Job 28, Education, and Opportunity Costs

I love this passage in Job 28:

But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea saith, It is not with me....
Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding? Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air....God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof... And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.

Recently I was reading an article in a Northern Virginia magazine about how to get your child into some of the top private schools in the area.  The writer was hyperventilating about how great some of these schools are, and it made me smile--and feel sad--and think about the wisdom of this path.  Job said that wisdom is difficult to find--can it be found at school?  If we do put our children in school in order that they may gain in wisdom (and what other worthy reason could there be?) let's hope that they are successful, since if there's one thing the study of economics has taught me it's that every decision has "opportunity costs."  If I choose that thing, with my time, my money, my energy, I will not then be able to choose that other thing with that same time, money, and energy.  You have to look at not just what is GAINED in a particular decision, but also what is LOST.

Parents are constantly confronted with information touting the benefits of the schools--especially the private ones.  But let's look first at the opportunity costs, then back at the wisdom question.

*Time is what life is made of. There are a limited number of minutes between when your child is born and when he leaves your home for good. But there are forces out there demanding your child's time, telling parents that if their children don't spend most of their time in classrooms when they are 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 that they will be crippled in their future prospects. When we hear "education" with our ears, we think "money" with our brains: a good education is supposed to provide a good future income. And this is true, in many cases, for higher education--but patently false for your child's first years, and her second years. In fact, Ivy League schools are openly recruiting students who have had a "non-traditional education," knowing that the factors that make one successful in college and beyond are often not well learned by those who've been sitting at desks for most of the day, most of the year, most of their lives.

(Tangent Alert! The other under-emphasized fact is that the four to eight years spent at a desk between the ages of 18 and 26 is often a waste of time too. Just Google "successful college drop-outs" and you'll see some phenomenal lists, starting with Steve Jobs. I'm not opposed to college the way I am to lots of formal schooling before college, because at these ages people have developed their own goals, and college can often get them to where they want to go. I am very grateful for the wonderful experiences that my 22 year old is having at BYU--learning things he's passionate about from brilliant professors, being immersed in an atmosphere of learning and righteousness, taking advantage of all the art and culture that is available there. He is not wasting his time at college. But many do, and the exchange of years of your time plus tens of thousands of your dollars in exchange for a degree in "white studies" or some other silliness is a poor one, especially when moral degradation is rampant in the environment you're immersed in: the lies of race and gender politics, socialism, and sexual promiscuity are daily fare on many campuses. Not wise....That was a tangent.)

So we must think about what is LOST in making the choice to send our children to school: time. Many of the children the article discussed didn't even attend a school that is close to them, but also spent time commuting before and after school. Then there's lessons, sports, and homework (my biggest peeve--if they can't get their learning done in 7 hours at school, why spend that 7 hours at school!).  At this rate the time spent as a family is minuscule.  Study after study has confirmed that in families who eat dinner together--just 20 minutes or so a day--the children fare much better on a host of desired outcomes from emotional health and avoidance of self-destructive behaviors to their grades in school.  Think about unleashing the power of family on a large scale by spending much of each day together--either at home or out and about--it's a powerful thing.

So family time is sacrificed on the altar of school, but perhaps even more important is that personal time is lost--the time children spend developing their own person.  They lose playtime, which is the most important time for brain-building in childhood.  They lose pondering time, to think about themselves and their family and their world and their Heavenly Father.  They lose time in nature; time to develop the scientist within by making observations and predictions and being able to observe outcomes.  The only use that is made of the amazing human hand, for the most part, is in holding a pencil and being raised to obtain permission to go to the bathroom. What about development of the cerebellum that comes through manipulating objects from Legos to clay to fabric and yarn? Building, sculpting, sewing and crocheting all strengthen neural pathways that improve memory. 

The slow pace of life a few generations ago (hard work, but not frenetic) has been replaced with rush, rush, rush, do this task, check this box, something going on every minute. Is it really wise to spend childhood this way? Does it teach wisdom?

