Wednesday, January 6, 2010

My Fourth Foster Child

Some kids come and go in the middle of another kid’s stay at Dave’s Home. Such was the case with my fourth foster child. He was placed with me in December of 1995, about nine months after my third child, and he stayed for about three months. (My third foster child stayed for seven years.)

I remember these two kids bickering with each other all the time. Back then I was living in a much smaller home with only one bedroom for the kids to share. Night after night there were accusations of stealing or one breaking the other's possessions. Some kids are like oil and water – they just don’t mix.

My memories of shorter term kids from long ago, like #4, have faded quite a bit, but I have a vague recollection of him being personable when one-on-one with me. The only other clear memory I have of him is that he had a lot of trouble in school. His teacher and I arranged to exchange progress reports daily. Yes, every day his teacher would write one covering his class time and send it home to me, and I would write one covering his evenings and send it back to school. I still have a big file folder filled with these reports. I guess we were going for a kind of unified discipline in an effort to convince this child that he couldn’t get away with his shenanigans any more.

What kind of shenanigans, you ask? Well, some of it was the normal kind, like always forgetting to bring home a book or paper needed for homework. And some of it was a bit more. Just before he was placed with me he was suspended for five days for taking a pocket knife to school.


Checking out the limousine I rented
for his foster brother's 13th birthday.