Foster/Adoption Training -- Day 9

Well, the past few days have been a bit of a blur. Just very busy with projects and whatnot.

On Tuesday, nothing particularly eventful happened. Stayed home. That's about it.

On Wednesday, we had our 9th foster/adoption training session. Phylis brought us pizza b/c we are now officially halfway through the course. We had a ton of fun with everyone, but again there wasn't a lot of substance to the session. That was actually a bit frustrating b/c the topic was one of the most important to date: foster child behavior. I think that Jeff hit the nail on the head when he said that part of the problem of my expectations vs. the reality of the class has to do with the assumptions of the instructors. They started off the orientation by saying that nothing but becoming a foster parent will prepare you for being a foster parent. Basically, what that means is that they can't possibly train you for every scenario. Parenting involves some creativity and fortitude. I get that, but hey, why not present us with some common behaviors and their possible solutions. They can't possibly cover all behaviors that we might encounter, but let's at least discuss the Top 10 behavioral problems seen in foster kids. I'm hoping that we return to this topic next week with more detail because I'm craving some substance.

There is resistance to "label" behaviors, which I find problematic. As the foster parent trainer said, years ago, these would just be quirky kids rather than kids labeled with this disorder or that syndrome. OK, fine. But the bottom line is that once you have a label on something, you have a heck of a lot easier time getting therapy for the child. The reason why Henry was placed into the DDD side of early intervention was because the coordinator at the Blake Foundation (and maybe one of the other evaluators) mentioned that Henry was a FTT case (that's Failure-to-Thrive). Was he really a FTT baby? Well, we certainly tettered on the edge of that when he was in the NICU. Was he a FTT when he came home? Not exactly, but that label in conjunction with his very rough history helped us get Henry some of the therapy that really helped him and really helped us learn how to be parents for him. I truly believe that. In short, labels have their uses.

During our meeting, a family specialist shared with us one of the difficult cases on her docket. This did give us some insight into difficult behaviors. There is a sibling group. All sibling share a off again on again druggie mom. All have different fathers with rap sheets covering just about everything but murder. The children have experienced many forms of abuse and neglect. One of the fathers would tape the kids to a wall with duct tape when they were misbehaving. I can't describe the case in detail b/c it is just too disturbing.

One useful part of the meeting was that the foster parent trainer brought her son's IFSP (individual family service plan) with her. That was in response to some questions that I had about IFSPs b/c of some of the weird stuff we've encounted in filling it out with Elsa (e.g., see 11-18-08 entry for my rather flippant "I want Henry to be on track cognitively so that he won't touch venomous snakes and spiders" goal). Looking at a well-done IFSP has given us insight in how we should restructure ours. I think that the burden is really on us to create it rather than depending on the developmental coordinator. And that's OK. We can do it.

Henry was looking super cute as always when we arrived at the grandparents' house. He had a HUGE dinner: 3/4 banana, turkey, corn bread, and one and a half Yo-Baby yogurts.

On Thursday, Jeff had a doctor's appointment (meet and greet). Luckily, Dr. Hee also made time to give him a full check-up. This was important for two reasons. First, Jeff hasn't seen a doctor for a check-up since we've lived here. Come to think of it, I'm only aware of maybe two doctors visits that Jeff has gone to since we graduated from college. Second, Dr. Hee signed off on the agency's health forms. We are both required to get physicals with forms signed by a doctor saying that we are in good health in order to become foster parents. My doctor's visit is next week.

Henry and I spent some time outside. We filled the bird feeder. Walked around the desert in the backyard. Looked at cactus and said "Ouch!" At one point, we went inside. I let Henry look at "pics" on my computer while I attempted to clip his toe nails. He kept wiggling so I gave him a time out (about 10 seconds). He was very upset but recovered as soon as I picked him up.

We watched the Wildcats play Oregon St. during dinner. Jeff gets rather upset when the Wildcats do stupid things. He was yelling "Come On!" at the screen. So Henry repeated him "Come On!"

We gave Henry a bath. Henry had some advice for his favorite Wildcat player who is the point guard:




That's about it. Henry looked at pics and was ready for bed shortly after. He seems to like his night time routine of bath, pics, and bed.