February 16, 2024 • 13 mins
In this episode, we are going to dive into a lesser-discussed aspect of foster care: the mental health diagnoses of the foster children and then the topic of medication.
When you become a foster parent, you often have to navigate the often-overwhelming world of mental health care. I personally, know that I wasn't prepared for the level of complexity and at many times needed to make tough decisions without the understanding needed to do so.
You too, may find yourself walking through a reality of kiddos with multiple diagnoses and then ultimately, medication. So, lets prepare you heart and mind for what's at stake.
It is possible that medications could hinder the healing that could happen for these children. Without knowing the entire history of a child, that is where we have a powerful tool that we have the ability to use in navigating these tough decisions. Prayer and Discernment.
My heart for today's episode is that you add Prayer and Discernment to the process of making these decisions with and for your foster children.
After you listen to this episode, I would love for you to head on over and join our inner circle of foster mamas. Our Facebook group is your gateway to valuable resources and connection.
So, go grab your cup of coffee and let's dig in.
XO-Christine Marie
If you found this episode helpful, I would love for you to leave me a review on apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/what-to-expect-while-fostering-and-adopting-adopting/id1701306333
Join the inner circle community of like-minded mamas at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/fostercareandadoptionforchristianwomen
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:07):
Welcome to the What to Expect While Fostering and Adopting podcast show.
If you're a foster mom on the journey to adoption, already adopted,
or somewhere in the middle, trying to figure out how to navigate the foster
care system, wanting to grow your family through adoption,
trying to balance everything, or stuck in that space of all things unknown,
you're in the right place.
What if there was a way to fast track your knowledge, prepare you for the good
(00:29):
and the hard, and somebody who could answer that long list of questions I know you have.
Hi friend, I'm Christine Marie, Biblical Mindset Coach, adoptive mom,
and previous foster parent of 77 children.
Yep, you heard that right, 77 kiddos. I'm your host, and my goal is to help
make your journey a lot easier by sharing my best tools, techniques,
(00:50):
and skills that helped me pivot from foster care to adoption,
fully surrender, and trust the process.
I'm about to bring some calm to the chaos and show you how to navigate through
this journey with a whole lot of grace.
So go grab your cup of coffee and let's jump in.
So today we're going to talk about mental health. We're going to talk about
(01:13):
whether to medicate or not.
We're going to talk about a few different diagnoses, what to do.
Ultimately, I want you to have your eyes wide open as you step into this world
of foster parenting and the topic of medication.
When I first became a foster parent, I was 27 years old. As a lot of you know,
(01:34):
we had our two boys. They were five and three.
I was super young, super naive, and did not have a lot of experience around
special needs kids, high needs kids, especially kids coming from traumatic situations.
Now, I feel like I was more of them prepared because I had watched Law & Order
(01:55):
SVU. I had watched Criminal Minds. If you're resonating with this,
you're definitely my people.
Like, you thought, I've seen it all.
But there's such a big difference between watching television shows,
even crime shows, and having a child, a helpless child, who has been through
an extremely traumatic situation or even removed from their biological family.
(02:18):
The amount of pain and sorrow and deep
hurt that can happen in these children and even children who are removed at
birth who had in utero exposure that is physically painful to them and then
being removed you know when a baby's in their mother's stomach they get used
(02:39):
to their mom's heartbeat.
They get used to their mom's voice. They get used to the family members around them, their voices.
And so when they're born and suddenly all of those noises that they are used
to and comfortable with are gone, I firmly believe that that is traumatic for them.
A few of the kiddos that we had, actually quite a few of the kiddos that we
(03:03):
had, had very severe mental health diagnoses. We took kiddos with extremely
severe physical, emotional diagnoses with disabilities.
And I very quickly learned that medication to manage a child's behavior was
more readily available than I could have possibly even imagined.
(03:27):
When you have a child who does have special needs, let's just use autism as an example.
There are some overstimulating situations that doctors will turn to specific medications for,
or there's more severe mental health diagnoses that help a child function where
they wouldn't have otherwise to function.
