She suffered previous child abuse and neglect before entering the foster care system at the age of seven. Part of the child abuse and neglect suffered by our adopted daughter included a filthy home, no clean laundry, no heat, no water, truancy, and a lack of dental hygiene. However, now our adopted daughter has been in our home for nearly three years and gotten used to these things.

A person not experienced with traumatized children would think that a child would want to keep clean given the chance. Honestly, that is what I thought 12 years ago when we accepted our first older sibling group that included a teenager.

It can be a little alarming to realize that traumatized children aren’t going to shower, wear clean clothes, change their bedding, or brush their teeth just because they can. Surely, after they have been taught to do these things and experienced feeling clean and fresh for a year, they will want to keep doing it, right. That has not been our experience with any of the 100 children we have fostered, provided respite care for, or adopted.

Our 10-year-old daughter has been with us for nearly three years. Enough time to have these daily routines ingrained in her head and turned into habits, at least you would think. If I have to leave in the morning to run errands or deliver mail I always remind her to get dressed, brush her teeth, and comb her hair. Consistently, when I return, whether it has been an hour or four, she has done none of these.

Saturday morning, Super Dad watched the four younger children while I delivered mail. When I saw our daughter at 11am, on her way to McDonalds with Super Dad, she was wearing her clothes from yesterday that she had obviously slept in. Her hair wasn’t combed and she hadn’t brushed her teeth. When I’m home, she always does these things as soon as she gets up in the morning.

She came to us with a mouth full of cavities and severe gingivitis, which made it very painful for her to chew any food. We had four trips to the dentist to get fillings because she had so many that the dentist only wanted to do a quarter of her mouth at a time. We also had to give her laughing gas and medicine to relax her each time.

With memories like those, you would think a person would be motivated to keep their teeth brushed. That isn’t the case though, nor has it been with our other children. That is until they became adults involved in relationships.


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