I was just finishing reading Cindy’s blog this morning about dangerous threats, when the phone rang. It was one of my fellow foster and adoptive parents, licensed with the same agency as us.

A couple of months ago, she had contacted me to provide respite care for her two foster children. At the time, she had called everyone on the respite list provided by DHS, Department of Human Services, and apparently, no one was willing or able to provide care for her two children. Her two foster children happen to be opposite genders and also have an eight year span between their ages, therefore they don’t fit the criteria of many of our foster homes in this county.

When people become licensed for foster care, they typically have children in mind that they feel willing and able to care for. Usually, those children fall between a certain age range and sometimes a specific gender, and they are not obligated to accept any placement outside of their criteria. For example, my mother is widowed and almost 70, so she only takes teenage girls, anyone else, wouldn’t work for her.

We ended up providing respite for the two children for five days, while the foster parent took her daughter out of state for surgery. We really didn’t have any problems with them, which is pretty typical with respite care, although we did have a Game boy SP come up missing. We were pretty sure they older child had taken it, but we couldn’t prove it and his foster mother didn’t find it. Again, this is all pretty typical with respite care, I should have searched his belongings, we’ve been providing respite care for 14 years, and I know better.

These children have been in their current placement for nearly three years and the foster parent fully intended to adopt them. She hugged and kissed them when she dropped them off, including the six foot tall, 14 year old. Therefore, it seemed to be a secure placement for the children.

When the phone rang, she was asking me if we had ever found the Game boy SP that we thought he had taken. I think she already knew the answer to that one, but she expressed concern that he was now stealing on a regular basis and giving her quite a hard time. She wanted to have her facts correct, so she could confront him.

Apparently, since she brought us up in the confrontation, he decided that we should get in trouble too. So, he told her that while he was at our farm, he found out that my sons shoot animals. Not only that, but he told her that my husband let him shoot a gun while he was here and she wanted to know if it was all true. Yup, my husband let him shoot targets with the boys under his supervision and all of my sons have hunting licenses.

She claimed to have a caseworker on the way to her house and that he would be telling her everything. Then she added that we should be ready to lose our license. Maybe she doesn’t know that the licensing handbook used to contain a special clause for working farms.

Maybe she doesn’t know that our licensing worker has approved our Fort Knox Gun Safes for safe storage of firearms. Maybe she doesn’t believe in hunting. Well, if licensing is going to hear something about my house, I always prefer that they get it from me first, so I fired off an email to the supervisor right after I got off the phone. Sorry about the pun.

Read more on older child adoption.
More on Attachment disorders
Read more about foster care adoptions.
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