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Excerpts From “The Connected Child” with notes by Elijah Cain. -Part 1.5

Before I continue this series of posts, I would like to state that I am in no way qualified to offer advice on dealing with issues stemming from childhood trauma, give parenting advice, or pass judgment on anyone’s past, present, or future decisions, mistakes, or realities. Furthermore, not all of my conclusions are set in stone. Like any reasonable, thinking adult, I reserve the right to alter my opinions when presented with new and better information. This particular segment of posts dealing with the issue of childhood trauma represents a small part of the learning path I’m on to try and prepare myself for the road ahead. I’m sharing with you, my readers, as a way to better digest the information I’m taking in and pass it along to anyone who may benefit from the things I’m learning. Lastly, while I care very little for the opinions of others, especially of those who have no vested interest or stake in my eventual outcome, I care a great deal for people as a whole, and, by no means, intend for anyone to feel judged or offended by anything in these posts.

The issue of unwanted children in this country is heartbreaking to me, and, most likely, to anyone who is not a textbook sociopath. If you’ve read more than one of my posts, and did so because you’re interested and not simply because you know me, you know that there are things I struggle with internally, especially where it comes to the issue of child abuse. I was not abused, neglected, or molested growing up. If you’ve read my previous post, “Support System“, you know that I had a great childhood which I had the privilege of sharing with an amazing family, in which, I’m including my closest friends. With that said, I’m not sure that having experienced any one of those horrific events at some point in my life would have better prepared me for this challenge or given me a deeper understanding of how to help a child through it. But do not misunderstand me. I am not looking out of the window of my ivory tower, searching for some child lucky enough to be rescued.

What you have before you is a man who desperately wants to be a father, and if it is in anyway possible that I can help a child overcome some form a childhood trauma in the process, than I feel it is my responsibility, and, of equal importance, my privilege to do everything I can to prepare myself for whatever lies ahead. I owe this to any child I am blessed with, regardless of the length of their stay or whether or not the potential for permanency exists.

In short, I am not dispensing medical advice, parenting advice, or judgement. I hold strong feelings of frustration toward those who hurt children by way of neglect or abuse. But, I also believe that people can change and I believe in forgiveness. I believe in reunification and reconciliation. I believe in one’s ability to overcome insurmountable odds in order to achieve something greater than themselves. A parent who faces his or her own demons and seeks help for their struggles in order to reunify with their child, has done exactly that. And you have my respect; but, more importantly, you’ve regained  your own. And, God willing, you will have earned back your child.

If I lose the ability to adopt a hundred children temporarily in my care, due to reunification with a birth parent who has undergone such a transformation, I am okay with that. More than okay. Overjoyed.

Why?

Because, ultimately, I doubt that any trauma a child might experience could ever be more emotionally damaging or lasting than the feeling that they were unwanted or unloved. That they were not worth the effort. That nobody fought for them or cared enough to pay attention to them.

So, if you’re a parent who has been on the other side of Child Welfare Services and you want desperately to reunify with your child or children, I want to encourage you with everything inside of me. DO IT! Whatever it takes. Do it. You owe it to yourself and your child. Put in the work. You can do this! There are so many programs available to you. Will it be easy? No. Worth it? Absolutely. Like nothing else you could ever do.

And your child will forgive you.

Once they know you care enough to fight for them, they will forgive you.

They still love you.

Fight for yourself; Fight for them. ‘Till next time…

Continue this journey

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Excerpts From “The Connected Child” with notes by Elijah Cain. -Part 1

“In the orphanage, baby Donnie has the crib farthest from the nursery door. He lies in soiled diapers for hours at a time and is the last baby fed by the attendant. Left untouched and underfed, he does little but stare at the sterile walls and ceiling. The back of his head has become flattened from remaining in that position so long.” — (The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family by Karyn B. Puris, David R. Cross, & Wendy Sunshine.)

For the remainder of this series, all content taken from “The Connected Child” will be italicized. Please refer to the above link to purchase, or to find more information about this book. 

“An infant lying in a crib in a sterile institution may compete with forty other babies for the attention of a scarce caregiver. During the first weeks, the institutionalized baby will cry, but when no one responds, eventually the crying stops. Orphanage nurseries tend to be eerily quiet because babies there quickly discover no one comes when they cry. For these tiny ones, their earliest communications are effectively silenced.

Instead of receiving reassuring and nurturing embraces from a mother, the institutionalized baby experiences the world as a cold and impoverished place. There is no affectionate sensory bath, there are few sounds, and whitewashed walls reduce visual stimulus. An institutionalized child misses out on a great deal, and is at great risk.”

NEGLECT

This is one of the most heartbreaking and troubling aspects of childhood trauma for me to wrap my mind around. Probably, because it’s so easy to avoid and the consequences of neglect in the early stages of childhood development can cripple a child, well into their adult life. In some cases, the lack of human contact has even lead to an infant’s life functions failing, resulting in death.

