A threat?

Well, my days of being a foster parent may be coming to a close.

After Jacob's violent episode the other night, I wrote an email (which is what DSS and our agency prefer) asking yet again about getting him into counseling.

As our agency had trained us, I also documented the various things going on that day in an attempt to pin down what might be at the root of the problem. I listed about five possibilities. One was that Jacob had just learned his mother would not be going to his graduation, but would be going to his sister's. I wrote that he was very upset about it, and asked if there was any way for anyone to give bio mom a ride after her court hearing (since I know some of them will be there too).

I got no response, of course. As usual. And today, my wife got a call from DSS to say she was confused by the email because she thought we could schedule the counseling appointment. (She and our agency both told us we could not, two weeks ago, but now she thinks we can? If only she had TOLD us this before now...) So she's going to call and get Jacob in with the counselor she prefers. Great! But she added that we shouldn't send emails suggesting "favoritism" again because it might get back to the bio mom.

What??

She went on to say, "You know, you already almost lost the kids once."

Apparently bio mom wanted them to stay with the respite family that they hated so much last week.

This left us feeling quite conflicted.

On the one hand -- these kids are a HUGE amount of work. We are sticking with this solely because we committed to the kids. It's bad for kids to get moved from foster home to foster home. It's very traumatic for them. So when we took them, we agreed to stick with it til the end.

Will we miss them when they go? Yeah. But man, oh man, we will probably never do foster care again and we will not think back on these months as being wonderful or even great. These are high-needs kids to whom we are giving all we can. Being told they could be moved to another family if we keep trying to figure out what is upsetting Jacob to the point of violence is like saying, "If you keep trying to solve this really hard problem at work, by God, I'll give it to another worker instead!"

It's like, um...we know that would deeply hurt the kids. But it's not really a threat, you know? It sounds like a reward. But it would hurt the kids badly, so we're opposed to it. But if they could go home right away, which would be great for them, we would be OVERJOYED.

And yes, we'd miss them a bit. I do love them. But a kid who repeatedly kicks me in the stomach, saying, "I want to hurt the baby," is not high on my "please don't go away" list.

So I don't know. The DSS worker told us, "Don't make a mountain out of a molehill." So...his serious mental illness that leads him to commit violence is a molehill?

And I have to admit I'm puzzled by her comment about the bio mom wanting the kids moved. Since when does DSS move kids based on the bio mom's desires, when DSS knows it's bad for the kids and is also filing a deposition in court saying the mom is unfit?

It's all so confusing. I'm left feeling like I'm doing something wrong in trying to help Jacob. All I can guess is that what they want is for foster parents to be seen and not heard -- in other words, just keep the kids alive, don't mention any problems and certainly don't ask for help.

My wife called me after the conversation with DSS, telling me she is "so done" and wanted to tell DSS, "just take them." She didn't. Because we know it would hurt the kids. But we're doing this for them, not for DSS or the bio mom or our agency or anybody else. We are providing them with consistency because that's what they need. We are giving them love, attention, discipline, broadening activities, all the educational help they need, tons of fun, and most of all, stability.

We buy them everything they need and many things they want, we go to all their special events and make sure to invite their bio family, we plan weekend activities that they want to do...we treat them, in all ways, like they are our own.

Yet I am left feeling I am doing something wrong.