I went to the doctor yesterday for some routine blood work. As so often happens, I chatted with the nurse who was taking my blood pressure and pulse and in the course of conversation she asked if I have any children. I answered her that I’m a foster parent. She then asked me what ages of kids we have, and I told her we have an almost 3-year-old and will soon have a 16-year-old.
She paused what she was doing, looked at me, and asked “are they all… (whispering) troubled?”
I think that’s a question that lots of people want to ask and don’t have the nerve to do so.
My answer is this: all children in foster care have experienced trauma. All of them. Period. That does not mean they are all kids with behavioral issues though. Many foster kids have very understandable “behavioral” issues that stem from their trauma. But most we have found to be pretty ordinary kids.
As I relayed to the nurse, we have a perfectly “normal” two-almost-three-year-old whose only behavioral issues are those that are completely typical for a kid her age: the occasional tantrum, some drama, and some trying out her independence. On the whole though, she’s whip smart, feisty, well behaved, and funny as hell.
And we have a very good teenager, who, I joked, occasionally drags her feet about leaving the house and whose room can devolve from neat to a sea of discarded clothing in minutes, but who is a very good student, ambitious, a good influence on her peers, polite, funny, and a wonderful big sister to Tiny.
Looking back over the kids we’ve had, none of them qualify as “troubled” in my mind. Kiddo has always presented us with some challenges but mostly she’s a really good kid, just one with A LOT OF ENERGY. She can’t put a sock in a hamper to save her soul, and occasionally gets sneaky trying to get her way. But she’s loving and affectionate and a good student and funny. Her biggest problem is self esteem related, in that she can occasionally bully other kids in class the second she senses a whiff of their judging her. She’s got an “offense is the best defense” approach with peer insecurities. We’re working on it. That comes out of her trauma past. But I wouldn’t ever call her “troubled.”
Gronckle was a HANDFUL but again it was mostly high energy. We could see some issues around controlling his temper, but he was too young to tell if it would amount to anything problematic in the future. Mostly he was just an ordinary rambunctious little boy.
Mouse was a completely and perfectly well adjusted little toddler. She was sassy and adorable and well mannered.
The twins were a major handful but partly because there were two of them and they were both going in opposite directions at high velocity every second of the day. They did have trouble bonding with us, which comes out of their trauma past. But as much as they gave us a run for our money, I wouldn’t call them “troubled.”
I’m honestly not sure I’d ever call a kid “troubled” because it seems to reduce an entire human down to a few narrow problems and it’s unkind. I understand what the nurse was getting at though. She wanted to know if all foster kids are difficult behaviorally. If they’re uncontrollable. If they’re hard to love.
My answer to the question whether all foster kids are “troubled” has to be an emphatic Nope. They’re just kids. They’re amazing, lovable, young humans with tremendous potential who have just experienced some really unfortunate things no kid should ever have to go through, and who deserve a little extra grace.
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