*Autonomy (a.k.a. creativity, independent thinking, entrepreneurship) is also lost in the trade-off to put children in school. As just mentioned, if a child is not free to use his time how he sees fit, he will not be able to direct his energies toward the playing, creating, and daydreaming that I believe are so important.  There is concern by many that the younger generation is not developing the thought processes that lead to innovation and creativity (this TED talk has been viewed 35 million times).  For the past twenty years or so there has been an increasing emphasis on the group, on working together, on cooperation.  It's as if educrats think they can unite the brains of children to function as one, like in the book A Wrinkle In Time. It's been creeping me out that I'm seeing this in the field of math education now as well. It's one thing to assign a group to work together to build a diorama or something (though usually one person ends up doing most of the work) but I've been reading about math becoming the new method of teaching "social justice." Group math problems are assigned, and each child is given a role: one person comes up with different strategies, one person evaluates the strategies, one person performs the calculations, one person takes notes, one person bosses everyone else around, etc.  No one "owns" the process.  Failure and success are equally spread between students, so no one is really invested in the effort, since it will not be to his benefit or detraction very much.

I'm not going to go into why I think this is type of teaching is trendy, but simply observe that what is left out in the cold is innovation.  Even the most creative role here (coming up with strategies) is handicapped by having to get them past "the committee."  Groupthink is never going to equal one mind soaring into imagination, and the new ideas that come from that. See this article from The Economist, speaking to Europe's "chronic failure to encourage ambitious entrepreneurs."  See this stunning example of a youth who has never been taught that his own efforts will equal his own failures and successes (maybe lots of group math projects in his background?).  And here is an article that talks about a Sudbury school, where children are completely in charge of their own education.

It's easy to see two things: #1 we do need to learn to work with others, and #2 we do need time and opportunity to daydream and create. Most children are fresh and creative in the morning, so that's the opportunity cost at work when we give those creative hours to the school so the kids can sit at a desk and be told exactly what to do. #2 is sacrificed for #1. (See this article about the purpose of school, which leads into...)

*Truth-seeking is not something that happens at school very much. The general public thinks that schools are for conveying information (which doesn't necessarily correlate with truth), but as the above article points out, the passive nature of this information conveyance is one reason for the lack of retention beyond the test. But it goes deeper than that. Because of the desire to convey information to thirty kids at once, teachers cut truth corners. They dispense with the correct understanding of truth: that it's a journey. Teachers often leave out contrary opinions to the "facts" presented, simply because they don't have the time or interest in getting into them.  For example, the teaching of history is often simplified so much (and turned into sociopolitical propaganda) that if the ghosts of the people who lived then were listening to the discussion, they wouldn't recognize themselves and their time.  In math classes kids are taught not only that there is only one solution to a math "problem" but that there is only one WAY to properly solve it (if you think there's only one solution to any given problem, you should read Flatterland, by Ian Stewart).  Science...don't even get me started. No nuances, no flexibility, no recognition that what is presented as a fact today may be scorned as nonsense in a future generation.

The worst offender is the beastly invention called a textbook. Written by committees, it suffers from the same problems noted above about groupthink, but the worst of it is the anonymity.  If a book has one person's name on the cover, you understand that it is one person's opinion about the topic, and shouldn't be taken as gospel.  Without that reality check, naive people (like children) get the impression that everything between the covers is the absolute, objective truth that everyone on the planet agrees upon.

I recently was reading Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang (so good, and horrifying). In the introduction she discusses how she was able to leave China to study at a university in England--linguistics was her major--where she had a huge epiphany.

I remember the day that I went to discuss the plan for my thesis with my supervisor, Professor Le Page, who, through his sensitive presence alone, had already begun to help dispel the perpetual anxiety and sudden panic that were embedded in me.  His mildly ironic manner and understated authority constantly reassured me, as England did, that I had come to a just place, and that I had nothing to worry about.  Feeling totally relaxed, I babbled on about my views on the linguistic theories I was supposed to survey.  He listened, and at the end asked me, "Couldn't you show my your thesis?"  I was nonplussed, and exclaimed, "But I haven't started it yet!"  He said, "But you have all the conclusions."
That single remark untied a strangling knot fastened around my brain by a totalitarian "education." We in China had been trained not to draw conclusions from facts, but to start with Marxist theories or Mao thoughts or the Party line and to deny, even condemn, the facts that did not suit them.