A baby who is well attended to, will spend the very first moments of life wrapped in the arms of a nurturing mother. Feeling her warmth, listening to her coos and she strokes his or her cheek. Early cries are met with comfort and feelings of security as his needs for nourishment are met. Already, the baby has learned to trust adults and begins to form attachments with them. When a baby is born premature, and spends its first few days — sometimes even weeks or months — in an incubator, Doctors have discovered that the mere act of someone reaching in and stroking the baby’s cheek a few times a day can result in the baby gaining weight twice as fast as one who does not receive this very basic human interaction.

As children grow, they form bonds with people based on the neurological pathways that are formed during these early stages of life, even before they can consciously articulate their need for affection; yet, their ability to make connections with others dictates the quality and depth of all the other relationships they will experience as they move through life.

I wish I could spend a few hours every afternoon visiting orphanages and holding babies for a few minutes a day, making eye contact with them, interacting with them, and quieting their discomforts. It would be such a small thing that could easily improve their entire developmental process. Consequently, it is for reasons such as these that the United Sates has moved away from orphanages in favor of the Foster Care System. Sadly, by the time some of these children experience their first loving interaction, it may be with a stranger, or, worse, from someone looking to victimize this child by taking advantage of this need to satisfy their own perverse desires. Some of the children in Foster Care have experienced both of these before finding a safe and nurturing environment, only to discover that they don’t trust their new family, and are unable to connect with them. Many Foster Families have become frustrated because their placement doesn’t seem to connect with them. They make minimal attempts, only to send them away in hopes of finding a new, less damaged child to love.

This is tragic on every level, when you consider how much of it can be avoided by the simple act of holding a baby close enough to hear your heartbeat and feel your warmth. To willingly deny a child this basic early need is, in many ways, the most hateful thing a person can do, short of physically hurting, starving, or otherwise abusing their infant child. But, furthermore, as a Foster parent, knowing that you have, in many cases, missed that early window for forging a bond with your child, patience and understanding are key. Almost no child is going to remember that early neglect, nor will they be able to understand or articulate their need for closeness. In most cases, they will have defenses in place to protect themselves from what has become a foreign and uncomfortable experience, and it may take months, or even years, before a child has become comfortable enough to trust you and begin to form a lasting attachment. Sadly, not all of them will be given enough time with their Foster Family to see such improvements, before being reunified with their birth parent(s) or before “blow-out” occurs in their current placement for failure to connect.

It is for this reason that I chose to borrow content from the above mentioned book, and share with you the need for understanding the various types of early trauma many of these children have been exposed to. It’s never to late to love a child or provide one with a safe place to sleep, where meals are readily available, where they can begin to learn and grow and trust again. But it will take patience and you will be stretched to the limit, time after time, for the possibility of helping a child work through their early stage neglect or childhood trauma. And, that possibility, alone, is worth the effort. That, alone, is worth the pain. That, alone, is worth the sacrifice.

This is the first of several posts dealing with childhood trauma. The content of each is unpleasant to say the absolute least. But, in trying to understand it myself, I am forced to think about these things and learn techniques to help a child work through them. As a result, I have been on an emotional rollercoaster ride where, at the highest points, I’m filled with tremendous joy, looking forward to this exciting challenge, to the lowest points, where I find my mind going to dark places, where I have a hard time not imagining police finding the bodies of some of these horrible people in shallow, unmarked graves, inside a world where abortion has been replaced with sterilization.

Just being honest.

To me, there is nothing worst than a human being who can willingly hurt a child or rob one of their innocence. And, I apologize for dragging you down this troubling path with me, but writing to you is my therapy. You are my coping mechanism. And together, I hope we can tackle these issues, one child at a time.

Until next time…

Continue this journey

 

 

 

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A Few Thoughts On Foster Care: The need, The Children, and The System.

I feel I should level with you. I think dishonesty comes easily for most people, and not because they are liars, either. It’s because most people generalize their feelings as they relate to their actions and, therefore, fail to honestly evaluate the cause behind the effect. My truth is this: When I started this process, I did so as a last resort to satisfy my deep need to be a father. I did so because I wasn’t going to let my failed past relationships decide whether or not I would experience fatherhood. I did so, in short, out of selfish ambition. And, unlike other aspects of my life where I have proactively made choices with a predetermined outcome in mind, I have little to no control over the outcome of this process. The only thing I control is the ability to put myself in a position where I can legally obtain a child from the State and adequately care for the child in a safe and loving environment.

And maybe that’s enough.

Social Service (CWS or Child Welfare Services), foster families, and foster children get a bad rap, each for different reasons. My limited experience with Social Services has dispelled many of the unfounded concerns I had going into this process. My Social Worker has been both easy to work with and encouraging, and has been from my very first inquiry. Gaining a better understanding of the circumstances required to be met in order to remove a child from a home and the requirements for placement into a new home, went a long way in helping me recognize the need for CWS (F.K.A. CPS or Child Protective Services), as well as the difficult legal landscape they traverse on a daily basis.

