Fifth of Eight

Class 5 was loaded with information that I tried to soak all in. It was another one of those classes that confirmed the need for every parent (not just foster parents) to be required to take to understand children and themselves.

Class #5 - Grief / Fetal Alcohol / Attachment / Trauma of Children in Foster Care

We first talked about the various forms of grief. When Kurt grieves he shuts down and gets really quiet and doesn’t want to talk. However when I grieve I usually need to discuss it with someone really close (like Kurt) and I want to be held and comforted by him. I don’t like to discuss those hard things with everyone though and don’t like too many sympathy hugs.

We all deal with grief and trauma differently and so do these children. Not only have these kids been abused or neglected but they have been through the trauma of a police officer coming to their home and pulling them away from their parents. Some will cry a lot, some will start wetting their beds, some will be clingy, and some may refuse to talk. Learning to help them at their level of communication will be the tricky part.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) was an interesting topic because I hadn’t ever studied it well enough to know the affects alcohol can have on an unborn baby. The more we learned the more I think it made Kurt nervous to accept a child into our home with this problem.  “Alcohol crosses the placental barrier and can stunt fetal growth or weight, create distinctive facial stigmata, damage neurons and brain structures, which can result in psychological or behavioral problems, and cause other physical damage. Surveys found that in the United States, 10–15% of pregnant women report having recently drunk alcohol, and up to 30% drink alcohol at some point during pregnancy.

The main effect of FAS is permanent central nervous system damage, especially to the brain. this can cause poor memory, attention deficits, impulsive behavior, and poor cause-effect reasoning as well as predispositions to mental health problems and drug addiction” (Wikipedia)

I can’t relay everything we talked about. It would be hard to type up 3 hours of notes, but something that really struck me is how important it is to only place a foster child in one foster home if possible.  When potential foster parents are called, DCFS will give them as much information as they have on the child. They want you to make a comfortable choice about placing the child in your home. If you feel uncomfortable they would rather you say no upfront then ask for the child to be moved later.