(03:48):
Something also that I saw that was honestly something I had to get used to because
it was quite shocking to me is that diagnoses are handed out,
and maybe again this This was just my experience, but with 77 children,
I will tell you that these children, for the most part that we had,
(04:10):
had a long list of diagnoses.
If you're part of the Facebook group, I'm going to ask in there this week,
do the foster kiddos that you have, have mental health diagnoses?
And I'm not asking for any specifics, but if you'd like to be a part of that
conversation, I would encourage you to in the show notes.
Find our Facebook group and go join because I think this is something that I had to get used to.
(04:34):
Our first foster child or one of our first foster placements had no fear of stranger danger.
She would go sit on people's laps. She was very indiscriminate with who she's asked for comfort from.
She would call different people mom. She was from a very traumatic birth situation
(04:56):
and then then living situation, and then foster care situation.
I was concerned. I was actually very concerned because it concerned me for her safety.
I wanted to help her not put herself at risk.
And it was interesting to me that psychiatrists and counselors and therapists
that we went to, by the time she was five, she had probably five to six different
(05:19):
mental health diagnoses, and one of those being something that had no cure.
The diagnosis of a reactive attachment disorder, according to the DSM, has no cure.
There are certain things that you can do to manage the behaviors.
You can try medications.
I do know that this is something that I've spent a lot of time researching,
(05:41):
trying to find alternative therapies.
But what if, what if this reactive attachment disorder,
which is the most severe form of attachment disorder in a child,
what if it was actually just trauma?
What if it was actually brain pathways that were driven towards pain?
(06:03):
What if it was actually deep sorrow that this child could not interpret so they
could not possibly begin to to heal from it.
So how do you medicate a diagnosis that has no cure? Do you then medicate the behaviors?
And that's what we saw. There were several kiddos that were given diagnoses
(06:26):
of ADHD, actually a lot of kiddos with the diagnosis of ADHD.
What if you were to ask, well, is it actually the trauma? Was it actually them
being removed from their biological parents, their biological family?
Was it actually them being removed from their environment of origin?
Was it actually because they were thrown into a situation with this family,
(06:48):
with this brand new family that they didn't know and they were expected to somehow manage?
And their sensory levels, because internally they were overwhelmed with anxiety,
and so their interpretation in their mind of what was going on sensory-wise
in their environment was so overwhelming that they began to act hyperactive?
(07:09):
What if it was truly just a root cause of trauma that could be healed,
but then the decision was made to medicate the child and the child was actually
not able to move through the stages of grief and loss and then begin healing
because they were subdued?
So I hope that you understand my heart in this in saying that as you become
(07:29):
a foster parent, these diagnoses are arguing, to become a regular part of your life.
The more children you take from more extreme living situations,
more traumatic events in their life, there's so many different painful events
that a child can interpret.
Being removed from their family, and then having the anxiety and the overwhelm
(07:49):
and the pain and the loss.
But then also, what if they were abused?
How do they process that the people that loved that they loved the most were
physically abusive to them or emotionally abusive to them?
And then now they're moved to a family that is.
Let's just use the word, functioning and
(08:09):
healthy and positive and happy and that feels
so scary and almost wrong to
them because if their normal was negative
and abusive and violent and whatnot and then
they're moved to this completely opposite environment that feels
almost like a strange environment and almost
that it's wrong and the point of this episode is to truly challenge you when
(08:34):
you're looking at mental health diagnoses is it the the behaviors that you're
seeing from the child that you're trying to medicate because it's overwhelming
you and you're exhausted?
Or is it the behaviors that you're trying to medicate because the child is not able to function?
(08:54):
And so their behaviors and their mental thoughts and their overwhelm are impeding
with their ability to function in the world and function in their life.
And then challenge yourself to ask, is this something that over time could possibly
get it better? Or is truly medication the only resort?
And I'm honestly, truly coming to you humbly and saying, I don't have any judgment, any opinions.
(09:19):
These are really going to be the decisions that you're going to make as a foster
parent with the caseworkers and the people involved with the therapist and the psychiatrist.
