I just wanted to clarify a few things concerning “K” (9 YO
girl), “I” (7 YO girl), and “S” (5 YO boy all as of Dec. 2015) as my wife and I
hosted them through Project 143 in December of 2015 for four weeks.
I
appreciate the volunteers that give their time and resources to interview the
children and I know they are given the impossible task of trying to gather
information concerning children with almost no quality time with them.
In this
case, these children were interviewed at their new orphanage so even the
caregivers would have been lacking much time with them (the time stamp on their
photo tells me they couldn’t have been there for even two weeks?). I wanted to
clarify some things here as the profile on the Open Hearts and Homes listing is
limited and contains some factual errors as well.
My goal is to see these kids end
up in the perfect family someday (if their parent’s rights are ever terminated)
and more information can only help.
A quick background on our family…
My wife and I have been married for 23 years and are
adoptive parents to Anna (15 y.o.) and Victoria (12 y.o.) who we adopted in Jan
2011 after hosting them from Ukraine during the Summer of 2010. They were 7 and
9 when we hosted them so basically the same age as “K” and “I”. Our girls have
family back home in Ukraine and we keep in close contact with their half-sister
(age 19) and their Babushka (their birth mom’s mom). We have even had their
Babushka here to visit twice and half-sister here on an F-1 visa for school one
year. Through this, our girls have been well adjusted and Anna has been able to
keep much of her verbal Ukrainian and Russian. We aren't experts in hosting, adoption, or child behavior but this wasn't our first rodeo either.
My thoughts and observations on “K”, “I”, and “S”…
“K” will capture your heart almost immediately. She was the first to open up to us, was NEVER
shy, and never had a problem expressing her feelings outside of the language
barrier. She is the oldest and the “mom”
of the family when need be but really didn’t have a problem being a kid most of
the time. She shifts into and out of “mom mode” quite easily and often. Honestly,
she is pretty amazing with her younger siblings while in mom mode. She knows how to deal with “S” when he has a
meltdown and can quickly calm him down. Her tone of voice and mannerisms while
in mom mode suggest a mom with experience! And she knows how to deal with “I” and her
fits (which is usually to walk away).
She is a real sweetheart but full of drama as well. She can
over-react and pout quite easily but she recovers quickly and this is probably
typical for her age. All of the kids keep score and “K” is no exception. They
all need to be assured they are getting the same treatment as the other. She
loved to blame anything that went wrong on my girls (usually Anna) and “K” and
Anna clashed a little bit. I called it a battle of queen bees. Anna, as the
only person in the family that can speak Russian, had a lot on her shoulders
and the kids went to her for EVERYTHING in the beginning which didn’t work well
and overwhelmed Anna. In hindsight I wonder if things would have gone smoother
if my daughter didn’t know Russian at all?
“K” really had no behavior issues outside of what I would
call normal for her age. She had no problems following requests to pick up her
plate after eating or to clean her room. She is probably a little ahead of her
age as far as being able to take care of herself. She is a happy kid and one
that is very compassionate. She quickly warmed up to all of us. She has no problems relating to others and
was truly sad when our Saint Bernard Bear had to be put down half way through
hosting. She loves dogs and I think pets would be a great thing for her. She is full of energy but my wife was able to
give her tasks that she could focus on for decent lengths of time. The
trampoline was a huge hit for all of them and she loved the trampoline park we
took them to. In general she likes to be active and loves to do things
outside. Having said that, she isn’t tom-boyish
and didn’t like to get dirty, wet, or stinky…things my girls have no problem
with. When taken to my family’s dairy
farm, the kids spent a good bit of their time plugging their noses due to the
smell. J She
can read English quite well but has no idea what the words are. The Latvian
alphabet is generally the same as ours so obviously that helps. She can count
to 100 in English but stumbles in the transitions at every 10. “K” will eat
just about anything and loves the same foods that American kids do…pizza, hot
dogs, etc. “K” talked about her parents (whom they see and stay with every
weekend) several times but is in denial about her past, even with Anna. Anna
talked about her past and the alcoholism and physical abuse but “K” quickly
denied she had ever experienced any of it herself. She broke down one day
crying because she missed her parents (“S” then followed suit but “I” looked at
them like they were crazy).
“K” appears healthy in every way. She is tall at 88th
percentile in height and 56th in weight. Her teeth are good and we were able to get
her only two cavities filled while she was with us. “K” will do well in a new
family if that opportunity happens for her.
“I” is the middle girl and the one with the most challenges to
overcome. We call her our wilted flower
and it was amazing to see how far she came over the four weeks we had her. We had some major issues (nothing compared to
what some families dealt with though) in the beginning of hosting. These were
behaviors we had heard of but never experienced before. These issues included some fits of defiance
and rage and this rage was directed towards anyone near her. When “I” hits, she hits hard. As she began to trust us, things improved
greatly. “I” didn’t have a problem being a kid most of the time but she had her
moments and these “moments” happened more often than the other two for sure. “I”
finally came out of her shell and it was nice seeing a real personality out of
her where she would laugh, joke, and act like a normal kid. It took roughly two
weeks or so for her personality to show through. “I” kept score more than the
others and her reactions would be a little stronger than the others but not by
much towards the end. Like “K” she loved to blame anything that went wrong on
my girls (usually Anna) but she didn’t really clash with my girls like “K”.
“I” can be very stubborn and defiant at times and it can
come out of nowhere. I really didn’t see
a pattern outside of when she didn’t feel she was being treated equally. Let me
define “equally”…If I gave “K” a ride on my shoulders “I” would get jealous
unless I made sure to explain to her beforehand that she would get a turn next.