Foster families are probably deserving of some criticism, but it is unfair to evenly distribute that criticism. There are families who take in children and love them as their own, and others who do it for the money. Of the latter, the children are not always cared for in a loving manner or made to feel apart of a family. Without passing judgement, I would hope that this is the extreme exception, but I’d doubt that is the case, unfortunately. I will say that as long as those children are in a safe home, fed and cared for, that is still likely an improvement over the situation they were removed from, but it’s far from ideal.

The foster children are too often stigmatized unfairly as troubled youth. I have heard every precaution from “They can be dangerous” to “They’re often difficult to reason with and manage”, and there are probably a lot who are. But before you rush to judgment, let’s look at a few statistics. According to a census taken in 2010 (I will look for more recent stats and update these numbers accordingly), there are 402,378 children who are currently in the foster care system and, of those children, 101,840 of them are up for adoption. I believe that number is now closer to 114,000.

53% have a case goal of reunification with their birth parent(s). 52% male/53% female. That means 1 in 184 children in the US are in foster care for an average length of 20 months. The average wait time for adoption is 34 months.

The median age of children in foster care is 8.2 years of age. 25% of children entering the foster care system are infants. 30,000 kids will “age out” of the system without being adopted.

The age in which the majority of kids enter the foster care system is 2 years old.

20% of children in foster care wait 5 years to be adopted.

184,000 households in the US are home to at least 1 foster child.

A male in the foster care System is 4x more likely to commit a crime or become incarcerated.

A Female in the foster care System is 10x more likely to commit a crime or become incarcerated.

Children in foster care are 5x as likely to develop some level of PTSD.

In 2012, only 48% of the adults leaving foster care were employed.

Former foster youth are 7x as likely to develop a dependency on drugs and 2x as likely to develop a dependency on alcohol.

Only 25% of foster youth graduate from college. As opposed to 41% of the general population.

Of men, 33% of former foster youth depend on Government services for their basic living needs.

Of women, 75% of former foster youth depend on Government services for their basic living needs.

1 in 3 Americans talk about adopting. Only 2% actually adopt.

Below are the reasons why I believe these children often act out against a foster family.

18.8% have suffered from some sort of physical abuse.

7.99% have suffered from some sort of emotional abuse.

6.2% have suffered from some sort of sexual abuse.

3.2% were taken into the system due to caretaker inability.

63.9% for varying other reasons.

Doesn’t it make sense that if you abuse a child, starve and/or force them to cope with substandard living conditions, or neglect a child, the likelihood that that child will have difficulty making connections with people would be fairly high? That they might struggle with grades, experience adverse health conditions, and ultimately become dependent on the system or end up incarcerated? I guess what I’m saying is that maybe we need to cut these children a little slack and be apart of the solution.

This isn’t a guilt trip, but you can certainly see why my focus is slowly beginning to shift from satisfying my need to be a dad, to desperately wanting to reach out and protect a child from becoming one of these statistics.

Here’s a little more honesty: I used to see guys with their pants hanging off their ass, hat backwards, wearing a tank-top, and judge them harshly on their appearance. And on that note, it may be wrong to judge anyone on their appearance alone, but appearances do give people an initial impression. In truth, I was more frustrated by the fact that they had a child and I did not. But, since this is my blog and there’s no one to stop me, I’m still going to say this: If you want to be treated like an adult, dress like one. Unless you’re a 16 year old skateboarder, you should probably lose the sticker on your flat-billed hat.

And then lose the flat-billed hat.

Pull your pants up. You’re a grown man, and it might be time to tell your wardrobe. The world needs more men who can behave as men so the next generation can be kids without having to worry about ending up in foster care themselves. The world does not need another 35 year old man-child who dresses like a poorly funded Justin Bieber clone. But I do owe this demographic an apology. I have more recently come to appreciate the fact that, while you may not always “look” the part, at least you are with your kid, being a dad. So, I apologize for judging you on your appearance and not acknowledging sooner that you are taking your responsibility to your family seriously. I’m learning a lot about those who don’t and the damage that can cause a child, so my hat is off to you. Wear whatever you’d like.

Just remember that you have little eyes watching everything you do, looking for an example to follow.

Be an example worth following.

And if those statistics above bother you, let’s work together to help change them.

One final statistic: If just 1 family from 1 out of every 3 churches in America adopted, there would be no more orphans in the US. If there’s room in your home and in your heart, you are very needed. But this is not intended to put guilt on anyone or even an attempt to recruit foster parents. These are just some of the things this journey has taught me, and I’m sharing them with you as they have been part of my learning process.

My future posts will be far less about this issue and more specific to my own experience. Not driven by statistics. I promise.

‘Til next time…

Continue this journey