A friend of mine who blogs about her challenging ten kids, soon to be a dozen, once wrote about visiting her son who was then residing at boy’s ranch. She found it upsetting, on Family Days, to see some kids with no visitors, no family at all. These were some rather severe children yet they are no less deserving of a family to call their own.

As I struggle with a child or two in each sibling group that seems to eventually bomb out of living with us due to safety issues or arrest records or whatever, it is not lost on me that at least I have provided a family for them to reject. Not much to brag, about but maybe it is all that I have to give to severely troubled children.

I used to think that love would cure them. I know you think that also, or else by now it has been burned out of you by repeated visits by the police, unsubstantiated accusations, or the defiance and destruction of your once happy home.

We seem to be going through quite a spell lately of kids unable to continue living with us. I know that Deb Hannah in her awesome book, An Unlit Path, ended up with few, if any, children actually making it to age 18 there in her home. This is common in the adoption of older children. And on the flip side I also seem to have an inordinate amount of grown kids still here. Go figure.

I have no doubt that I am getting ready to face some huge ordeals in getting psychiatric residential help for my 12 year old son. There’s not much help available to tell you the truth.

I’m the one that is taking this ‘failure on my part to prevent emotional issues from boiling over into murderous rages’ very personally. Love has not helped nor has structure, security, safety and having a committed mama. I have, bottom line, been unable to reach my son. I suppose I comfort myself that neither have the professionals been able to reach him either so far.

I’ll be here for him, through thick and thin, as we continue in our search.