A tough call

I've shared with you over the last month or so some of the changes that my family has gone through. We went up to New Mexico to help my brother in law's fiance move down here to Texas. We had her stay with us while waiting for her apartment to open up. We also had to deal with a death in the family.

But perhaps the biggest change we've had to deal with was taking in two children from our church who were looking for a home to go to. They were from a troubled background. A four year old and a one year old. As I've described in past postings, we weren't given much notice. We got a call on a Friday evening saying if we didn't take them in they would be put into the system and they could end up anywhere. My wife and I looked at each other and said, "we'll do it since it's the best thing for the kids to stay around family."

From the beginning, it's been a real struggle. Our daughter is also four and an only child. She's used to having the run of the house. She knows our rules and generally abides by them. She's no angel by any means, but she follows the rules. The four year old we took in was a struggle. She was thrown into a new environment and struggled acclimating to our rules. And our daughter was always happy to be the big sister. The problem was the girl didn't want a big sister. In other words, they clashed. Constantly. What contributed to the problem was that the state gave us guidelines as far as disciplining the children that we had to abide by. These guidelines were different than our guidelines. My daughter picked up pretty quickly that she was treated differently than the other girl. And so did the girl. My daughter questioned why we didn't punish the girl as did her.

To make a long story short, the arrangement wasn't working out. It seemed as if we were putting out fires everyday. And all our free time was spent running around getting things ready for the kids' school or daycare. We were also struggling with the notion of what would happen to the kids once they left us. Were we wasting our efforts in trying to stabilize them if they were returned to the environment that caused the destabilization. But the thing that concerned us the most was the toll it was taking on our daughter. She was beginning to exhibit some of the defiant behaviors that we saw in the four year old. And she was becoming more and more agitated and frustrated everyday. In fact, after one incident in which I had to punish her, she asked me if I still loved her.

So my wife and I made one of the hardest decision we've ever had to make. We decided to return them to Social Services. There was a large part of me that keeps questioning whether I did the right thing. My wife had a lot of doubts. Were we giving up too soon? Were we not upholding our Christian values of being our brothers' keepers? But in the end, we made the decision that was best for our daughter and best for the children. In fact, best for EVERYONE involved. They would now be in a stable household that has professional foster parents that have been trained in caring for special needs children.

As we dropped them off at the office, the four year old kept asking if she has to go look for a new house now. She asked if she was leaving because she was bad. I told her no. We told were going to a family that can better help them than us. I told her to say her prayers every night, which is something new we taught her and to look after her brother. It broke my heart, but I knew that her new home is better for her and her brother.