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The Importance of a Foster Parent's Forgiveness-An Act of Love

1/30/2017

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One evening a few years ago, as we were getting ready to sit down for dinner, my wife and I took a phone call from our child welfare agency.  At that time, we had a personal policy of only fostering children who were no older than our oldest child.  This was the first time (of many later on!) that we broke this family rule.  At that time, our oldest was ten years old, and the child in need was a thirteen year old boy, abandoned by his mother.  After some prayer time together, I called the case worker back and told her that we would take the child, on the condition that he would have to leave our home if he were to cause any problems or be a negative influence upon our own children.  Both my wife and I were a little hesitant about taking in a teen aged boy, and were concerned that it might not work out for the best for our family.

            When the teenager arrived, I was taken aback at how scared and frightened he was.  He looked like a deer in headlights, and was obviously terrified about his situation and his surroundings.  My wife and I felt so very sad for him, and tried to comfort him as best as we could.  Yet, perhaps the saddest thing about his situation was how he came into care.  His mother had abandoned him under a highway overpass outside of a very busy Atlanta, Georgia.  Apparently, his mother had pulled the car over to the side of the road, asked him to get out and get something out of the car’s trunk, and then sped off, leaving him alone.  When he arrived at our house the next evening, he was nervous, afraid, embarrassed, heartbroken, and anxious.  He said very little to us, except to note that his birthday was the next morning.  As Kelly and I lay in our bed late that evening, we could hear him cry himself to sleep.

            I felt anger towards his mother; outraged that she could abandon her own son on a busy highway; outraged that she did so just before his birthday.  My stomach churned with anger, and the emotion clouded my outlook on everything else.  It took my wife to remind me that I was not here to judge others, and that the mother had probably suffered from some sort of trauma in her own life.  After some time in thought and prayer, I was able to forgive her, which helped me, as well.

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Love and forgiveness are two actions that are intertwined, and cannot be separated. If we truly are to love these children who come into our homes, then we need to forgive their family, as well. Without forgiveness, there is no love.  When I was angry towards our foster teen’s mother, I was in no way sharing  love. Instead, my stomach was in knots, and I was one tense parent.  I was shackled by my own inability to forgive someone, a prisoner to a debilitating emotion.  Yet, when I did forgive her, it felt like a weight was taken off my own shoulders. One of the amazing things about the act of forgiving others is that it allows us better use our energies, and our words, towards something that is more constructive, more positive. To be sure, our words have power, and our children need to us to use these words in positive and healing ways. Forgiveness frees us from the forces of stress, hate, and evil.  When we forgive the actions of our foster child’s birth parents, not only are we showing love to them, and empowering ourselves, we are also honoring our foster children.  Remember, these children, despite the many forms of abuse they have been subjected to, still love their mommies and their daddies.  

As a foster parent, it is important to remember that our foster child’s biological parents are people in need, and they deserve our kindness and sympathy, not our anger. By working with them, and by showing them kindness and compassion, you will not only help them, you will teach your foster child an important lesson in love and humanity, and help them in their own path in life.

-Dr. John

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Guest Blog-So I Married an Ex-Foster Kid by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

1/11/2017

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Erick:
I fell for Ashley hard, and fast.  With her gorgeous red hair and wide smile she stands out in a crowd.  In fact, I was the guitarist in a band and I first saw her in the audience and wondered, “Who is that girl?”  She was so clever, poised, and smart, I didn’t realize she was a teenager. We talked about politics, ideas, and philosophies.  I had never met anyone quite like her, or her family.  Being brought into Ashley’s world—the world of adoption and foster care—would change my life forever.

I grew up in a Catholic household with three siblings. My mother was the oldest of seven, and my father the oldest of four. They are still married and living in the same house where I was raised. I didn’t leave home until I was 23, and even then, I moved into a place with my older brother. My family is close, reserved, and traditional. I was an Eagle Scout who went camping, my mother sewed our clothes, and we ate the fresh vegetables we grew in our backyard.

Ashley’s families terrified me—both of them. Her adoptive parents Phil and Gay Courter came into her life when she was a preteen.  They also had two biological sons. One had graduated from Princeton and was quite literally a rocket scientist.  The other was finishing his college degree in anthropology and film. The Courters were educated, well-traveled, boisterous, and active in their communities.  Ashley had recently been reunited with her birth family and half-siblings when we met.  After many difficult years, her mother was clean and sober, and was a successful electrician.  She lived with a guy who restored motorcycles.  Her birth mother and her boyfriend didn’t pressure me with questions about my intentions or future so I felt more comfortable with them, but Ashley was on edge because her life experience of broken promises made her wary.   I couldn’t understand what it was like to be reacquainted with relatives who felt more like strangers.  Ashley always wanted me to accompany her to visit her young adult brother or her mother and sister because she felt so vulnerable.  Usually I was the one who felt out of place with the Courters, but in these situations, she was the tense one and often left feeling frustrated, rejected, or sad, none of which made sense to me. 

After years of dating (years that were not always easy), I asked Ashley to marry me. We invited her birth and adopted family members to our wedding on a cruise ship. Trapped at sea with both of her mothers and their families on a four-day voyage:  What could possibly go wrong?

