Don't Forget "Me" Time!

I love my car.  I do everything in my car.  It is my traveling office as well as my mode of transportation.  As a Mom, I spend a great deal of time in the car taking children to all their various activities.  I used to get tired and frustrated at the amount of time I spent in the car, until I discovered what a haven my car could be.  Now, it is fully loaded with reading material, snacks and music for Mom.  My car is always the right temperature for me (not my husband's temperature, which is always too cold!).  While I am waiting for my kids to finish their activities, I can read a magazine or a book.  I keep my church reading material in the car too for a daily dose of spirituality.

As a parent, I am a very busy person.  There is rarely time for me to sit down and watch television or read a book just for pleasure.  The family's needs always come first in my life.  I am very happy with the priority of things in my life but it gets difficult to be a giver all of the time.  I need time for me that is uninterrupted.  I should capitalize "uninterrupted" and underline it too.  All I need to rejuvenate is a small bit of time that is just for me.  I have found it in my car.  I shamelessly admit that I have a DVD player with wireless headphones in my car for my little kids and I plug them in everywhere we go.  This small thing allows me to listen to music of my choice, not the Wiggles or Raffi.  I find listening to my music for a short 15 minute ride is so relaxing that I have more patience when we arrive at our destination.

Here is another phrase that should be capitalized and underlined, foster parents need "me" time more more than anyone else I know.  Maybe driving in the car is not your personal brand of "me" time but it is important to find out what your "me" time should be.  Foster parents are givers.  We give of ourselves, our families, and our homes.  We open up our entire existence to the agency and the State of Michigan.  Private time is nonexistent in a busy foster home.  One of my jobs at Hands Across the Water is supporting our foster parents in creative ways.  It has to be creative to entice a family to spend their precious time at an agency sponsored event.  Your agency wants to help you out.  So here are my recommendations for "me" time as a social worker:

Attend support groups.  A support group will bring you together with other foster parents.  Sharing stories and swapping solutions to issues unique to fostering is an incredible experience.  Many support groups allow you to bring your kids and entertain them for you during the meeting.  If going to a group is too much, then find one online.  The same support can be found in an online group. Use respite services if they are offered.  This doesn't mean that you dump your kids on someone else.  Respite care means you can take a break and let someone else carry the load for a short time.  Hands Across the Water is part of group of agencies working to create a babysitting co-op group for our foster parents.  This will involve trading babysitting services with another foster family.  What a great idea!

My recommendations as a Mom are just as important as the professional ones.  Take care of your marriage by going on a date regularly.  Find time to talk without the kids around about things other than the kids.  Talking time with my husband often happens in my car while the kids are plugged into the DVD player.  Dating does not mean that  you have to go somewhere and spend money.  I have scheduled a date at home and sent the children to a babysitter's house.  My husband and I love to watch movies together without a child cuddled between us.  Other personal "me" time activities include, shopping (by myself and not grocery shopping!), going to the library,  or sneaking out to lunch with my best friend.  It does not matter what the activity is or how long it lasts.  The only important criteria is the relaxation factor.  What makes you happy?  Traveling in my car make me happy because I have made it a mini vacation from life.  Find your "me" time and make it happen.  "Me" time will help  you be a stronger parent, better spouse, and just a nicer person to be around in general.  Tell me what you do to relax.  I would love to hear about it.
 

Learning Curve

In addition to my work as a mom and social worker, I am also a crossing guard for the elementary school in our small town.  I have been doing this job for so long that I am hard pressed to figure out how long it has actually been .  It is just something I do as I am shipping my kids to and from school.  About 10 years ago, the school across the street was converted from a middle school to an elementary school and they needed a crossing guard to get the kids across the street safely.  I applied for the job at the local police station and it is now 10 years later.  In case you don't know, most crossing guards are employed by the local police department and it is a paid position.  I enjoy chatting with the kids everyday and complaining about the cold weather to any adult that comes to my corner.

