Older Child, Older Children Adoption - Helping Older Troubled Children

02/06/08

Helping Older Troubled Children

Posted by : Cindy Bodie in Older Child Adoption Blog at 12:45 pm , 399 words, 525 views
Categories: Challenges

I was allowed a special visitation today with a locked up child of mine as it was a birthday. So heartsick am I, so broken hearted over the entire ordeal that I just don’t write about it yet. Ask me in a few years when I’ve learned to live with it and maybe I’ll share these experiences, but not now with this knife in my heart.

I wanted to really feel bad about this, I held back my tears and so we had a nice visit. This is my second kid to be in this particular facility and I’m embarrassed about that, although on every level I know that their anger problems stem from long before they were ever my children.

A lady who works there complimented me on both of the children, remembering the other one quite some time ago, recalling their “yes ma’ams and yes sirs” that I require of them.

I appreciated her kind words and we talked for a few minutes.

Surprisingly she shared with me her story. Her own son had been locked up there also yet he never learned his lessons. After this confinement he’d gone on to continue his law-breaking antics for the next 20 years even though she was his birth mom and a law enforcement officer.

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She’d hoped when he had his first child last year that he’d straighten up.

Alas, he was killed three months ago in a car accident, never having learned to be a responsible adult, breaking his mother’s heart for years and years.

I was simply staggered and slightly ashamed of my own internal pity party. So many parents struggle within these areas while I remain selfishly obsessed with my own family’s issues.

“I’m so sorry,” I’d gushed as she spilled her life out to me.

“I just wish I could have made a difference in him like you’re making with Fabian,” she bemoaned to me.

But it immediately occurred to me and I shared with her, “No, honey, maybe it was your influence on Fabian while he was locked up here that has turned him around. I’m really grateful to you for that.”

She dried her tears, hugged me and left smiling, at least for the moment.

Lord knows I sure had appreciated her efforts with my son years before.

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5 comments

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: Nancy Spoolstra [Member]

· http://attachment-disorder.adoptionblogs.com/

Maybe it was Fabian's decision to fly right, finally applying all he had learned from ALL the positive influences in his life .... just as it was that lady's son's *decision* to NOT apply all that she had done for him all those years.

Permalink 02/06/08 @ 12:39

Comment from: Cindy Bodie [Member]

· http://older-child.adoptionblogs.com

And get this...I'd no sooner driven an hour home before I found out Fabian had been suspended from school. Tough day.

Permalink 02/06/08 @ 16:59

Comment from: condo-mom [Member]

Keep blogging about Real moments such as when you are complimented on your sons manners ... at a juvenile facility. People need to see and understand a little about kids like Fabian. We live in a world with a lot of Fabians walking around, and everyone's understanding needs to be raised. I'm glad for him (even if he is NOT) that YOU are his Mom. -- Rachel

Permalink 02/07/08 @ 08:17

Comment from: Cindy Bodie [Member]

· http://older-child.adoptionblogs.com

"Real moments such as when you are complimented on your sons manners ... at a juvenile facility." Rachel - the irony of that had escaped me. I'm really losing it lately.

Permalink 02/07/08 @ 08:29

Comment from: John [Member]

My middle son is frequently a guest at the large correctional facility run by our sheriff. The deputies who process visitors all know me and chat about what is going on and how my son is doing. This is in a large county. While it is nice to have a pleasant conversation, it is not what I thought parenting would be like years ago. John

Permalink 02/07/08 @ 20:00

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