Note: This was a paper I wrote 2010 in my Rhetoric class in college. The purpose of the paper was to pick a stereotype that we fell into, portray the negative aspects of the stereotype and then how we overcame them or don’t embody the stereotype. For example, dumb blondes or the topic of mine – foster/adopted children. I felt the need to share this paper following my blog post on the recent TV show “The Fosters”
Every child wants to be loved by their parents and maybe get a shiny new toy to keep them occupied. Regardless of whether or not the child shows that they need affection, we understand that as humans we need someone to love us. The same concept goes for a child that is placed into foster care and than into a foster home. However, they may show a need for love and affection more than children who grow up with their natural parents. Often, foster children have a troubled image. They go from foster home to foster home because they are unable to get along with their foster parents or siblings. Then, they are viewed as problematic children with behavioral problems.
These children often comes with anger management issues as well as problems communicating with the foster parents or the ability to get along with other children in the household. Foster children get into both verbal and physical fights, often resulting in the child running away from the foster home or being removed from it altogether thus, starting the cycle over again. They lack the skill to adapt to the new family because they feel out of place, as if they do not belong, or as if they are not wanted. A foster child may come with several emotional problems because of everything that the child has gone through at such a young age. The have emotional problems that can make it hard to deal with the anger. They keep all their emotions and feelings to themselves and do not let anyone else know what they are thinking. If the emotions remain bottled up long enough violent tendencies can surface. They will lash out on the first person nearest to them. Lashing out is the easiest way for them to release all the tension that they are feeling without realizing that they are causing pain to the people around them.
I am an adopted child, and I started out in foster care. From personal experience, I can tell you that I have had my share of behavioral problems, but I am still going to be successful. Some foster children may have behavioral problems, but most of us would have problems if our parents left us or were forcefully taken from them. It took my most of my life to start to control my anger problems and I am still working on them. Foster kids may have behavioral problems that may develop later into the child’s life, but all they need is an escape or a way to let the emotion out.
For example, I bottle up my emotions. When I am alone, I break down so no one can see me. I tend to hide my feelings so that the world believes me to be okay. I do not like talking to people about my feelings; there are bigger problems in the world than if I am feeling okay today. I played sports to try and release anger, and even though that allowed me to release anger, it did not all me to let out some of the bottled emotion. I write in a notebook the things that come to my head, song lyrics I write, lines from movies, or random quotes from the internet that catch my attention and mean something to me. This semester, I have taken up a blog [not this one, a tumblr hiya-im-vickie.tumblr.com]. So now, I write publicly online. Even though anger and behavioral problems are noticed more in in adopted children, overtime they can be controlled.
Behavioral problems and anger management was just one of the things that I had to overcome. Like so many other adopted children, when trust is broken, it is incredibly hard to get it back. I believe, that this coincides with the abandonment issue. You love someone and are attached to them and than suddenly that are gone; removed from your life. Trust is a bond that people need in relationships. Whether it is parent to child, between siblings, boyfriend to girlfriend or between friends, trust is needed. It is hard for a child that was put into foster care to fully trust anyone. This inability to trust is often accompanied with the fear of abandonment associated with the fact that their parents “did not want them.” So they are reluctant to trust, feeling as though whoever they get close will also abandon them. The closer that I get to someone, the more afraid I get that they will be leaving me. It has happened before. Who is to say it will not happen again/. This is why, to me, it may be the hardest wall to climb: to fully trust another human again.
Another image that I find associated to foster or adopted children is a troubled one. In television shows and movies there is a misperception that adopted children really do not have the will to succeed in life. They tend to drop out of school, hardly ever pursue higher education, end up doing nothing with their lives. Because of their inability to trust, it is also difficult to maintain relationships. The belief that foster children chose to do absolutely nothing with their lives is false in my eyes. I am enrolled in school and have set many goals for myself that are attainable. I am going places. I think that children places in foster care and later adopted have more willpower to succeed. We want to prove that we can succeed better than if we stayed with our biological parents. There had to be a reason we were placed in foster care, so obviously we can be better. I am proof that most cases being adopted is the right option regardless of the emotional pain that the child goes through.
In conclusion, although there are so many common misperceptions that come with being an adopted/foster child, that does not mean they are true. Yes, I will admit that there is some truths that adopted children tend to have behavioral problems. However, these problems can be easily fixed. The trust issue that they have will dissipate with time. I know all of this from my personal experience. One should not see foster children as problematic with behavioral issues, but children that have the potential to do so much more. The emotional problems are just an obstacle that they have to climb.
While you are enjoying your barbecue, sunshine, family and friends remember to stop and honour the fallen service members who have given the ultimate sacrifice of their life defending our nation. They fought bravely and til the end for the freedom that we still have today.
Life as we THINK we know it 