One Month and Counting

The transition for foster children coming into a new home has a pretty predictable pattern to it.  In fact, they even have a name for the first phase called the Honeymoon phase.  The first few days or weeks, they try to be extra good and appear somehow to be angel children because everything is new and different. 

 

Once the newness wears off and they realize they are staying for much longer than they expected, it becomes a "crash" time (for lack of a better word since they didn't actually name that period that I know of).  All their trouble behaviors seem to appear all at once.  It's only after this "crash" happens that you can really start working with them.

 

Dillon had about a week of honeymoon, then about two weeks of crashing - literally and figuratively- and now it appears that we are finally at a point where we are making some progress with him.  During his two weeks of crashing, we felt like all we were doing with him was putting him in time out.  I needed a system to help me reward even the smallest good behaviors, so using my accounting instincts, I came up with a dollar system.  They could earn fake dollars for even the simplest things like making their bed, getting dressed and brushing their teeth. 

 

The first few days were brutal for Dillon as I walked out the door to the car in the morning and he's still pulling his pants on and carrying his shoes.  Then he would hit someone at daycare again and lose one and then another.  But he's finally starting to see the rewards now and he's getting really excited.  They both had enough money to buy a happy meal at McDonalds last week at the high price of $20 per meal. 

 

I suppose we will probably have to get into a discussion about currency exchange rates when they figure out how much things really cost :-)

 

Anyway, the good thing is that he's responding to our discipline and structure, which will hopefully translate into more enjoyable family time.  It's just that his impulsiveness (often called Elly- his stuffed elephant) seems to get him into trouble more than he would like.