blogs:<\/p>\n
2. WATCH WHAT YOU SAY AROUND THE KIDS!!!!!!<\/strong> I can\u2019t emphasize this enough, and everyone is continually stunned by the things people will ask in the hearing of children, from \u201cOh, is their Mom an addict?\u201d or \u201cWell, they aren\u2019t your REAL kids are they\u201d or \u201cAre you going to adopt them?\u201d or whatever. \u00a0Not only is that stuff private, but it is HORRIBLE for the kids to hear people speculating about their families whom they love, or their future. \u00a0 \u00a0Didn\u2019t anyone ever explain to you that you never say anything bad about anyone\u2019s mother (or father) EVER? \u00a0Don\u2019t assume you know what\u2019s going on, and don\u2019t ask personal questions \u2013 we can\u2019t tell you anyway. \u2026<\/p>\n
4. Don\u2019t hate on their parents.<\/strong> \u00a0Especially don\u2019t do it in front of the kids, but you aren\u2019t on my side when you are talking trash either.<\/p>\n
Nobody chooses to be born mentally ill. \u00a0No one gets addicted to drugs on purpose. \u00a0Nobody chooses to be born developmentally delayed, to never have lived in a stable family so you don\u2019t know how to replicate it. Abusive and neglectful parents often love their kids and do the best they can, and a lot of them CAN do better if they get help and support, which is what part of this is about. \u00a0Even if they can\u2019t, it doesn\u2019t make things better for you to rush to judgement.<\/p>\n
It is much easier to think of birth parents as monsters, because then YOU could never be like THEM, but truly, birth parents are just people with big problems. \u00a0 Birth and Foster parents often work really hard to have positive relationships with each other, so it doesn\u2019t help me to have you speculating about them.<\/p>\n
5. The kids aren\u2019t grateful to us, and it is nuts to expect them to be, or to feel lucky that they are with us.<\/strong> \u00a0They were taken from everything they knew and had to give up parents, siblings, pets, extended family, neighborhood, toys, everything that was normal to them. \u00a0No one asked them whether they wanted to come into care.<\/p>\n
YOU have complex feelings and ambivalence about a lot of things, even if it seems like those things are good for you or for the best. \u00a0Don\u2019t assume our kids don\u2019t have those feelings, or that moving into our home is happily-ever-after for them. \u00a0Don\u2019t tell them how lucky they are or how they should feel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
more<\/a>; list of things you can do to be supportive at the end (via Rod Dreher<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
blogs: 2. WATCH WHAT YOU SAY AROUND THE KIDS!!!!!! I can\u2019t emphasize this enough, and everyone is continually stunned by the things people will ask in the hearing of children, from \u201cOh, is their Mom an addict?\u201d or \u201cWell, they aren\u2019t your REAL kids are they\u201d or \u201cAre you going to adopt them?\u201d or whatever. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-6905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-children-will-listen"],"yoast_head":"\n
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