Struggles

So many things have been happening, but most of them involve our teenager Miss Kicks, and I want to protect her privacy so I can’t really write about any incidents in particular.

Suffice it to say, being a foster parent to a 16-year-old who has experienced a tremendous amount of trauma in her life is hard. Gut wrenchingly hard. Time for prayers and hopes and lots of tears along the way kind of hard.

It’s also insanely rewarding. I love this kid like I birthed her, so all of the things that trouble her make my stomach hurt and make me wish I had a magic wand to make things better for her. I also occasionally want to wring her neck, but I think that goes with teen parenting territory in general.

I will say that I have noticed that kids in foster care tend to blame themselves for practically everything. I think this is a trend with kids in general in that the kid whose parents are getting divorced often thinks that it’s because of them, and if they were just better, their parents would get along still. But I think the phenomenon is magnified with foster kids. The more trauma they’ve experienced, the more they blame themselves.

Foster kids tend to blame themselves for the really big stuff: “I was so hard to deal with that my mom became an alcoholic.” “I was so badly behaved that my dad abandoned us.” “I’m the reason my mother committed suicide.” “It was my fault that CPS took us.” It’s never ever the kids’ fault, but most seem to feel like it is.

How does a child who blames him or herself for something so huge ever gain any self esteem? With the underlying gnawing belief that they’re responsible for something terrible that happened to their families, foster kids have a hard time feeling like they have any self worth.

Teaching a child to believe in him or herself is… almost impossible when they’re carrying that kind of weight deep inside. I look at Miss Kicks, for example, and see a bright, funny, bouncy, energetic, loving, sweet, beautiful young woman who can do whatever she wants with her future. I can tell you for sure that’s not what she sees in the mirror.

I think time in a loving family will help, but it’s no magic pill because learning how to belong to a loving family is HARD when you’ve never had that before. The very idea of having responsibilities to each other is an alien concept. The idea of commitment? Totally foreign because no one has ever committed to her before. She’s been treated like she’s disposable, and learning she’s not can only come with time and testing – a lot of testing.

The wounds foster kids carry run deep and heavy. And my home, loving and patient and kind and fun as it is, can only do so much so fast. It’s going to take years. And therapy. And a person has to commit to therapy to make it work and that’s hard because it requires vulnerability. And vulnerability is terrifying when you’ve teetered on the brink for so long.

All in all, we’re doing ok. We’re loving on each other the best we all can. We’re testing our bonds and finding them firm. We’re taking care of each other and learning from each other. The trials and tribulations and minor heart attacks along the way? Par for the course I’m afraid. And worth it for this awesome kid of ours.