But I did find that doctors and psychiatrists were more apt to who hand out
medication and diagnoses for foster children.
I did find that, and that again may have just been my experience,
(09:42):
but I believe that these kiddos are struggling.
They've came from a really hard life situations, and their behaviors and emotions
might be all over the place.
And in order to stabilize them enough for them to exist in a foster placement
environment, environment, sometimes medications are the only option for the caseworkers.
(10:04):
Or maybe it's the option that's easiest.
Because if you truly look at it, there's a lot of kiddos who are coming into care.
There's a lot of kiddos, especially with the world that we're living in.
We live in a fallen world.
There's a lot of kiddos who need different placements because their parents are struggling.
There's more children that need homes than homes are available in most cases.
(10:29):
I know there's cities where children are being housed in hotels.
I know that there's children who have such severe behaviors that there's no
option other than subacute or a hospital stay for them.
And the caseworkers want to get these children into a family or the lowest level
of care possible as quick as possible.
(10:50):
But is it really giving the child an ability to heal and process their grief and loss?
I'm not sure. Sure. I bring this to you to begin the conversation,
to begin your thought process on what it truly means to care for a child that
has come from the most traumatic situation and experienced some of the greatest losses.
(11:12):
And yes, their behaviors, their mental health, their physical health will reflect
the trauma that they've been through.
And this is where I ask you to go to God and to pray, to pray for discernment
over the medical and health care decisions that you will be making with them,
making with the caseworkers,
and thinking of this child, a child of somebody else's, somebody else's child.
(11:37):
And how would you want your own child, if this was your child, to be cared for?
Because some of these medications have lifelong impacts.
Some of them have long lists of side effects because those long lists of side
effects have actually happened to other children and other adults before.
And I'm not minimizing this at all. Reactive attachment disorder,
(12:01):
bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, autism.
Some of these diagnoses are extremely challenging for not only the child,
but the caregiver and all the people in this child's life.
So I am praying that as you step through your foster care placements,
as you step through managing and helping to manage the mental health and medical
(12:24):
care of these children, that you really pray and go to God for discernment,
on these decisions that you're going to be making for this child.
Hey friend, I hope that you loved today's episode. I pray it blessed you and
helped you see that you have a friend in your corner who truly understands what
(12:44):
you're walking through.
If so, would you you share this episode with someone who's been
praying for a breakthrough in their own journey it would also bless me big time
and help others to find this podcast if you would leave a review on apple podcast
you can also submit your questions topics that you would like covered and find
a community of like-minded mamas in my private facebook group by searching what
(13:04):
to expect while fostering and adopting on facebook.
Music.
Music.
(00:07):
Welcome to the What to Expect While Fostering and Adopting podcast show.
If you're a foster mom on the journey to adoption, already adopted,
or somewhere in the middle, trying to figure out how to navigate the foster
care system, wanting to grow your family through adoption,
trying to balance everything, or stuck in that space of all things unknown,
you're in the right place.
What if there was a way to fast track your knowledge, prepare you for the good
(00:29):
and the hard, and somebody who could answer that long list of questions I know you have.
Hi friend, I'm Christine Marie, Biblical Mindset Coach, adoptive mom,
and previous foster parent of 77 children.
Yep, you heard that right, 77 kiddos. I'm your host, and my goal is to help
make your journey a lot easier by sharing my best tools, techniques,
(00:50):
and skills that helped me pivot from foster care to adoption,
fully surrender, and trust the process.
I'm about to bring some calm to the chaos and show you how to navigate through
this journey with a whole lot of grace.
So go grab your cup of coffee and let's jump in.
So today we're going to talk about mental health. We're going to talk about
(01:13):
whether to medicate or not.
We're going to talk about a few different diagnoses, what to do.
Ultimately, I want you to have your eyes wide open as you step into this world
of foster parenting and the topic of medication.
When I first became a foster parent, I was 27 years old. As a lot of you know,
(01:34):
we had our two boys. They were five and three.