This same game is played in American education, to a lesser, but still significant extent. Consider a typical school test.  A child must read a question and pick one of four answers as the right one. There is disgrace in choosing three of the four, including the possibility of having the limited amount of time he has available to follow his own interests replaced by the memorization of more "facts" about the subject. That is called punishment, and without thinking we do this to kids every day. So they memorize those facts to the tune of the carrot and the stick, and I believe this shuts out the deeper thinking that may have occurred regarding the topic if a free discussion and hands-on exploration were the methodology pursued--without the threat of a quiz at the end.

From the above Washington Post article:

From my 30-year career, I was clear about what young adults will need in the 21st Century. Yet, I kept seeing variants of that darn 3rd grade simple-machines lesson. Creative expansive thinking turning into narrow, prescriptive “right answers,”. Inquisitiveness shriveling up into “Will this be on the test?” A joy for learning worn down into time-efficient hoop-jumping. A willingness to take intellectual risks morphing into formulaic responses without risk of embarrassment.

How, then, would the teacher assess understanding without right and wrong answers filled in on a bubble sheet?  Well, does a good grade on a quiz equal understanding of a topic?  Or that the student will remember anything about it a year later?  That's going off on another tangent, but the main point is that the stress surrounding learning is NOT conducive to good learning, to deep thinking.  So we get generations of shallow thinkers, programmed to knee-jerk answers and sound-bite comebacks, without a thought to seeking underlying truths.

What to do? Do you have to begin every sentence with "Some people believe that..."? No, but you state on a regular basis that we need to be humble about what we think we know, since new ideas could emerge that would require us to consider them.  And you pull out some good examples like how everyone used to be taught that everyone used to believe that the world was flat, but in fact many ancient people understood that it is a sphere.  And how just a few years ago, cholesterol caused heart attacks, but now it doesn't (funny how that happens...).  And then discussion, discussion, discussion--stating what you think to be true, poking at it to see where you might have a weak spot, etc.  Often the right answer is "None of the above."

*Wisdom is always in short supply.  I'm quite certain that I'm not wise, but that awareness causes me to "seek learning even by study and also by faith." That takes time, it takes being independent-minded, and it takes a strong desire to search for truth. I pray that we give our children this opportunity to seek wisdom as well, and not just in the small spaces between other activities, but as part and parcel of what they do every day.

Homeschoolers and College: Five Essentials

When my kids were little, preparing for college was just a worry in the back of my mind.  They would certainly go after they graduated from our homeschool, but until it got close I didn’t have to think about it, right?

Wrong!  Now that we're in our twenty-first year of homeschooling and have sent three kids off to college, I've formed some definite ideas about what it takes to succeed there.   Here are the five things I believe to be most essential to launching a young adult into the big world of college.  They are all things that must be built gradually, starting from a young age.

First: Spiritual Maturity

Does your child have a strong testimony of the gospel?  Does he have habits that will maintain his testimony in the absence of parental oversight?  Does he know the joy of service, in and out of the church?  We set an example for our children in all areas of our lives, and there are things best taught by deeds.  As we do our visiting teaching, as our children see us reading our scriptures and attending the temple, and as we share our feelings about these things with them in daily devotionals, they will have a firm foundation for their own spiritual growth. Temptations abound on LDS and non-LDS campuses alike.  “Testimony: Don’t Leave Home Without It.”

Second: Emotional Maturity

A large challenge when moving into young adulthood isn’t knowing what to do, but being able to make oneself do it.  Your teen knows she should eat vegetables, but with you not there to put them on her plate will they end up in her mouth?  She knows she shouldn’t sign up for a credit card unless she has a job (and probably not even then), but they were offering those free T-shirts!  She knows she shouldn’t get into a car with someone she doesn’t know, even if her roommate is, but it was cold and she didn’t want to walk home!  Impulsivity and lack of maturity cause freshmen to sometimes make decisions that they come to regret.

