The next move

Let's see.  My last entry spoke of complete chaos in our family.  I guess I should let you know how we are recovering.  Fortunately, we have been guided in our actions over the past few months because there were certain people already in place who were instrumental in getting our life put back together.

1.        Our service coordinator.  Our neurologist had suggested him as a resource who could recommend the best service providers in our area.  They usually coordinate appointments and talk to Medicaid for you, which I didn't really need.  But as soon as he found out what had happened,  he immediately found us a new licensed PSR worker who has worked with RAD kids.   Thank heavens we had already gone through the paperwork and were using him because I use the word "immediately" very loosely.  Nothing with Medicaid is immediate.  The new worker is only starting to work with Dillon this week.

 

2.       Our therapist.  I'm so glad we had been going to a therapist who was helping us parent Dillon.  We already had a relationship in place with him when life fell apart, and he has been instrumental in helping us get through that.

A few months ago, I didn't really feel like we needed either of these people so I can tell you that getting them involved in our life was not an accident.

So what happens when a RAD kid gets his way and succeeds at triangulating adults? 

We are now dealing with defiance and rebellion like we've never seen before in him.  The worst of it was over in about three weeks.  We were told to stand firm in all of our rules and boundaries (which was incredibly exhausting) until he realized the rules were not changing and we are still in charge.  That has worked for the most part although he does still test a few things every day.  But he has also become resistant to any kind of work that requires even an ounce of energy.  He decided that if he drags his feet long enough, either sister will take care of the house work or it will just be time for bed and he won't have to do it. 

Enough of that.  I got tired of coaxing, pushing, and bribing him to get it done, only to have him dig his heels in a little deeper.  So one night he had 5 jobs to do that would have taken less than 30 minutes to finish (factoring in goofing off between each one).  It took him an hour and a half to just take out the garbage.  I decided that bed time could wait until he was done which wasn't until 12:45am (six hours later).  His field trip to Lagoon the next morning required him to get up at 5:30 so he was really tired that day.  Jobs are now pre-assigned instead of a group effort, but I have yet to confirm if one lesson was enough to send the message.  I'm guessing we will still have a few more late nights ahead of us.

He is also still overreacting any time he gets a scrape or a bruise – and let me reiterate that they are ALL self-inflicted.  If he gets enough attention from it, he will literally whine all day about it.  I've never seen a kid have so much stamina for crying, and his sister is really good at conjuring up fake tears.  This problem has greatly hindered learning to ride his bike without training wheels.  He won't even make it onto the bike before he scrapes his leg on a pedal and completely melts down and gives up.

Next stop – second grade in less than two weeks.  Heaven help us all as we plow through yet another life transition before this one is even over.

Some days are better than others

Dillon caused us some major stress this week and got us involved with CPS.  

 

To understand what happened, you need to understand a little about his Reactive Attachment Disorder which I have mentioned in previous posts.  He does what is called "triangulation" -which means he will say anything to get adults to believe he is a victim of his parents or any other adult who makes him do something he doesn't like.  It's his way of attempting to get attention and receive unending coddling and sympathy.

 

So last week on his birthday, he was standing next to Neal while Neal was helping Halle get out of the truck.  The wind, which is super strong on the front of our house, swung the truck door closed and it caught Dillon in the face.  Since Neal's back was turned, he only saw that his lip was cut so he cleaned that up for him.  We didn't realize it had gotten the whole side of his head until bruising showed up 24 hours later because he didn't complain of any other pain.

 

Anyway, that night he decided to show off and see what he could get away with while my parents were there for his birthday.  He jumped up on the table and his legs came out from under him which landed him on his back.  Again, more bruises, so by Friday evening he was looking pretty bad and you can see where this is going.

 

He's seen CPS come to his birth home over 15 times, so he's been asked abuse questions more than once, and he also knows he gets special treatment if he answers them a certain way.  This time, he was with his brand new PSR worker who didn't take the time to read anything in his history.  She asked him on Monday morning how he got hurt, he instantly said, "my dad hit me," and then she reported it and he was taken from us.

 

After hours of phone calls notifying our therapist, his neurologist, our lawyer, his doctor, and our foster care licensing worker who knows us almost intimately, they didn't file anything with the court and we got him back.  But it took a lot of people coming to our defense, and even a past history with the prosecuting attorney that certainly helped.

 

At first, the caseworker who had custody of him treated us like complete criminals.  The police came to our house late that night -at our insistence.  We weren't going to pull Halle out of bed to go down to the police station for hours of grilling.  We took them through a short history of our last year with him and after showing them his shredded sheets, the destroyed closet door, and other effects of his behavior, they were totally on our side.  Then the caseworker showed up and wouldn't listen to much that we had to say.  She insisted it would be at least 30 days before we saw him again.  Neal told me later he thought I was going to lunge at her from the couch, but I restrained.

