Adoption & Foster Care
You brought a child into your home with the best of intentions. You are loving, kind and caring. What an amazing home you can offer a child who grew up with trauma, neglect or abuse. But... they don't seem to be appreciating all that you provide. They push back against everything you hold dearly - your values, morals and beliefs. You feel taken advantage of, a hostage in your own home. What you thought would be a beautiful relationship feels like torture.
Caring adults like you open their homes to children knowing that they can provide a better life for a child or teen. Isn't that enough to get a little respect? Adoptive and foster children are a different breed. They act and react in a way that feels alien to most families. They start off with a honeymoon of loving interactions, but quickly transition into pushing boundaries, breaking boundaries and ultimately push you away.
Your brain knows that they have come from terrible situations, but your heart believes that love with conquer all. You want to provide a loving home, but feel pushed away. Your heart is breaking because it seems like they trample over everything you hold dear. Your dream of parenting an adoptive or foster child feels like a nightmare.
You struggle with their behaviors. Wondering why they would continue to hoard food or steal when you provide everything for them? Frustrated when your money, jewelry or precious items keep disappearing. Disappointed that they would continue to lie to your face.
What if you and you child could grow closer together instead of further apart. Where you understand the lens they see their world from while helping scaffold them into healthier interactions. Where tantrums, lying, stealing and hoarding can be a thing of the past.
What if your child could recover from their past - embarking on a new path after living through unimaginable horrors in their old life. What if you did not feel like you had to put your armor on each day - wondering when the next blow up, stolen item, broken promise will occur?
Image a healthy future for your child and your family. Where your fears of them going down the path of addiction, co-dependence or violence was changed into hope for a successful, loving life. Where you did not feel like an outsider in your own home.
Many foster and adoptive caregivers are used to raising children one way - which worked well. But when you have a child or teen whose innermost thoughts might be "I do not deserve love and happiness" they are operating from a very different place. When foster and adoptive children steal, they probably learned that they need to take care of their needs - because no-one else will. Imagine that for a minute. Knowing that at a young age, they were responsible for their own feeding, bathing, school work. Think about what your life would be like if you had to scrounge for food before you were even in kindergarten.
Growth through trauma, abuse and neglect is hard. Understanding how to support a child through those times can be equally tough. Adoptive and foster children do not come with manuals! It can be a lot of trial and error to succeed. Growth is like a roller coaster - there's a big build-up to an explosion, change happens, then a few small explosions occur until the old ways are extinguished. Throughout that process you need a cheer leader, someone who can root for you both to succeed, who has seen success despite overwhelming odds.
At Berger Counseling Services, we have the experience and training to work with foster and adoptive families. We take families through scaffolding their child towards health, one step at a time. We know change can feel like an eternity, but your child did not learn these behaviors in a day, nor can we expect to undo trauma, abuse and neglect overnight. Love can conquer all, but only when we support them through the fire of remaking. It can be hard to imagine finding the love again, but it does happen! Check our our blog, Fix My Kid! to see your path forward.
We know change can be difficult, for adults and children, so we incorporate art, play, games, sandtray and horses into our services. Through the process of doing, we practice being OK with failing, succeeding and trying when we don't want to. Throughout the family is wrapped in support and education on how to best help themselves and their child.
Let's meet for a complimentary 15 minute consultation. Together, we can decide if we are the right fit to help support your family. Give us a call 561-866-3056.