Does your child (especially if she’s shy) have the guts to go knock on her professor’s office door to seek help with a concept she doesn’t understand?  Does she have the time-management skills to pace herself with big papers and assignments?  Can she make herself go sit in the hard chairs in the library to study for an exam while her roommates are watching a favorite TV show?

College is supposed to be a training ground for life.  Unfortunately, it’s a very expensive one, and if your child doesn’t have the maturity to do hard things, sending her off to college will not fix that.  “Baby steps” toward self-discipline could include having her begin to take charge of scarier tasks and more complex issues while still living at home: making her own appointments, taking classes from someone other than mom, meeting deadlines and fulfilling assignments.  Home education is great, but in the high school years (if not before) dealing with people outside the home is essential.  Simply getting a job will go a long way to building the skills and confidence that are so important in college.

Third: High-Level Reading

I recently led a discussion in which more than twenty teens each presented a book that they thought everyone should read for our book club, and yes, homeschoolers love Narnia and Lord of the Rings.  I love these books too, but if your teen’s reading never goes beyond this, he’ll have trouble in college.  Depending on what he majors in, he could have hundreds of pages per week of dense college texts to read, digest, and recall the major points of for class discussion and testing. 

To prepare for this, your child needs both quality and quantity: he needs to challenge himself by exploring new types of fiction and non-fiction–at times reading for speed and at other times for contemplation.  Study How to Read a Book by Adler and Van Doren as a primer on this topic.  Your child needs practice in marking up a text and taking notes on what he’s read.  Involving him in outside or online classes where these types of skills are required is a good way to start–and a safe place to fail if that is the outcome.  We want to have our failures before college if necessary, so that educational gaps will be identified and important lessons learned.

Fourth: Writing--Speed vs. Quality

The twenty-five minute essay test on the SAT has been the bane of my kids’ existence.  We don’t run our homeschool on a strict schedule (I’m not sure who does!) so my kids are used to taking their time on a piece of writing that they care about.  Sadly, on the SAT and afterwards in college, you often have to write about things you don’t care about, and write quickly because you have three other things also due the next day.  Traditionally-schooled students get lots of writing practice assigned–lots more than I’ve ever had my kids do–and start at a young age.  I tend to think that writing is the culmination of so many other skills that it is vulnerable to over-ambitious writing programs that extinguish the simple joy of self expression.  But there is certainly value to having kids begin writing essays in middle school, starting with fluffy topics and gradually becoming more serious, culminating with research papers.  Helping kids distinguish between a writing-for-quality paper vs. a writing-for-speed paper (an essay for your English class vs. a report for your geology class) is also a worthy topic of discussion in the high school years.

Fifth: Confidence in Math

Math is seen as a hurdle by many high school students–both on college entrance exams and in a college-prep high school curriculum.  The difference between facing higher math with anxiety or confidence begins much earlier, as we help our young children develop number sense, followed by operation sense, followed by function sense.  From the get-go, focus on math using things that can be seen and touched.  Leave working with symbols and the artificial conventions of math “problems” (like regrouping for subtraction) until the child has a concrete understanding of what is going on with quantities in the real world.  Building a logical brain is really fun: puzzles, games, pattern-making, etc.  My three year-old loves the DragonBox algebra app, and apart from fussing about the amount of screen time he does, I love that he’s already figuring out the logic behind balancing and simplifying equations.

If your child is struggling with math in the upper grades, it may be that he has learned to memorize the “steps” without understanding the logic behind them.  Even if a college entrance exam is looming, don’t be afraid to go back to math levels he is comfortable with, and have him work with manipulatives (you can buy rods with variables for algebra) or translate complex problems into simpler versions of the same operation so that he can visualize what is going on.  Using a program that takes a very different approach to math than what was previously used can also help those “Ah-hah” moments come along.  My son raised his SAT math score significantly after taking a few months to go through the Life of Fred program–he had previously studied math with Saxon, but Life of Fred helped him gain a wider perspective of math.

