Hi! I’m Renee, and I have been a therapeutic foster parent for the past 18 years. I was 32 years old when I started fostering, and had never been a parent. The day I started foster care classes the song lyric “It’s the end of the world as I know it… and I feel fine” got stuck in my head. However, that was far from the truth!
We got our first foster son assigned to us the night we completed our foster care licensing class. We had to beg for extra days as we didn’t even have furniture for the child’s room yet. He was a 7 year old cutie with blonde hair and big blue eyes, but had been subjected to such levels of neglect he was used to scavenging for food. Like any kid he wanted all of the sweets and treats, but when we saw how they altered his behavior (Think Gremlins if you are old enough to remember that movie!) we knew we had to get some boundaries in place. Two months later he was joined by a 15 year old boy who had just displaced from his adoptive home. He craved sugar and would steal to get the money to buy sodas and candy. Over the years, many more followed, including 2 biological children (SURPRISE! after being told children weren’t an option for us.)
We made LOTS of mistakes as first time parents, but one of the things we noticed was how differently these children were impacted by their food choices than my husband and I were. There was a connection between the trauma they had endured and the malnutrition their bodies had suffered as a result.
Studies on world hunger show that poorly nourished children exhibit:
- Cognitive deficiencies
- More aggressive behavior
- Attention deficiencies
- Poor social relationships
- More symptoms of depression and anxiety
- Low self esteem
Hmmm…looks an awful lot like the effects children who have experienced trauma show…
This drove me to research how to heal malnutrition. Along the way I learned about gut health and the connection to the immune system. (Another effect of malnutrition, resulting from lack of dietary protein is a high rate of infection). I studied brain health, and how to improve brain health in children who suffered malnutrition, as research has shown the long term cognitive deficiencies can be healed. I learned how and why the attentional issues were the hardest to remediate, which is why I studied Mindfulness to learn strategies to help children learn to calm and have increased awareness of their body. I used everything I was learning to make changes in my children’s diet, which then helped their bodies have the nutrition they need to begin to heal- healing not only their bodies but their minds.
This brought about changes for the children that helped them sustain in placement.
We know that one of the most significant things that happens in the lives of foster children, who have already been removed from their birth home, is the disruptions of placements. Moving from place to place because their behaviors were more than their foster home could sustain with. We were often the end of the line placement for children. One son came to us 3 weeks after the phone call of “Will you take him if we can find him? He has run away again.”
Repeated transitions do not help children to develop the connections they need to sustain relationships, learn effective and appropriate coping skills, or learn how to be parented so that they can successfully parent their own children. That is the goal…helping the children in our care to heal in all ways to enable them to break the cycle and be able to successfully parent their own children.
Does this resonate with you? Would you like to talk more? Let’s chat!
HEALING IS POSSIBLE!
It starts with what you put in your grocery cart…
I wanted to share words from a few of my own children…
I think the most important thing you’ve taught me is to be patient. I get frustrated easily and I never give myself time to breathe and think. Having 4 kids has taught me a lot but I always remember how you were with me thru the years and a lot has stuck with me. The love you showed me , how patient you were with me, how to cope with every thing I’ve been thru and not let it affect the way I am with the people around me. I use to take my anger out on every body around me, you taught me how to deal with that and now I know how to interact with the people around me without letting what’s going on with me mess up my relationships. There’s a time and place for every thing. You lead by example , you always keep your word ! Antwon says to me all the time “you sound like your mom” and I take that as a huge compliment !
My biggest take away from my mom being in my life is that unconditional love does exist. I never trusted to love when I was a kid. She taught me it was ok to love and trust. I will forever be grateful for that.
Thank you for always loving me and teaching me the “right” things…. being a parent overall has its challenges so taking on someone else’s biological children and loving them and supporting them is a whole different kind of special. Dad loved me even when I didn’t love myself. When I was angry and didn’t want to listen you showed me love and patience and kindness. Even now as an adult all the things you probably thought I didn’t listen to, I did loud and clear and I use them to this day. Raising a kid doesn’t stop at 18, it’s a life long journey. Even at 30 I can call you and cry, ask for advice, or share with you anything- with no judgement. Thank you for loving me and my son and strapping in for this sometimes bumpy, but rewarding job of being my mother
