Cinque has lived with us for 15 months and 5 days; his stay was supposed to be about three days long... welcome to the world of foster care. His placement here was on an emergency basis after needing to be moved from a family who he thought was going to adopt him. We were told that adoption was going on the back burner so that some stability could be maintained after all the trauma.
Cinque is a charming young man, there is no denying that! What gets confusing, and yes, at points very frustrating, is that not everyone understands the motivation for the charm nor what lies underneath it. In only a few weeks we were aware that so much damage had been done within Cinque that it was difficult for him to function at a basic level regarding personal skills and interpersonal interactions, to say nothing of expectations of living and participating in family life or fitting into a school routine with all the expected behaviors.
As a family, Cinque most definitely included, we have worked at solidifying those most basic skills: honesty, respect, and personal hygiene being the top three for anyone living in our home. There have been wonderful gains and we have seen him taking on more and more responsibility for himself and his choices. But something wonderful has recently happened to put a kink in all this progress and success - a potential adoptive family has been identified for Cinque...and he knows it.
Other children have gone through a similar leaving process; it's much easier to leave a place you don't like so our family and home is made out to be the 'bad guys'. Even though Cinque has not formed strong family bonds with us, nevertheless we have been his only family for over a year, we have begun to see the rearing of the ugly head of regression.
While I was away last night, he and Sierra had problems, but he forcefully denied being involved. This morning, Samara was the target of choice: he waited until he thought I was out of ear-shot (when will they ever learn!) and started in on her. Again he denied (and lied - oh, a definite no-no) about his behavior.
Just by looking at him at that moment it was so evident that he is at such a loss - about what's going to happen to him next, about how he's supposed to feel about leaving our family and meeting a new family, about the lack of control and power he's had over his own life. Honestly, I really wanted to let him have it because it often seems that subtlety is lost on him (like most kids), and in a way I did.
I started by telling him that we are going to miss him, too, that I have been praying for his family to find him and that I know this is an answer to prayer, that we are feeling just a small part of the anxiety and excitement that he is feeling. But I also told him that we have come to expect much more from him: wiser choices, thoughtfulness, honesty and accountability for his actions. I went on to say that this is "reality, right now at 7:45." He smiled then. I think he heard me and knew that I had 'heard' him, his thoughts, his feelings, his behaviors, his hopes and dreams. We hear each other loud and clear.
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