Good, Better, Best

Conventional wisdom says that success in college is directly related to academic skills, but I’ve found this to be off the mark.  Though the latter three points are essential, they are not to be emphasized at the expense of the former two.  Standardized testing measures what you know but not how motivated and hard-working you are, and in my opinion, this trumps academic knowledge in predicting college success.  And good grades won’t make up for a loss of spirituality when an immature soul makes bad choices because of the strong peer pressure, in and out of the classroom, to discard God in favor of worldly values.  As Jessie Wise noted in The Well-Trained Mind, one mom told her, after sending her daughter off to college, “I just spent forty thousand dollars to ruin my daughter’s life.”  Preparing our kids academically is good, making sure they are emotionally prepared to care for themselves while away from home is better, and making sure they face the world wearing the full armor of God is best.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family!  We love and pray for you, and hope that you are seeing the blessings of peace and prosperity  in your lives that come from living “after the manner of happiness.” (2 Ne. 5:27)  Here is what we’ve been up to.

We started the year with Seth, Luke, and Adrianne at home along with three young foster kids: Melissa, Yasmina, and Matthew.  Quinn was in the Oregon Eugene mission, and Lindy and her husband Nick were living in Idaho Falls both working at an IT company.  Paul continued his economist job at the National Mining Association in D.C., and I “attempted” to homeschool Luke while dealing with the challenges that our foster kids brought into our lives. It was a blessing to have Adrianne at home, as she really took over as Seth’s mommy while I was gone so much.  And while I was home much of my time was spent working with the kids on their issues, and just being inundated by all of their needs.

After a few months things settled down a bit with the foster kids, and we got into some routines that worked for everyone.  Then we got word that Lindy and Nick were going to be parents, which made us...(drum roll)...grandparents!  I’m still wrapping my brain around that, especially as Seth is only three.

In May Luke and I went to Virginia Beach to assist with the three day Latter-day Saint Home Educators conference–I continue as chairman and Luke was on the game committee.  It was a big success, with 800 attendees and fabulous presentations from many great folks including John Bytheway, Jericho Road, Merrilee Boyack, and Dr. Ariel Rodriguez (just to name a few of my favorites).  One evening we had to move the family dance from the beachside deck of the Cavalier up to the 11th floor of the hotel because of a severe storm threatening off the coast.  But that ended up being very cool because the room had floor to ceiling windows all around, and we watched the black clouds over the ocean and the big waves rolling in.  John Bytheway had been stuck at JFK airport because his flight to Norfolk was cancelled, but the storm rolled away and we had a lovely time at the dance and our keynote speaker came in late that night and was at the podium the next morning–the power of prayer!

When summertime hit we had a great time at home with our new, big family.  Paul and I built a play set and put in a raised bed garden, and the kids had a great time planting and watching things grow (and Seth and Matthew thought it was hilarious to run through the 20x4 foot bed in the soft dirt like it was a race track, mashing the baby plants while I ran over to yank them out). The kids spent hours of each day down at our cute little creek throwing rocks in it and building bridges, jumping on the trampoline, exploring in the woods, and swinging, sliding, and hanging on the monkey bars.  We took them camping at Westmoreland state park where we have in past years found lots of fossil shark teeth at the edge of the Potomac river, but with these guys we weren’t able to spend much time there–too nerve-wracking that one of them was going to wade out too deep and get washed away–the pool was a much better fit for us.

In August we took a two week vacation to Utah and Idaho with our crew: a visit to Temple Square, an art festival on the Idaho Falls Greenbelt, hiking up to a mountain lake to catch millions of baby frogs, horseback riding, pools and playgrounds, picking huckleberries up in the mountains, family reunions, four-wheeling, fishing, and boating–we really packed it in and the kids went to bed exhausted every night instead of the adults, which was a nice change.

After our return we were notified that the kids would be going back to their mother.  We were grateful for some reasons and sad for others, and just continued to try to support them as they transitioned into spending weekends with their mom.

Adrianne had been taking some online IT classes trying to get an internship at the company that her sister works at, and at the beginning of September she went back to Idaho for a friend’s wedding, got a retail job, and eventually landed the internship.  So between both jobs she’s been working 65 hour weeks--she didn’t want to bail out on TJMaxx during the holidays) but is looking forward to getting back to more reasonable hours.

