It has been a crazy few days. We have these two girls here for respite care and Michelle and Emma have engaged in mutiny. They have thrown all our house rules out the door and chaos reigned. I have gotten my house under control and I also have two girls who are grounded.
Typically when we have a new child come into the home the children in the home clue them into our house rules. Of course I am here and let them know what we expect. However, when they are playing in the play room or outside with the kids they are expected to veer new kids away from doing things that they know are not allowed.
For example, Michelle and Emma came down for school on Friday morning with jewelry on. It was jewelry that was packed away in the garage where there is a play area. They know to leave the packed boxes alone. However, they went through some of the boxes with the girls and they all helped themselves to whatever they wanted. Larissa was staying away from them at that point because they kept trashing her bedroom and she was rather disgusted with the behaviors.
I can't even begin to tell you how many times in the past few days I have said, "you know that is not acceptable behavior in our house," to my kids. Not only have we had children getting into things they shouldn't but we have had so many house rules broken that I can't begin to count. It culminated today with Michelle yelling at me because I sent her to her room. Yelling at me does not help your cause.
Besides breaking many house rules, Emma and Michelle turned on Larissa. I told them on several occasions that these girls will get on the school bus on Monday and will never be back. They were losing an awful lot and harming their relationship with Larissa for girls who were only passing through.
This experience has sealed it for us, we will not being doing respite care anymore. Emma and Michelle are not ready to have other children in the home who are close to their age. It actually makes me a little sad. They turned against all our rules and against Larissa for two girls who were only to be in our home for 5 days.
This is something that I fear with my 15-year-old and future foster children. He is impulsive, tries boundaries, and giggles like a six year old when he and my 10-year-old grandson are together getting into some trouble, like throwing his toy monster trucks down the stairs. Not sure who instigates it, but trouble reigns. He is so much better with younger children or much older people. Ug...so sorry for your girls' experience.
ReplyDeleteIt was good for me to see that adopting another older child would not work for our family. I expected some issues but not to the degree we had. I guess that is why we were sent Benjamin. He is a perfect fit for our family. You may need to foster younger children or the right older child. The great thing with respite care is it is temporary!
DeleteFor them it sounds like staying within birth order is probably important they seem to lose their "place" and all heck breaks loose.
DeleteActually to be technical they were in birth order. The girls were ages 7 and 8, a little younger than mine. Had a long talk with the foster mom last night, she is struggling. I think that with my two they saw an opportunity to get away with stuff during the chaos of the other girls. In the end it didn't work out too well for them. Post tonight.
Deletesame reason we had to quit respite.
ReplyDeletewow!
ReplyDelete