It's been 2 weeks now as a single foster-father of a nine-year-old boy. It's been culture shock. I have learned much. First, the reason God sealed our heads shut, was because if he didn't 9 year-old boys would leave their brains on the school bus. Why not, they don't seem to use them! Last week, my foster son left a perfectly good red and blue light weight jacket on the school bus. Yesterday, the bus dropped him off at my parents. When I showed up to get him, I was jumped by an angry mother, because I let him go to school on such a cold day with no jacket. I turned around around and asked him, "Where's your jacket?" "I didn't wear...didn't wear one today, remember?" he answered. "You didn't wear one?" I asked innocently. "Yeah," he said sounding more confident. "I didn't wear one." "Then what do you call the blue and white thing you put on when I told you to put on a jacket right before we left the house this morning?" This caused my Dad to snicker. "Oh, yeah, I left that in the gym." An interrogation followed that left me with the certain knowledge that maybe the jacket had been left in the gym, he may or may not have told his teacher, who may or may not have taken him to check the lost and found." I went into the school this morning, but no one was in the office. I called the school today, he has a light windbreaker and a winter coat, but his two middle weight jackets are MIA. The windbreaker may be when I get home tonight, as he wore it today. I saw him pull it off the minute he hit the gym and sat down to wait for breakfast to be served.
He doesn't like school. Getting homework information is like interrogating a war criminal without a waterboard. The teacher does send stuff home, including a list of the next weeks homework assignments on Friday. Monday he was to do 2 pages of math, I am unsure whether it was for homework or inclass. He didn't have a handout to do and turn in, but he brought this language and science books, neither of which he had homework in. He also brought a sheet they completed in school. It was seven questions involving science terms. He was to have filled in the missing words. The needed words were listed at top. There were seven of those also. Not too tricky. The ugly red note said he was given 30 minutes to complete it and turned it in blank. When he was given a second chance to do it, he completed it in 5 minutes, but all seven were wrong. I sat him down at the kitchen table. Turned off every electronic gadget in the house and he corrected the sheet while I made dinner. Then he was forced to eat horrid vegetables. He went to the bathroom twice. I am fairly sure he was spitting out carrots and flushing them. (The veggies weren't punishment, I ate them, they were good. He just wants to live on junk food.) Then homework, then valentines for the party, then putting away clean laundry and picking up dirty laundry, then he had an hour left to play video games.
Last night he brought home an empty backpack. First time he ever carried it home empty. Very suspicious behavior, I thought. He claimed no homework. I had his spelling words, so he wrote those 10 times each as I cooked dinner. He tried to cheat and only do them 7, 8, or 9 times, so he had to finish them and write them again 5 times each. He again tried to be sneaky. He "finished" his vegetables and left the table, left cheek bulging. "Where are you going?" I inquired. "Bathroom" he answered. "Wait a minute, please." When he turned around and looked at me I said, "Swallow first." He did then sat back down. I made up 20 math problems based on his last 2 homework sheets. He did those. Then he fixed the ones he did wrong. Then I made up sentences with his spelling words and he wrote those out 3 times each to practice his cursive. Then he picked up his room. He had an hour of free time before bed. Which meant I had 2 hours of free time before bed. I really miss my nightly news.
He has some bad habits. For instance, when he enters a room, he is king. He thinks nothing of changing the TV channel regardless of who is watching it. If he finds a show he likes he will also turn off the light to enhance his viewing pleasure, even if I am reading or writing something. That has stopped. He also has some eating issues. I am told 9 year-old boys are basically walking converters of food to poop. But this is excessive. I no longer poke food down him when he starts this. I allow him some snacks, but not what he is used to. He is being forced to eat what is put on the table. He can have a decent serving of meat, but has to eat all the vegetables on his plate or no snacks. I am also working with limiting his liquids between bed and supper. He has some sleeping issues. Last weekend I think he got up at night and spent a few hours between 11 PM and 2 AM playing games Friday night. I had taken some cold medicine that made me sleep deeper than normal but woke a bit after 2 and caught him trying to enter the DVD code. I know he sat up most of Saturday night watching Dragon Ball Z DVD's I got him. I didnt' let him nap Sunday, but we had a rough Sunday night because a call from his mother gave him night terrors that didn't leave until midnight. He slept okay Monday and Tuesday nights, at least nothing woke me and there was no evidence the next morning, I gave up on night time cold meds after Saturday night. He lost his DVD's Sunday. I also told him if I caught him watching TV, movies or playing games after bedtime again, all electronic stuff was poof and probably not coming back. Previous placements have said he wandered the house at night. I don't think he is. I am resigned to the fact that I will be warden. Hopefully we will bond more, he is a cute guy and can be very fun and funny when he lets himself be a kid, but that isn't often. Hopefully, I can eventually soften the structure a bit, but it really seems to be what he needs. He seems happy when he isn't testing the boundaries. He had an initial habit of wanting to throw fits in public places and acting out. He would also run off. We established on the third day with me that I wasn't chasing him. I told him in the middle of Walmart, "You'll either come back or you won't, and if you don't I'll come up with a good story for DSC." He hasn't run off since. I initially tried to reason with him him on the fits, but Saturday I just started ignoring them. I decided it was attention seeking and rewarding it was just feeding the behavior. Haven't had him out in public again since then so not sure if it's working or not.
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