In October Seth and I got on another airplane to go help out with...baby Ivan Nicholas!  Seth didn’t know what to think about being an uncle to such a noisy little lump, but I am in love with the little guy.  A friend told me to snag a cool grandma name for myself, so I’m officially “Nana.”

On November 18th Elder Quinn Georgia returned triumphant from his mission and we got to hug and hug and hug him.  He’s so amazingly grown-up and also still quite silly, so it’s great.  Then the next week we moved the kids back in with their mom, which was really heart-wrenching for all of us.  We were able to see them last week and take two of them up to the Festival of Lights at the temple.  They seemed to be doing pretty well.

Now we’re in the process of launching Quinn back into school at BYU Provo and then getting back to normal...or semi-normal, since life is always changing.  Paul and I were just called to be family history consultants and Sunday school teachers, which starts up in January, so we’ve got to do some serious homework to get up to speed on that.

Love to All!
The Georgias

"Foster care?!"

Being involved with foster care for the past two years I’ve had many questions about it.  They generally fall into three categories: 

“Foster care?  How does that work?”  (what are the logistics like), 

“Foster care? How do you manage?”  (what is your home life like now?), 

and “Foster care? How can you handle doing that?” ( by which people mean, how do you manage issues of the heart).  

I’ve had so many thoughts stewing in my brain as our first long-term placement comes to a close, that I thought I’d answer these questions to the extent of our experience.  Of course things can be very different in other places, and each foster family has their own set of challenges before they take on the unique challenges of each foster child in their home.  But some general principles will be universal.

But before I answer any of the above, I’ve also had people ask “Why would anyone do foster care?”  Our answer is simple—to adopt someone to raise with Seth, as there’s a thirteen year gap between our fourth and fifth children.  We looked into all the options (infant adoption is out for us for many reasons) and even started down a road to international adoption only to have every door slam in our faces.  In the past 8 to 10 years international adoption has become extremely difficult and expensive (it already was, but now it’s much worse), and we determined after extensive research that we had no greater chance of being able to adopt internationally than from foster care.  The children coming from overseas are frequently just as traumatized as domestic foster-to-adopt kids but with foster care you have the chance to do a “test drive” of the relationship.  If after giving it a try you find that it’s just not a good fit, you can decide against adoption--should that become a possibility the agency will look for another permanent family.  And though there is waiting period whichever option you choose, we knew that in the case of foster care we’d at least be doing some real good in the world in the interim, rather than just filling out more forms and sending more money all the time, like you do in international adoption.  So we decided to go for it.

Our first step was to check with our county social services department.  They told me they weren’t interested taking applications from foster-to-adopt parents, and when I asked how many foster kids they had placed last year for adoption, they said six.  Six isn’t very many in a county of a half million people, and the training and paperwork you go through doesn’t usually apply to other counties.  But through pure serendipity we found an agency that places foster kids throughout the northern half of Virginia (if you don’t know that something exists you don’t know to look for it).  This way we have a much larger pool to choose from—we get calls from our agency for children that fit our criteria but are outside our county. 

Question #3 -- How can you stand it?

Yes, this is the really hard part—the kids just went home permanently a few days ago, and I’ve been dreaming about them.  There is sadness, there is relief (that I’m not going to be dealing with all their multiple issues permanently, as we had hoped to adopt them) there is happiness (that we’ve done something good in the world) and there is guilt (that I could have done more, done better).  So many emotions, but have I learned anything that could help someone else “stand” to do this?

As we’ve gone through this I’ve often told myself “I’m the adult.  I can handle it.  I don’t need to pay attention to my own emotions.  I can support their emotional recovery.”  And that is mostly true.  But the tantrums and misbehavior would sometimes wear me down, and I wouldn’t respond as well as I should.  So it’s a tricky balance: sometimes they would need time-out, but instead I’d put myself in time-out (my bedroom/sanctuary) so that I could regain my composure.  These children were more difficult than any of my kids, and this is pretty typical among foster kids. 

