After going through yet another CPS investigation I feel compelled to speak to others in the same boat. This can and usually will happen in the adoption journeys when one chooses to adopt older, traumatized children.

There are many different scenarios. I have a son still hollering that I am an abuser. He is in a mental institution where I hope and pray he will get the help that he needs. It is short term and we are searching for a long-term solution.

I’ve been on internet support groups and have met many adoptive parents who stress over this possibility. To be honest, I still stress over it, knowing it can occur over and over, realizing the damage and fear that is paramount amongst my children each time it happens.

One adoptive mother recently overheard her son tell another son, “I can get Mom put in jail if I don’t go to school for ten days.”

This kid, and many others like him, don’t think this through in their anger at the world. What would then happen to him, or his siblings, if Mom were put in jail? This was, fortunately, a very smart mom who relayed this information to the school as well as her many difficulties with this son.

I advise all adoptive mothers to keep a notebook, at least, and document incidents with the date and the time and even what resources they then sought out. My oldest daughter recently pointed out that my blogs serve as documentation, but I also realize I only blog a little of what goes on around here. Although I can pound out a post in a New York minute, this isn’t particularly time-consuming for me, I’m realizing a notebook will also be a good idea.

I told this other mom that moms like us, pro-active, solution-oriented mothers ought to be the ones receiving as many resources as possible. Many other moms, for whatever reasons, just let the kids run the streets, break rules or sass teachers with zero consequences. When there is a strong mom advocating for the children, the chances of a program succeeding are astronomically increased. Yet those other moms, limited or beat-down by life, are probably all the more needy of these same chances.

Without our resident instigator here stirring up and provoking the other children, our family mood is lighter, more positive and less stressful. At dinner last night, each kid wanted to volunteer how they’d either helped someone or complimented someone at school yesterday. This morning at breakfast, my ten year old son asked me, “Can we do that again tonight?”

I could see the wheels turning in my children’s heads as they planned in advance different ways in which they could help someone if only to brag about it at dinner later, thus sending all the kids out on a very positive mission today.