 

Here's where Heavenly Father was watching over this boy.  His neurologist had to cancel his appointment last week due to an emergency and she only had one appointment left this week.  It happened to be the next morning.  We asked if he could still make it to that appointment because it was so hard to get in to see her, and the caseworker said it was absolutely important that he kept that appointment and she would be there with him.  That's all we needed.

 

Dillon eventually realized that after all the attention he was getting, the part of his life that's predictable had also been taken away.  He wasn't going to be sleeping in his own bed that night and he had changed his story three times by the next morning when we met them.  The caseworker spent the first 20 minutes trying to get Dillon to tell the doctor what he had told her, but he wouldn't give her any sensible answer by then - welcome to our world where at least we have Halle to play interpreter for him.  She even tried to take him out of the room and see if he would answer without us around but still apparently didn't get anything.

 

After that, the neurologist literally spent the first hour of the appointment berating the caseworker about the actions that had been taken against us, and then the next hour summarizing his past and his behaviors that we deal with, and then the last hour evaluating his medicine over the past month with us.  It was good to have someone actually defending us.

 

By the time we made it back to the prosecuting attorney's office after the appointment, the petition had been dropped.  Dillon apologized to the caseworker on his way back home for lying to her and to "Chuck and another guy (the police)."  And the first thing he did when he got home was make his bed.  The caseworker was not exactly apologetic because from our experience, they would never admit an error, but she was defintely more understanding.

 

What have we gained from this life experience?

 

We have a lot more confidence in our service providers and certainly more patience with their quirks.  We learned that all that time going to therapists and doctors may or may not be helping him personally (and some days it definitely feels like it's not), but it's certainly giving them time to know our situation. 

 

Our hearts are a bit more sympathetic for his birth mom.  She may not have done everything right, but some of her stories were absolutely true from our experience.  We can also understand now with different eyes what parents are experiencing when they lose their kids to CPS, no matter what choices the parents have made.

 

I also know now that I need to educate every single person Dillon works with.  I can't assume they have knowledge even when their credentials dictate it.  His 2nd grade teacher will be first on the list.

 

 

As my title suggests, not all days are like this one ended.  He is actually making major strides now that we have taken him off of his ADHD medicine.  The seizure medicine has brought him down to normal activity levels and he is finally teachable.  He's getting dressed and making his bed after a full year of constant prompting and redirection.  He can also empty the dishwasher and sort and fold laundry without supervision now.  He can sleep at night now without tearing up the room and great things are coming from it. 

 

He's a pretty messed up kid and our Heavenly Father is the only one who knows his true story.  We can only be tools in the Master's hands to turn his life onto a different path than where it was headed, and I think we are at least going in the right direction.

What’s a guy to expect when she’s not expecting?

I've seen reviews for this book, "What's a guy to expect when she's not expecting," but haven't read it yet.  The "10 things not to say to your fertility-challenged wife" in the article caught my eye.  I am proud to report that my husband has never used these lines, but maybe he could have used this book back in the years when we were first struggling with infertility.  Maybe it would have helped him cope with the emotional mess he married into. 

 

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42096898/ns/today-books/t/whats-guy-expect-when-shes-not-expecting/

 

I believe that I was an avoider for about a year, but once we met a sister to friends of ours who had been through the adoption process twice, I suddenly became a doer.  I finally put all the unanswered questions behind me and abandoned medical possibilities for the hope of adoption which turned out to be the best answer for us.

 

 

The 10 things not to say to your fertility-challenged wife:
1. That's OK. I didn't want you to get fat anyway.
2. No more condoms? Cool!
3. Can't we just invest all that money in a flat screen instead?
4. Yes, but these doctors have yet to see my Super Sperm!
5. So if your sister carries it, does that mean I can finally sleep with her?
6. I don't even want kids.
7. Hey, did I tell you my ex-girlfriend's pregnant?
8. I discussed it with my mother, and she thinks ...
9. Don't worry. You're still relatively young.
10. But it's not my fault, right?

Valuable Internet Resources

1.  We are only scratching the surface with Dillon's reactive attachment disorder and we aren't super happy with our current therapist.  I just don't feel like he's addressing things but I'm not sure since he only communicates with us about every six months, so we are in the process of looking for a new one at the moment.  I want to make sure the new one understands how to properly address RAD, and this website has put the information in a very concise format with useful suggestions.  I also want to make sure I can be part of the therapy process and be able to get updates from the therapist weekly.

 

http://www.attachmentdisordermaryland.com/

 

2.  The 27 hours of "special needs" training we received from the state of Idaho to certify as foster parest was pretty useless in preparing us to deal with real-life behavior problems that kids in foster care will have.  It has taken me 8 months to finally come across this website for foster parents that offers online courses on a variety of subjects.  I haven't taken any of the classes yet, but I am hopeful that I will be able to use this as a valuable resource. 

 

http://www.fosterparents.com/