I like the model of attachment theory because it explains so well what actually goes on here.  Non-traumatized children have a normal attachment to their family: they love to be with their family, but when in a “safe environment” they will independently separate from the parent and explore their own interests.  They may have shyness issues, and toddlers may have age-appropriate anxiety when separated from their family, but this will dissipate as they grow into emotionally-secure children.

Traumatized children will usually have an attachment disorder.  The mildest--insecure attachment--looks like a child who is always anxious that the parent will disappear: they love, they need, but they don’t quite trust.  They don’t really follow their own interests much because they can’t let go of their anxiety.  They respond with high anxiety to any discomfort (hunger or pain), and have a melt-down if they think they are being neglected.  They attempt to control every situation, because when they are in control they don’t get hurt (or so they believe).  They are often angry and defiant with family and peers.

The most severe--disorganized or reactive attachment disorder--manifests as a child who has totally shut down, who does not attempt to engage the nurturer or make connections with them.  The child is inwardly focused, and will have long-term problems with empathy and relationships.  He exhibits repetitive and regressive behaviors, shows a lot of anxiety, and is generally unable to function in society.

There is a whole spectrum in between, and children may have a patchwork of issues from easy to severe.  I can’t share details, but many of my friends witnessed moments when all the kids wanted to sit on my lap, follow me around, watch everything I did, talk incessantly to me to engage my attention even when I was busy or on the phone, and/or undo whatever I had just done (folding laundry was impossible with the littlest around).  There was an endless stream of love notes coming at me (which broke my heart)and literally a bottomless well of need—no matter how much attention I gave them (well, two of them) it was never enough.  One was more detached—possibly further toward the disorganized end of the spectrum, or possibly just a personality thing, but this child was less insistent upon attention though more insistent upon other things.

Understanding the psychological basis of their behaviors really helped me to respond better to them.  It certainly wasn’t easy, and I do wish I could have been the perfect mother all the time.  But after a few months, when I felt I wasn’t going to make it, I literally gave myself permission to NOT be therapeutic all the time.  Instead of being passively complacent and asking them about their feelings when they would act out, I would take them by surprise (the book Parenting the Hurt Child actually recommends this).  I might pretend to have a tantrum on the ground next to them.  I might be stern.  I might be silly.  I might walk away.  I might stay in the same room but completely ignore them and talk and laugh with someone else.  I did anything I felt like, short of corporal punishment or verbal abuse.  Taking this approach put me back in the driver’s seat, allowing me to be more real, and disallowing them from controlling the situations so much, which is a strong motivator for traumatized kids.  And it saved me from quitting, which would have been much more harmful than not being 100% professional all the time.

Another important issue I’ll touch on here about the “how do you stand it?” of foster care is that, unlike dealing with kids at church or in the neighborhood, these kids are in your house every day and night.  Unless you turn your house into Fort Knox (we had a bit of that going on) they will be getting into your things in every nook and cranny of your house.  Depending on the ages and tendencies of the kids, you’ll have everything from “artwork” on walls to strange items found chewed up under couches.  You really have to not care too much about your house and your things or it will drive you nuts.  Put away all the things you really care about, and remember that under all the trauma they are little kids—there was a time when I would rejoice when the little guy would make a mess with the toys, because when he first came here he didn’t know what toys were for.

Last, a big question in my mind when thinking of doing foster care was: should I actually fall in love with these little guys?  Give kisses and hugs and “I love you’s”? Should they call us mommy and daddy?  My knee-jerk reaction when they came was yes, especially since we thought we’d be able to adopt them and wanted to start off on the right foot.  So we treated them like our kids—hugs and kisses and rocking to sleep at night.  And even though they went back, I’m so glad we did this—we didn’t know at first exactly what had happened to them, but as the picture became clear, I realized that treating them like our kids was IMMENSELY therapeutic for them.  An experienced foster mom told me that they usually did this with their foster kids, but once they got a boy who wasn’t expected to stay long and they decided not to invest with him emotionally—they were just Mr. and Mrs. and he slept at their home.  She told me she deeply regretted this decision, as he did end up staying with them for a long time, and she never felt like she was able to bond with him and help him with his issues very much.  Words matter, what you call someone matters, affectionate behavior can change hearts.