Tommy Storey - Foster Parenting Essentials

Foster
Parenting
Essentials

TOMMY STOREY

Copyright 2017 Tommy Storey.

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-0024-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-0025-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-0026-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017913139

WestBow Press rev. date: 8/25/2017

Contents

Dedication

To my beautiful wife Patricia

The true soul of our home

Now lovingly called

Mom by many

Thanks for always loving, supporting and believing

My wife and I have been in direct childcare longer than anyone we know. Over the years we have heard many comments from our families and perfect strangers concerning our roles as foster parents. The comments range from, Youre kidding! to, You must be crazy! The one we have heard most often is, You and your wife must be wonderful people to do what you do. I could never do that. I dont know how you do it! My standard reply is an emphatic, I dont know how we do it either!

I pondered this for a long time before it dawned on me that very few people have any idea what our lives are like, much less how we do it. This includes caseworkers, case managers, other foster parents, supervisors, administrators, and even our own families.

Many children are in care across our nation. If few people know how we do it, then who is training the caregivers and with what? I have come to realize there is little practical information in print about surviving and performing our duties as caregivers. There are thousands of therapeutic and psychological books. There is little written about surviving the day-to-day battle and struggle of raising emotionally damaged children while maintaining your sanity, keeping everyone safe, and teaching positive values.

This is why I felt compelled to write the words that follow. Everything here is written simply and is drawn from experience coupled with what I feel are useful strategies to deal with problems along with other topics of interest to caregivers of children. My wife and I have many positive and pleasant memories; however, most questions asked of us concern problems and their solutions. This book is mostly written from that angle. I wish someone had furnished this information to us years ago.

I never dreamed of or wanted to write a book, but I feel we are sometimes chosen to do things we had not planned on doing, as is the case in our professions as well. God sometimes places things in our hearts without asking us for our opinions.

Every day for my wife and me is a struggle, just as it is for everyone else in life, regardless of where you are. We do not have all the answers and never will. Hopefully others can learn from our experiences and develop helpful insights from our successes, failures, and often humbling and embarrassing memories. This is our story plus short lessons from experience.

If these words can help one caregiver cope and then help a child, my time writing was well spent.

Please answer the following questions with yes or no ; an explanation will follow:

Have you ever had a child in your care change from street clothing into a bathing suit by your picnic table at Hurricane Harbor in front of several thousand people without your noticing?

Have you ever gone to the cashier at a restaurant to pay for your familys meal and had a child in your care bring you several dollar bills in cash and then go on and on about how you had forgotten your money by your plate on the table?

Have you ever realized at a football game that you are the only parent with children of three different races asking you for money and calling you Dad?

Have you ever had a child urinate on your dining chair after you left the room?

Have you ever had a child go to school and convince her class and teacher that her foster parents would not be giving her any Christmas presents and then get everyone in the class to pitch in to buy her gifts?

Have you ever proudly been the father of the first black cheerleader in an all-white high school?

Have you ever realized that when you let your children out of your van at school, parents look at you as they would at the clown driving the car in the parade that stops and fourteen people get out? The looks on their faces say, How did they do that?

Have you ever gone to school to pick up a child for a doctors visit and found yourself giving a physical description of the child to the school secretary because you cant remember the childs name?

Have you ever had the privilege of eating for free at Taco Bell because the cashier thought you were a bus driver, and bus drivers eat for free? Its their policy!

Have you ever come to the realization that among your friends in your age group, you are the only one who can translate gang signs and symbols into English?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are either a foster parent or are possibly foster parent material. I am the only person I know who can answer yes to all of them.

1
Our Story

W e have truly been blessed. Sometimes I forget, but it is true. My wife, children, and I now live in the home I was raised in on a small Texas ranch, although from my perspective, it has had renovations and expansions that rival the building of the great pyramids of Egypt. This ranch has been in my family since the 1800s, but nothing like what we do has ever occurred here before. I literally built and renovated this home day and night for two and a half years while operating a group home and working another career. How my wife and I remained together during all of this is almost unimaginable. Tricia tells our friends we stayed together because we were both too tired to do anything else. There is probably at least a little truth in that theory. Besides operating a foster home, I also operate an auction businessacquired from my fatherthat has been in business for almost sixty years.

My wife and I were raised in Christian homes that were very much isolated from most of the abuses in the world. We didnt know what foster care was. No one could have been less prepared to raise foster children than we were; however, I know God brought us to this place, training us along the way. I must admit, though, that he kept what he was doing completely to himself until it was too late for us to back out.