I was super young, super naive, and did not have a lot of experience around
special needs kids, high needs kids, especially kids coming from traumatic situations.
Now, I feel like I was more of them prepared because I had watched Law & Order
(01:55):
SVU. I had watched Criminal Minds. If you're resonating with this,
you're definitely my people.
Like, you thought, I've seen it all.
But there's such a big difference between watching television shows,
even crime shows, and having a child, a helpless child, who has been through
an extremely traumatic situation or even removed from their biological family.
(02:18):
The amount of pain and sorrow and deep
hurt that can happen in these children and even children who are removed at
birth who had in utero exposure that is physically painful to them and then
being removed you know when a baby's in their mother's stomach they get used
(02:39):
to their mom's heartbeat.
They get used to their mom's voice. They get used to the family members around them, their voices.
And so when they're born and suddenly all of those noises that they are used
to and comfortable with are gone, I firmly believe that that is traumatic for them.
A few of the kiddos that we had, actually quite a few of the kiddos that we
(03:03):
had, had very severe mental health diagnoses. We took kiddos with extremely
severe physical, emotional diagnoses with disabilities.
And I very quickly learned that medication to manage a child's behavior was
more readily available than I could have possibly even imagined.
(03:27):
When you have a child who does have special needs, let's just use autism as an example.
There are some overstimulating situations that doctors will turn to specific medications for,
or there's more severe mental health diagnoses that help a child function where
they wouldn't have otherwise to function.
(03:48):
Something also that I saw that was honestly something I had to get used to because
it was quite shocking to me is that diagnoses are handed out,
and maybe again this This was just my experience, but with 77 children,
I will tell you that these children, for the most part that we had,
(04:10):
had a long list of diagnoses.
If you're part of the Facebook group, I'm going to ask in there this week,
do the foster kiddos that you have, have mental health diagnoses?
And I'm not asking for any specifics, but if you'd like to be a part of that
conversation, I would encourage you to in the show notes.
Find our Facebook group and go join because I think this is something that I had to get used to.
(04:34):
Our first foster child or one of our first foster placements had no fear of stranger danger.
She would go sit on people's laps. She was very indiscriminate with who she's asked for comfort from.
She would call different people mom. She was from a very traumatic birth situation
(04:56):
and then then living situation, and then foster care situation.
I was concerned. I was actually very concerned because it concerned me for her safety.
I wanted to help her not put herself at risk.
And it was interesting to me that psychiatrists and counselors and therapists
that we went to, by the time she was five, she had probably five to six different
(05:19):
mental health diagnoses, and one of those being something that had no cure.
The diagnosis of a reactive attachment disorder, according to the DSM, has no cure.
There are certain things that you can do to manage the behaviors.
You can try medications.
I do know that this is something that I've spent a lot of time researching,
(05:41):
trying to find alternative therapies.
But what if, what if this reactive attachment disorder,
which is the most severe form of attachment disorder in a child,
what if it was actually just trauma?
What if it was actually brain pathways that were driven towards pain?
(06:03):
What if it was actually deep sorrow that this child could not interpret so they
could not possibly begin to to heal from it.
So how do you medicate a diagnosis that has no cure? Do you then medicate the behaviors?
And that's what we saw. There were several kiddos that were given diagnoses
(06:26):
of ADHD, actually a lot of kiddos with the diagnosis of ADHD.
What if you were to ask, well, is it actually the trauma? Was it actually them
being removed from their biological parents, their biological family?
Was it actually them being removed from their environment of origin?
Was it actually because they were thrown into a situation with this family,
(06:48):
with this brand new family that they didn't know and they were expected to somehow manage?
And their sensory levels, because internally they were overwhelmed with anxiety,
and so their interpretation in their mind of what was going on sensory-wise
in their environment was so overwhelming that they began to act hyperactive?
(07:09):
What if it was truly just a root cause of trauma that could be healed,
but then the decision was made to medicate the child and the child was actually
not able to move through the stages of grief and loss and then begin healing
because they were subdued?
So I hope that you understand my heart in this in saying that as you become
(07:29):
a foster parent, these diagnoses are arguing, to become a regular part of your life.
