right and wrong)
Just talking about these really made me think. Really, it wasn't something I had thought about before. I guess what I'm trying to say is Aaron and I always took this for granted. Our parents did all these things for us and we didn't realize it growing up. I mean we did but we didn't. It wasn't something we thought about because we always had it. We just figured all parents did this for kids. But these kids that end up in foster care don't have that. For whatever reason the parent(s) couldn't provide for all those needs.Their parents might have provided physical needs and learning but not emotional and social needs.
Session 3-Attachment
One of our instructors said that this is her favorite session. So far, it is mine too.
-This one was about understanding physical, medical and emotional indicators of physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, maltreatment and how those affect attachment and a child's growth and development.
-Tips on how to build positive attachment with your foster child.
-How to handle the bad behaviors and explain this to other children in your own (if you have biological children or adopted children) Something that we wouldn't find acceptable behavior for our own children but that we have to handle differently due to what the foster child has been through.
One cool thing we did was draw a jigsaw puzzle. It had 8 pieces and inside each piece was a way to describe a child I guess. I'm not sure how to describe it. But for example the 8 pieces were chronological, appearance, intellectual, school, emotional, social, cultural and life. We had to put down the chronological age of the child and then put down how old we felt the child was in all the other areas. Kids with abuse or maltreatment might be 8 years old but look like they are 6 or act like they are 4 but have life experiences that are similar to an adult (witnessing drug use, domestic violence)
That is kind of a few points from those sessions. I am just really enjoying it. Its also great to hear the experiences of the other people in the class.
I'm really praying to see what God has in store for us with this. Just adopting from foster care or actually fostering. I'd like to do both but we'll see what happens.
On a side note I'm so thankful for our families (especially our parents) for providing us with all our needs all the time. We didn't know how good we had it. We want to do the same thing for our children and hopefully have an impact or influence on kids that might come into our home temporarily.
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