Living book suggestions and prayer request

Hi Wendy,

Congratulations on the addition of 4 children to your family! Speaking from experience (I am also a foster-adoptive parent) you must have your hands full. 😉 I pray the blessings will daily overcome the challenges for each member of your family.

In my experience, children who are coming out of the foster care system are often (emotionally, cognitively)  developmentally at a much younger age than they are chronologically. To complicate matters, they also often have more “mature” life experiences and also have experienced trauma of various sorts (just being involved with the system can cause trauma) and have some challenges to overcome in this area as well. When it is all boiled down, at least for me, this means that while the principals to raise them well are the same, sometimes I have to apply those principals creatively or in different ways in order to meet the child where he is at the time.

Again, in my experience, children need 2 things to help them grow in positive behavior. They need to know what our standards are and what we expect from them (showing them the living examples) and they need a motivation. In most parenting situations it is assumed the child and parent have a loving relationship and the child will want to please the parent. Often these 2 motivators are missing in children coming out of the foster care system. We may love them but they have never experienced it and don’t understand it or “feel it” the way we do. I have had the most success by addressing the need for relationship with the child before expecting a change in motivation/behavior. This can be a long process, but necessary if we are going to reach their hearts and make an impact.

I think you are on the right track to show them with living examples the kind of character you hope to develop. Will they listen to a good read aloud if you read to them all together? Rather than trying to find stories on their reading level I would go with a read aloud to help facilitate discussion and understanding as the living ideas trickle into their hearts and minds. Several helpful read alouds come to mind. The Ralph Moody series Little Britches (some minor language in one of the books to be aware of) is good and the story is of a family pulling together through difficulties and loss, Little House on the Prarie books, and also Little Men and Jo’s Boys and some others by Louisa May Alcott.

Also, in my experience, the kind of one-ups-manship and show off-ishness you are describing with your bio son is familiar. I saw similar things also with my bio children who are much older than the little ones we have adopted. In our case it was motivated more by fear of losing our love and their place in the family than by pride, although it looked like pride.  Ongoing reassurance of our attention to them, love for them and that their needs will be met helped this issue more than any character training could do.

Please feel free to PM me anytime. I would love to share some some more or just commiserate. It can be a tough (but worthwhile!) road.

Wendy, we’ve enjoyed many Lamplighter selections including The Hedge of Thorns; Sir Malcolm and the Missing Prince; A Peep Behind the Scenes; The Captive. Sir Malcolm deals well with pride. It’s available as an audio drama that is terrific, too. 

For hard work and character building, we love Ralph Moody’s Little Britches series. The first couple have a couple of coarse cowboy words, but I wouldn’t let that deter me. These are top notch in my opinion.

Blessings,

Christie