During our foster parenting years I wrote stories about some of our experiences. Most of them were lost when a computer locked up and crashed some years back. I am posting this one and maybe others from time to time to have more than one place to keep them.
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As I was walking down a long hall at the end I saw a room with a desk. Behind that desk was a little girl who would stick her head around the corner of the desk to watch me for a few seconds and then disappear behind the desk. She kept doing this until I reached the end of the hall. When I stepped into the room where the desk was that hid her small body she jumped up, ran to me, grabbed me around my waist and said, “Are you my new mama?” I took her by the hand and told her that I was not her mama but that she may be coming to stay with me for awhile.
Hand in hand we walked on into the room where we met the little girl’s social worker. Indeed, she was the little girl that I had come to take home with me. She was to be our foster child. She had just turned five, was cute as she could be with beautiful brown eyes, brown hair and a smile that would melt your heart.
After taking care of the necessary business, I once again walked down the long hall but this time I was not alone, that little girl and I were walking hand in hand again out of the building and to my car. We drove to my home where we found my husband standing on the porch watching as I drove into the driveway. I barely got the car stopped before the little girl jumped out, ran to the porch with her arms outstretched saying “Daddy, daddy, daddy!” She climbed the steps and gave my husband a great big hug. He was a bit surprised at becoming and instant dad but took it in stride as the three of us walked inside.
This little girl was not in our home very long before we knew that she did not know what many things were. She did not even know the names of common household items. When we went out in public she would call every lady she saw her mama. When talking about different ladies she would refer to them as “my mama at the office”, “my mama at the store”, “my mama at home” and so forth. She could not speak well, and her vocabulary was very limited.
Soon after she came to us I found out that she had spent most of her life in the backseat of a car with her baby brother and a german shepherd dog. She was rarely taken from the car and when she was taken out it was for very short periods of time and usually to be spanked or abused in some way. Food was thrown in the backseat, and she was in competition with the dog to get food for her brother and herself. She had been sexually and physically abused.
Because of the abuse and neglect and her limited vocabulary it took several years of psychiatric therapy as well as speech therapy to get her caught up to her age level and to teach her among many other things that every lady was not her mother.
She had never bonded with anyone so to get her to bond the psychiatrist had me rock her, put her in diapers, let her sleep in a baby bed and give her a bottle and/or pacifier if she wanted either or both of them. He told me to basically treat her as if she were an infant and do for her just like I would if she was still a little baby. She only sucked a bottle a few times and did not wear the diaper for long, but she slept in the baby bed quite awhile and I rocked her a lot for a long time. After a few months she bonded with me and made great progress after that.
When I did things around the house, I would tell her the name of everything I used and explained to her what was to be done with it, for example when I swept the floor I would say “This is a broom, we use it to sweep the floor so it will be clean and no longer dirty.” I continued to do that for years so she could learn what she should have learned the first five years of her life and was not given the opportunity. Wonderful teachers worked with her at school to help her catch up.
Psychiatrists and doctors tested her many times, giving her several different tests. I was told that she had ADHD (Attention Deficit Hypo-active Disorder) which meant that she was inattentively sluggish in her movements and actions. Where some children with ADHD are very overactive she was the opposite. I was also told she would have a reading problem and may never read at all. I refused to believe that. I purchased books and began working with her and she learned to read. I used flash cards to teach her words, and hung notes with names of things around the house so when she looked at things she could see the word and learn to read the word for them. Everywhere we went, if there were words she and I would read and spell them. I didn’t remember ever hearing the word “diphthong” before this little girl started speech therapy, but I learned all about them right along with her.
When someone tells me something cannot be done or may not be possible, well that just fires me up and I must see if that is true or not. I believed with all my heart this little girl could read and learn if given the chance and I am thankful I was allowed to give her that chance. It was a pleasure and honor for me to be the one to teach her and give her a fair start in life after the horrible beginning that was given to her. What a blessing it was to watch her learn, grow and thrive.
This beautiful girl was adopted, graduated high school, grew into a beautiful lady, met a nice looking, amazing man and they married. They were blessed with two wonderful children. She has a job and is doing great in her chosen profession.