She had to have an equal amount of time or this could set her off. Simple
things like telling her to fold up her pants and put them in her drawer could
and did set her off at times to where she had to sit in her room until she
could calm down. She always came around
after a period of time (sometimes minutes sometimes hours) and when we
explained that we wanted her to join the family for XXX after she did her task
it would always work.
All the kids hit each other (and even us) but “I” hits with
the highest frequency. To be blunt, she has some anger issues to work through
and of course this comes from whatever it was that she has experienced to get
where she is. If I were to guess, I would guess her stubbornness didn’t help
her situation. I can’t say I ever observed compassion on her part and at least
3 out of 4 hugs I received from her were after “K” hugged me first. It always
felt like something she just observed someone else do so she did it. These latter points are the most worrisome to
me, but again, I think they can worked through. Again, I am not an expert but the behavior is too serious to leave off a profile and ignore. I assume a professional can get these things figured out and can help “I” heal. I truly
hope so as I believe she has a ton of potential.
“I” has some major tooth decay that needs to be addressed. Most
of her teeth are actually missing but the dentist says most of her adult teeth
are not yet in so that is good. “I” and “S”
hate brushing their teeth as they hurt so bad and my wife got them some soft
foam type toothbrushes and mouth rinse which they liked a lot better. All told, they are looking at a dozen
extractions, a half dozen root canals, and another handful of crowns that need
to be done between the two of them. One of “I”’s top front teeth started to
come in while she was with us and she was very excited about that as she admitted
to getting teased about her teeth sometimes.
We are currently trying to get things fixed in Latvia through a
competent dentist and as of today (Feb. 1, 2016) “I” and “S” are scheduled to
go to a good dentist in Riga this month and they are to come up with a treatment
plan which we intend to fund. Anyone
that is considering hosting these kids should ask for a current status so that
they can continue whatever treatment plan they may be on. We wished we had been told of their teeth
issues so that we could line up proper care. Unfortunately, “I” and “S” were in
need of an oral surgeon and lining one up at the last minute was impossible
around Christmas.
“I” is a tall girl for her age, at the 78th
percentile in height and 43rd in weight. “I” is a physically healthy
and active. Like the other two, she will eat just about anything without
complaint but she is a very slow eater (like “S”) perhaps because of her teeth.
She actually lost weight while she was with us. They all did.
I believe “I” will do well in a family that can help her
work through her past with the long term guidance of a professional that
understands these things. I do not understand them other than a lot of
proactive reading before adopting my girls years ago. In our limited experience
with her I think she would do best in a family without other children (besides
her siblings of course) and/or a family that can perhaps homeschool her to
limit her world. Give her the right environment and she is going to do great
things. My wife worked with the kids and really believes she is a smart girl
that wants to prove herself. In our
experience she is not a “special needs” child outside of her behavior issues
and we are hopeful that in her new environment she will be able to go to a
normal school. I don’t think it is fair
to her to categorize her as “special needs” without some clarification. It wouldn't surprise me if she was misdiagnosed as special needs just so the school didn't have to deal with her behavior issues. We were told that she doesn’t currently
attend school, in her words, because she can’t read, but this was as of her
previous orphanage (they were moved when they returned to Latvia after being
hosted).
“S” is a funny little kid that loves to joke around. His
favorite activities seem to be farting, making funny noises, and touching or
otherwise getting into EVERYTHING! He had a hard time settling down for more
than a few minutes although Cammie claims she could get him to do so. He likes
to wrestle around and get tickled and loves to do anything that burns energy.
He loved to ride bikes even when the others didn’t but I couldn’t get him to
try a bigger bike without training wheels. He seems to lack the attention span
for things like Legos. “S” did like to get hugs and cuddle, especially with
Anna and my wife. He is ALL boy though. He is very animate about what toys a
boy plays with and which toys a girl plays with. In all honesty, I think he is
likely to slap you if you suggest he should or ever has played with dolls.
As far as behavior goes, he was usually a good kid, defiant
quite often, but not an angry defiance like “I”. Probably more of a testing
boundaries type of thing with him which I would categorize as normal for his
age. He really bonded with Anna and I know Anna admitted that he reminds her of
her younger brothers who are still in Ukraine so that may have driven some of
it.
“S” also has some major tooth decay as well that needs to be
addressed (10 teeth that need extraction for starters). “S” also is a tall kid, at the 81st
percentile in height and 66th in weight. These numbers suggest he is thin but he
actually looks to be a little overweight. He lost over two pounds when he was with us
and he tells us that he eats lots of candy when they visit their parents on the
weekend. L
Other than that, “S” is generally a healthy, active, and happy boy. Like the
other two, he will eat just about anything without complaint but like “I”, is a
very slow eater.
A few more details that may be helpful to a potential host
family. The children all speak Russian
as their first language, not Latvian. They have two older siblings that they
claim live in England and are from a different mother. I don’t see this as a potential complication
in the future and the kids don’t even know their siblings’ names. They do,
according to them, stay with their parents every weekend and we were told by
the previous hosting organization that the parental rights have not been
terminated. Also, they have two living grandmothers, one that lives with their
parents and the other that in their words is too sick to see them anymore. We
are not aware of, and the children wouldn’t share, the reason these children have
been removed from the home other than what I already stated but it is clear
that something “broke” within the family sometime after “K” was born. “I” and “S”
are clearly impacted by severe neglect while “K” is essentially unscathed.
I hope this is helpful and we are happy to answer any
additional questions any potential host family may have. We aren’t experts but
we believe strongly that more information is always better than less and we
hope the above will help any future potential host family make a more informed
decision.
lorenmarti@cox.net