The trouble began two weeks ago when my neighborhood lost power for about five minutes.  I didn't think to much about it until I found the traffic light at my corner was broken.  It is stuck in a flashing yellow pattern.  I love my traffic light and so do the kids.  It has a pedestrian button that the kids never get tired of pushing to stop traffic.  The light turns red and I stand in the street with my stop sign as the children cross the street.  The occupation of a crossing guard is not that complicated in the scheme of things.  My street is a busy street at the open and close of school.  School buses and parents create a mini traffic jam each morning in the rush to get kids to school on time.  My traffic light is really important to create breaks in the never ending flow of cars and get the kids safely across the street.

The first couple of days that the traffic light was broken, the police station sent an officer to direct traffic.  I helped out by holding the kids back until the cars stopped.  I was glad the officer was there to place herself in the line of traffic and I could safely remain on the corner.  A few days turned into a week and the police officer had other things to attend to.  So now it is just me, the kids and a whole lot of traffic.  I know at this point that you are probably wondering what all this has to do with foster care, as this blog is primarily about foster care and not the occupation of crossing guard.  Actually, this is going to be a comparison between the two, so here we go.

My crossing guard job has gotten pretty scary.  I am worried the cars won't see me and plow me down.  Parents in a hurry don't have a great track record for paying attention in my town.  I am worried the kids will step out too soon and a speeding car will create a tragedy.  I will say again that my road is a really busy road.  In order to get the cars to stop now, I hold up my sign before I step off the curb and then watch to make sure I have been seen.  Then I step into the road.  Once I am sure the cars will actually stop, I motion to the kids and crossing the street is successfully accomplished.   I think becoming a foster parents is a pretty scary thing.  It is filled with unknowns.  Will the child have extreme behavior problems?  Will the child like me or will I like them?  Is this good for the other children in my home.  I could go on and on with things that I have worried about prior to a foster placement.  I have read the horror stories in the newspaper.  I have read  blogs about fostering that curl my hair with fear.   Becoming a foster parent could be a car accident waiting to happen.

Now consider this, amazing things are happening at my corner now that the light is entering its third week of not working.  The school bus drivers are lending me a hand by slowing down as they approach my corner.  This is giving me the gap I need to slow the other cars down.  Then parents began communicating silently with me through looks and gestures from their cars and helping to slow traffic too.  I am astounded that the community is working together with me to keep things moving along.  Traffic is slower and people are taking their time to keep the kids safe.  This has happened to me in foster care too.  Grandparents lend a hand, social workers create a network of support, and the community bands together to help a child.  I still worry that I am not doing it right and wonder if the next kid will be the one that ends it all, but the job is comfortable.  The occupation of foster parent is something that I can do despite my thoughts of doom and gloom.  

I am such a pro now at my crossing guard job, stopping cars with confidence and using hand signals to motion the kids forward.  I believe that I can say the same thing about being a foster parent.  I feel like a professional parent and I have confidence in my ability to help children in need.  I am glad that I didn't let fear keep me from becoming a foster parent.  If you are considering fostering a child, my advice is to jump into the process and learn as much as you can.  People will help you along the way.  Don't let fear or worry pull you away from helping children in need.  Don't let the media horror stories stop you from making a difference in a child's life.  If you care about kids and have desire to help, the rest will take care of itself.

14,000 Foster Children in Michigan

There are about 14,000 children in foster care in Michigan right now.  14,000 kids!!!!  How many is that really?  The high school football stadium in my town appears to hold about 1000 people.  It would take 14 small town football fields to hold all the foster kids in Michigan.  If every child represented a day, 14,000 days is 38 years and 130 days.  Michigan 's foster care system is the 6th largest in the country according to a website called Data Center.  What a horrible number.  This number bothers me because I use it all the time in my job.  When I am talking to people about becoming foster parents I tell them there are 14,000 children in foster care in Michigan right now, this very minute.  There is a huge need for foster parents to help these children.