 
Ashley: 
Like most former foster kids, it’s hard for me to trust anyone.  More than five years after my adoption had been finalized, I still thought my parents might “send me back” if I displeased them.  During my nearly ten years in foster care, I had more than 14 placements. I was moved home-to-home, school-to-school, often with no explanation. Sometimes I was with my brother, sometimes not. No one knew who my birth father was, and I had infrequent visits with my birth mother, including a two-and-a-half year period where she didn’t see me at all. I felt like I was constantly being tossed out like trash, or returned because of some defect—all proof that I was worthless and unlovable. 

To protect myself I became guarded, aloof, and cold.  I had shut down my heart so it could not be wounded.  This survival mode numbed me from the frequent disappointments as well as the physical and emotional abuse I experienced.  In a self-fulfilling prophecy, I was attracted to guys who didn’t return my feelings or who were quick to dump me.  I was flattered when an older musician began to flirt with me and I dropped my guard.  At first he was attentive and kind, but I soon discovered he loved the spotlight, applause, and the adoration of other girls, more than me.  Not only that, he often criticized my appearance, my ambitions, and my friends.
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I was still magnetized by this man when I met Erick.  Erick knew I was still smitten with the other guy, but listened to me woes and was a safe port in my stormy life.  When I attended college in his hometown, he understood when I was busy, but also was available during any crisis.  Friends accused me of using him, which I denied, but the truth was that I took for granted that he would be there when I needed him but make himself scarce when I had other plans.  While I was aware that I had spent years testing the Courters to see how bad I could be before they got rid of me, I was unaware that I was following the same pattern.   Erick wasn’t fazed.  He persisted even when I didn’t make time for him for weeks, but he was always available if I needed something from him.  Eventually I began to compare other guys to him and slowly realized he was who I turned to more and more often.  When I either wised up—or grew up—we began an exclusive relationship.  We had been together one way or another for six years before he asked me to marry him on bended knee with a ring proffered and my family standing around to see my reaction.  My first thought was that this was a prank.  I didn’t believe in fairy tales or that someone could make a life-long commitment to me romantically.  Even when I finally decided to take a chance on him, I was still so haunted by my dysfunctional past. I was consumed with worry that I was unworthy, or that I would fail at being a wife and mother.

​

Ashley Rhodes-Courter, MSW, is the New York Times Bestselling Author of the memoirs Three Little Words and Three More Words.  Ashely is also the founder and director of The Foundation for Sustainable Families. She spent nearly a decade in the foster care system before being adopted from a group home after 14 placements.  Ashley met Erick during her senior year of high school.  They became college sweethearts and are now married with three boys ages two, three, and four.  They have fostered more than 25 children and are also adoptive parents.


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Let's Make 2017 the Year Children in Foster Care Find Love

1/1/2017

7 Comments

 
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It’s what keeps us together.

It’s what the world needs more of.

It’s what makes the world go round.

And it is what children in foster care need the most.

Love.

More specifically, your love.

Will you provide these children in need this?  Will you love them?

As a foster parent of over 50 children the past 15 years, I have found one thing is true. Like all children, a child in foster care has one true wish and one real desire, more than possibly anything else, and that is to be loved. As foster parents, we can protect the child from harm, provide a safe and secure home, offer nutritious meals, and open up a doorway of opportunities for foster children, granting them new and exciting experiences that they may never have dreamed of. Yet, with all of this, with all of the wonderful opportunities and safe environments, foster children really crave love the most. They want to be loved, and they need to be loved. After all, every child deserves to be loved.


Sadly, not every child will receive it.  Not every child will feel loved.  Yet, every child deserves it.

Not only do children deserve love, they need it in order to grow in a healthy fashion. The greatest gift you and I have been given is love. While there are many forms of love, the strongest one, and most important for a foster child, is that of unconditional love. Sadly, many children in foster care either do not receive this love at all, or receive it too late, after too much emotional damage has been done.

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No mother to love them. No father to love them.  No grandparent, aunt, uncle, or other relative.  No family member to give them what they need the most.  Someone to love them unconditionally. 

Unconditional love is simply being loved without restrictions or stipulations. For a foster child who may have been abused, beaten, or neglected, this type of unconditional love is most important, yet probably unknown. Your love as a foster parent is quite essential to the child’s health, well being, and future. Without this type of love, a love that does not judge and is forgiving, a foster child will not form necessary and healthy attachment with others, resulting in a number of attachment disorders. Foster children who suffer from these disorders will have great difficulty connecting with others, as well as managing their own emotions, not only during their childhood and time in foster care, but many times throughout the remainder of their lives. Emotional difficulties such as a of lack of self worth, trust, and the need to be in control often result in the lack of unconditional and healthy parental love. As anyone who has worked with foster children will tell you, most foster children face an enormous amount of emotional issues, many times stemming from the lack of healthy love; the love of a parent figure.

So let me ask you once again.

Will you provide children in foster care this?  Will you love them?

Let’s make 2017 the year that children in foster care find the love they need, they love they deserve.

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    AUTHOR
    Dr. John DeGarmo is the founder and director of The Foster Care Institute, and is recognized as a leading expert in foster care. Dr. John is an TEDX Talk speaker, international trainer and speaker, consultant, author, and most importantly, a father.  He has been a foster parent  with over 60 children who have come to live in his home from adoption and foster care. He is the author of many books, including the  book  
    The Foster Care Survival Guide: The Essential Book for Today's Foster Parents.

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