I watched them come to my home, each child arriving with a different heartfelt story. Each one with years of layers of anger built one on top of the other. They are the waiting list children. They are the children with too many things wrong and nothing right, it seems. They are the angry and defiant ones who can't sit still in a classroom, use bad words in inappropriate places, and suck their thumbs at night when no one can see them.

Therapeutic foster children on the waiting list are the hardest children to find adoptive homes. It is understandable. They have so much baggage, and inexperienced parents long for a chance to have their first experiences with an infant. They want a strong bond and a new experience. A therapeutic child may not be able to establish that bond.

and yet....

Anger can be subdued and lessened by the language of want and desire, or by the consistency of a family. A parent can help erase years of pain and rejection and out can emerge a doer, a go-getter, a new future for a lost child.

If you think you can consider adopting a therapeutic child, please look into it. I was one once. An angry lost little girl, adolescent, a reform school outcast, who grew into a social worker, a teacher, a foster parent, a mother, a wife, and now a grandmother. I waited and watched through the eyes of a child for a family to give me a real try. I did not get it, but somewhere along the way some believed in me. A math teacher saw promise. A counselor identified intelligence. A man saw a woman to build a life with, and children saw that a child who was once like them, could grow up to be anything she wanted to be.

© 2003