Archived Post 2011 - Oh Trauma

Oh trauma how I understand you ( sometimes) and how I wish more parents who were parenting hurt kids did as well.

Let me explain.

I just hung up the phone with T's foster father. She was recently moved again and she is not doing so well. The problem is that she has been moved so many times that no one pays any attention to any of the trauma triggers that are compounding her behaviour because no one is going to read the 10 inch thick file to find all the dates that might be issue for her.

The thing is, someone should.

Dates matter because even if a child is not able to vocalize their stress around certain events it is present and effects their behaviour. The fall is a particularly tough time for T, Kevin and Randall because it is when they got apprehended. Both Kevin and T remember it, blame themselves and associate being apprehended with T and Randall's birthdays.T's birthday is Thursday, Randall's is in 3 weeks, no wonder T is acting out.

To add to the stress at this time last year she successfully broke down a placement  by calling the cops and making false allegations against her foster parents.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out this is going to be a tough few weeks for her.
She has RAD, she is in her 4th home since she destroyed her relationship with her prospective adoptive parents because she was afraid to be loved. Her story is a tragic one and the hardest part for me is that her tragedy is also my kids tragedy because they love her and they want her to be a part of their lives but it is so hard to do when she is out of control.

She needs to be parented by people with training, she needs support and structure, she needs a lot more than she is getting and I know that she is not going to get it because the system is not equipped to deal with her. It is so frustrating to watch them fail her again and again, we offer help and support but everyone puts their fingers in their ears and pretends that this time they have found the right placement for her. They will not hear that there is no right placement for her  because they are not addressing her issues. She wants to go live with her birthmom and if they let her go back to birthmom things are not going to be any better because she is not any more equipped to deal with an angry teenager with attachment disorder than she was to deal with an angry kid with attachment disorder.

There is little I can do but watch the train crash.