One very smart person said to me, "If you don't have enough foster homes where do these children go?"  That is an excellent question.  I know a lot of things about foster care but I had to do some research to answer this question accurately.  The first part of the answer is that when a child is removed from the home, every effort is made to find a family member willing to take care of the child.  Kinship fostering is an important aspect of what social services does.  If there is no available family (either nonexistent or unwilling), the case worker begins the search for a foster home.  The Department of Human Services (DHS) works with agencies all over Michigan to find available foster homes like Hands Across the Water.  Phone calls and emails go out daily describing children and their needs in search of an available foster home.  The age of the child determines ease of placement.  A baby will probably find a home quickly, but a 14 year old with siblings will be much more difficult to place.  Where does the 14 year old go?  It is the caseworkers job to find a spot for this child who is no longer a cute cuddly baby and probably has behavior issues of some kind.

The caseworker is the key to answering the original question.  It is his or her job to use every resource available to find a suitable home.  The more foster parents the State of Michigan has, the easier placement becomes.  Some people believe the answer lies in not removing children from their birth homes in the first place.  The latest idea is to target problem families and provide services and assistance to keep the family together.  It is a nice idea in theory but does not address the issue of a child's safety in the home.  Some people believe that the DHS is in the business of removing children for the smallest of reasons.  The reality is that these children are in danger.  Danger from physical abuse, danger from lack of food, and in danger from neglect.  I have yet to have a child enter my foster home who was not in immediate danger.  My youngest son, Dylan was removed from his birth home at three months old because his twin sister died of neglect.  His birth family was on food stamps, welfare, and medicare.  A home nurse came once a week to monitor the twins health issues.  She reported the family to Child Protective Services two weeks before the death of Dylan's sister.  It seems to me that every effort was made to keep this family together and a child paid the price.  When Dylan was placed in my home, he was hungry.  Not just hungry, he was starving.  No one was feeding the babies in the birth home.  One twin died, the other was saved in a foster home.  I believe the  foster care system can and does help children in need.  I believe in the abilities of caseworkers and their agencies to recruit new foster parents and find home for the 14,000 children in the State of Michigan.  In my opinion, it is not an option to not have enough foster homes for all the children in need.  A child's life is at stake and that is reason enough for me.

Kinship Foster Care

I read an article that touched my heart this morning about a grandmother raising her grandchildren.  She spoke of how much she loved her grandchildren but felt inwardly angry at the failure of her daughter to raise her own children.  The article does not list the reason that the daughter is unable to care for her children but the most common reason is some sort of substance abuse.  Kinship fostering occurs when a family member becomes the primary caregiver of another family member's children.  Grandma can become a licensed foster parent and foster her own grandchildren.  There are two interesting facts about kinship fostering.  First, the State of Michigan has more kinship foster parents than general foster parents.  Second, social workers always look to place an incoming foster child with a family member before for any other placements are considered. 

The social worker side of me could go on and on about statistics and kinship fostering, but today I am taking a good look at my own children and wondering.  My kids are not ready for marriage or producing children on purpose.  The mother inside of me hopes that they do all the steps in the right order that lead to a wonderful start for my future grandchildren.  I want them to start a career, fall in love, get married, and then present me with fabulous grandchildren.  I remind them of the proper order of events as often as I can.

However, life is messy and does not always follow the hoped for path.  My best friend became a grandmother a lot earlier than she expected.  Now she shares in the care of her precious grandson and worries about the future of her daughter.  A neighbor just down the street from me is raising her four grandchildren because their mother is "unable".   Another friend adopted her sisters three children when it became clear that the children needed a home.  These people and situations are all around us.  These people share many of the same challenges that other foster parents do, plus a few more.  Some have given up peaceful retirement plans to return to raising children.  I can only imagine the tangle of emotions that come with unexpectedly raising children again.  Resentment, anger, love, responsibility, grief, all play a part in this decision.  I admire these people and their willingness to put family first in their lives.

Kinship foster parents go through the same background checks and clearances that other foster parents do and receive financial help as part of the process.   Some families formally adopt their family member's children and some do not.  A very few go on to foster other children in the system.  Grandparents and other family members  who keep a family together are special people.  

Would I take in my sister children?  Could I raise my grandchildren if the situation arose?  I know in my heart that I would but I also know it would not be an easy road.  I would like to send out a cyber hug to those who choose family first and take this difficult road.  

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