Children are in foster care

[bvantilburg]

I live near Cleveland, OH and my children were removed from my and my husbands care because my husband had been abusive to my oldest son who has been diagnosed with ADD & ODD. He missed a batterer's intervention meeting and they called a "staffing" and at that point decided to remove all my children from our home. My husband had offered to move out of the house so the children could stay with me and because of the problems we were having with my oldest son they removed all the children. My husband has since quit drinking and smoking pot. He is going through an IOP program now and attending AA regularly. We are attending parenting classes and I am going to Domestic Violence counseling. All of this is on our case plan. However, my husband has just been notified that his father is in the hospital and my not make it. He is needed to help with the family business. The family business is in Georgia. We do not go back to court until July 26, 2000. Our children will probably not even be able to come home at that time. The social worker we have seems as though she is trying to keep us all apart. What can we do about this?

 

[kallie]

My first question has to be...why didn't you get your children out of this mess long ago??
i have been a foster parent in kentucky for 6 years now, i have seen many cases like this, everyone is always so sorry and so willing to change after the children are taken away? Why not think of your children and how all the things your husband has done has affected them all these years.
The affects of this mess will be with your children for the rest of their lives, there is no turning back what's done is done.
I really don't feel sorry for you or your husband, in most cases where the children are taken out of the home there is just cause for this and the children should not be sent back into that home until he courts are sure everything is alright, this takes longer than a few months.Your husband or yourself cannot change overnight, no matter what you think.
Your best bet is to stay in the parenting classes, do everything you need to do to get your children back, and be patient, don't blame the state for this, they were not the one's abusing your child.
Maybe if you and your husband make it through the classes and finally show some sort of maturity about raising children someday you can get them back, if not, the children may just be better off out of a home like that.

 

[bvantilburg]

Kallie, unfortuantly you do not know the whole story. As you may have read in the beginning my oldest child has ADD & ODD if you do not know what they are I will be happy to tell you. ADD is Attention Deficit Disorder and ODD is Oppositional Defiant Disorder. When a child has ODD he will do everything he can to be the one in control. This has been my problem with him since he was little. I have never abused him and have continually seeked help for him that it was frustrating my husband of five years that I was not paying enough attention to my two smaller children. We were not given a chance to prove that we were going to do everything on our case plan. You see you can't get help when you have to wait for the Social Worker to make referrals and she doesn't make them or waits for two months to make them. You may think that we are such bad parents, but the funny thing is everyone that knows my children have told me that I have done a great job with them. We plan to do everything and have been doing everything since we found out that we really did not have to be waiting for referrals. Something the Social Worker left out until after she removed my children from our home. When ever any one hears that my children were taken from me they automaticly think that this was going on for years and that my two smaller children were being abused too. This is not the case. We were loosing control over my oldest son. He was becoming abusive to me and my husband was trying to help, obviously the wrong way, but never the less we are now being directed in the right direction. It is not that we were not seeking help, we were not sent in the right direction. So before you start judging someone so harshly maybe you should ask questions to get a better picture of what happened.

 

[kallie]

Again may i say, i have seen many cases like this. the state would not have pulled your children from your home unless there was just cause.
what about your husband's alchohol and drug use?? is that not just cause to take children out of the home?? what about the abuse by your husband? is that not just cause??
sorry maam but from what i see the state had plenty of reasons to pull your children.
if this oldest son was such a problem you should have done something about that long ago, you say you have tried but the state did not see it that way.
about add and odd, i know exactly what they are, remember i am a foster parent and i have seen children with every kind of problem you can think of.these children only get worse in a stressful home setting and with your husband doing the things he has done that is exactly what your home is, a stressful situation, not healthy for any child to live in.
how can you blame your child for your own problems? you and your husband caused this, your husband by drinking and doing drugs and you for not getting your children out of there long ago.
kallie

 

[bvantilburg]

Kallie, I did not ask for your advise! You are not a legal expert. And if you want to know the truth of the whole matter I don't blame my son for my problems!!!!! However I am stating that he helped contribute to the stress in the household. I have seeked plenty of help and my oldest son. He was like this long before my husband got into the picture. As for me loosing the children, NO the STATE had no right to remove them and my lawyer has told me that. You see when you have a social worker who is not doing her job correctly and telling you she will give you all the help you need and not make the referrals necessary to get the help we needed how was it suppose to get better? We are not bad parents and my children are very loved. ALL of them. My oldest son is doing the same thing to his foster parents that he has done in my home. Everybody runs into a bad time from time to time and need help that doesn't make them bad parents. What bothers me is that you foster parents can sit there and get paid to take care of our children have all the resources at your finger tips and not have to pay for a thing and tell us parents, who are living from pay check to pay check to make it in life, how easy it is and how help is right around the corner. If you knew how misinformed we have been through this whole mess maybe you could see things from a different view. If all you are going to do is give me negative responses and tell me what a bad parent I am please do not respond again.

 

[kallie]

You posted on this site and that means anyone who wishes to respond is welcome to.
I just call things as i see them lady.
You have no idea what it is like being a foster parent, the money they give us is not enought to cover the things these children need, and no amount of money in the world can solve the emotional problems these poor children have to deal with for the rest of their lives.
like i said before, you should have gotten your children out of that household a long time ago, no child deserves to be put through the toture of abuse, or drug and alcohol abuse in the household.
again if you could not handle your oldest child you should have put him in a home or done something else to resolve the situation.
i am so sick of parents blaming someone else for the problems in their lives, it's always someone else's fault, the state, the ex spouse, their own parents or whoever else they can find to blame at the time.
your children should be the most valuable resource in your life, i'm sure you love them, but did you care for them properly?? do you seriously think is was alright for them to witness the abuse going on in you home?
be honest with yourself lady and deal with the way life is now, i hope for your sake and
your children's that you will get yourselves straightened up.

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

My response:

Let's see . . . alcoholism, drug abuse, yelling, screaming, etc., etc. I guess parenting lessons have done nothing. Yeah, I'd agree that the State is all wrong in this situation (not).

"Denial" is a strong opiate.

IAAL

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