The more children you take from more extreme living situations,
more traumatic events in their life, there's so many different painful events
that a child can interpret.
Being removed from their family, and then having the anxiety and the overwhelm
(07:49):
and the pain and the loss.
But then also, what if they were abused?
How do they process that the people that loved that they loved the most were
physically abusive to them or emotionally abusive to them?
And then now they're moved to a family that is.
Let's just use the word, functioning and
(08:09):
healthy and positive and happy and that feels
so scary and almost wrong to
them because if their normal was negative
and abusive and violent and whatnot and then
they're moved to this completely opposite environment that feels
almost like a strange environment and almost
that it's wrong and the point of this episode is to truly challenge you when
(08:34):
you're looking at mental health diagnoses is it the the behaviors that you're
seeing from the child that you're trying to medicate because it's overwhelming
you and you're exhausted?
Or is it the behaviors that you're trying to medicate because the child is not able to function?
(08:54):
And so their behaviors and their mental thoughts and their overwhelm are impeding
with their ability to function in the world and function in their life.
And then challenge yourself to ask, is this something that over time could possibly
get it better? Or is truly medication the only resort?
And I'm honestly, truly coming to you humbly and saying, I don't have any judgment, any opinions.
(09:19):
These are really going to be the decisions that you're going to make as a foster
parent with the caseworkers and the people involved with the therapist and the psychiatrist.
But I did find that doctors and psychiatrists were more apt to who hand out
medication and diagnoses for foster children.
I did find that, and that again may have just been my experience,
(09:42):
but I believe that these kiddos are struggling.
They've came from a really hard life situations, and their behaviors and emotions
might be all over the place.
And in order to stabilize them enough for them to exist in a foster placement
environment, environment, sometimes medications are the only option for the caseworkers.
(10:04):
Or maybe it's the option that's easiest.
Because if you truly look at it, there's a lot of kiddos who are coming into care.
There's a lot of kiddos, especially with the world that we're living in.
We live in a fallen world.
There's a lot of kiddos who need different placements because their parents are struggling.
There's more children that need homes than homes are available in most cases.
(10:29):
I know there's cities where children are being housed in hotels.
I know that there's children who have such severe behaviors that there's no
option other than subacute or a hospital stay for them.
And the caseworkers want to get these children into a family or the lowest level
of care possible as quick as possible.
(10:50):
But is it really giving the child an ability to heal and process their grief and loss?
I'm not sure. Sure. I bring this to you to begin the conversation,
to begin your thought process on what it truly means to care for a child that
has come from the most traumatic situation and experienced some of the greatest losses.
(11:12):
And yes, their behaviors, their mental health, their physical health will reflect
the trauma that they've been through.
And this is where I ask you to go to God and to pray, to pray for discernment
over the medical and health care decisions that you will be making with them,
making with the caseworkers,
and thinking of this child, a child of somebody else's, somebody else's child.
(11:37):
And how would you want your own child, if this was your child, to be cared for?
Because some of these medications have lifelong impacts.
Some of them have long lists of side effects because those long lists of side
effects have actually happened to other children and other adults before.
And I'm not minimizing this at all. Reactive attachment disorder,
(12:01):
bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, autism.
Some of these diagnoses are extremely challenging for not only the child,
but the caregiver and all the people in this child's life.
So I am praying that as you step through your foster care placements,
as you step through managing and helping to manage the mental health and medical
(12:24):
care of these children, that you really pray and go to God for discernment,
on these decisions that you're going to be making for this child.
Hey friend, I hope that you loved today's episode. I pray it blessed you and
helped you see that you have a friend in your corner who truly understands what
(12:44):
you're walking through.
If so, would you you share this episode with someone who's been
praying for a breakthrough in their own journey it would also bless me big time
and help others to find this podcast if you would leave a review on apple podcast
you can also submit your questions topics that you would like covered and find
a community of like-minded mamas in my private facebook group by searching what
(13:04):
to expect while fostering and adopting on facebook.
Music.
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