Expelled from summer camp

Jacob, 5, was expelled from summer camp yesterday.

This is for the behavior that our agency pooh-poohed, saying it was "typical for our foster youth." When we asked for assistance in terms of training for us or, medical help or counseling for Jacob, DSS told us we were "making a mountain out of a molehill."

Their mother said the problem was us -- our house must be "too chaotic" and we should just "let him be a kid."

Never mind that he got in-school suspension on his last day of kindergarten. For hitting another child so hard that it left an immediate bruise and a cut on her face.

Never mind that we got repeated notes home about him from school...and then from summer camp.

It must just be us. All of us.

And then came today.

We had arranged, after much fighting, for our agency to send someone with Jacob to his field trip (because his behavior is far worse on field trips). Somehow, despite her, he ran around touching everything, coloring on other kids' artwork, doing various things to get responses from his peers (licked a pole, ate grass), and finally his coup de grace: running away from the group to go under a rope fence and head down a stony embankment to a vacant paper factory.

Afterward, we were told he could no longer attend the weekly field trips unless one of us is with him.

Of course, the reason he is in summer camp is because we both work. We can't take off once a week to chaperone him.

They had also warned us just that morning that they might have to kick him out altogether. He's been cutting apart other kids' artwork as it hung to dry, kicking down their lego creations and laughing, spitting, dropping toys in the toilet or the garbage, and running off.

In other words, typical Jacob stuff.

So, we clearly needed to find a more restrictive environment for him -- one with doors and set activities, rather than the free-for-all of multiple choices that his former camp offered, and counselors who could manage kids like him.

And we definitely need to find it before next Thursday -- field trip day -- because neither of us can skip work that day.

I called his pediatrician about this, and he immediately prescribed a change in Jacob's medication. Bio mom immediately nixed this change, so we're not allowed to do it.

There's no movement on the counseling yet either.

My wife and I really got a wake-up call by the expulsion. Although we quickly interviewed several places and found one where they seem confident that they can manage him, we can see the writing on the wall.

What are we going to do if he gets suspended from school in the fall?

We've both used up all of our leave for the YEAR caring for him already during the many days he's been sent home, as well as the weekly visits to mom and various doctor appointments. Both of us have jobs in which we can't simply stay home for a week if he gets suspended.

And if we can't get him the medicine or counseling he needs to improve, he's heading in that direction.

Complicating the issue is that both of us have major, unavoidable surgery scheduled for this fall. We had planned to use respite during that time -- there are families that could take them on the weekends, and the one of us who is not recovering from surgery can handle getting the kids to school & picking them up from after-care, doing dinner and bedtime. But the one who is recovering definitely can't handle Jacob home all day.

Should we give them up?

If we are going to give them up for months this fall, we ought to do so NOW so that they don't have to switch schools. So we have to make a decision soon.

We have some hope: a family member is asking for custody, and she might get it at a court hearing in three weeks. We are so hopeful. That would be the best outcome for the kids: going back to family, but not living with their mother until/if she pulls herself together. And it would resolve our problem.

We know giving them up would devastate them. But as Jacob becomes more and more needy, and his mother blocks more and more of the medical/psychological options, we become less sure that we can give him what he needs. It would be better for him if he were with someone who could care for him fully than getting iffy care from us.

But would another foster home give him the care he needs?

Would they love him the way we do?

Would they recognize and nurture his curiosity and imagination? Would they reassure him? Would they do more than just keep him fed and clothed?

So many foster homes are not much more than boarding houses. Jacob and Sophia need PARENTS.

It's a hard decision and it would be much better if they can just go back to family, like they've always wanted.