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I was a foster kid for 11 years. My social worker and foster parents were likely the only reason I am still here. My social worker would visit his children week

I was a foster kid for 11 years. My social worker and foster parents were likely the only reason I am still here. My social worker would visit his children weekly-- even on weekends and did whatever it took for us. Still, he was just one man. I still talk to him regularly. During one discussion, I asked him about the other kids that I remembered. There were only two of us left. I think people forget about the trauma foster kids deal with. First, the reason kids went into care. Second, the separation of the kid from their families. My experiences showed me that this trauma, combined with an institutional care system does not equip most kids to function in society.

aminozuur 6y ago
Thank you for sharing your experience. May I ask, how are you doing now? Did you find any ways to address or even overcome those past experiences?
- batch12 6y ago
  I am doing well for myself now. How I got here is pretty complicated. I can only attribute my ability to overcome these experiences to those who genuinely cared. These are the people who cared enough to help me succeed but also let me fail and deal with the consequences. In high school, I was a low C to D student. I slept in class. I refused to do homework. I thought the schools were only temporary, so therefore they did not matter. I only passed classes because I excelled at test taking and understood the material. I felt like it was all a game-- people, school, relationships. None of it mattered and all I had to do was find the right way to play. After foster care, I had a free ride (I was still in care), but failed out of college because I didn't see a point. I joined the military. This forced structure and discipline actually helped me. I understood this game and excelled. I used my experience in the military to get an entry level job in IT and continue to grow. There are residual effects that I will always deal with. I have huge gaps in memory from when I was a kid- I don't remember much before age 11. I compartmentalize things too easily. I can be impatient with people. I dislike and distrust bureaucracies. I don't have enough patience for incompetence. I could go on, but I'm sure that's not why you're here :)
  - aminozuur 6y ago
    Thanks again for sharing. I find your story very relatable, from the gaps in memory (which is common after trauma) to rebelling and failing in the school system. I wish there was a community just for people in tech who've overcome messy childhoods.
  - minitoar 6y ago
    In my book, disliking and distrusting bureaucracy is a hallmark of an intelligent and well-adjusted being.
    - lazyasciiart 6y ago
      Hmm, you might want to refine your criteria. I'll grant you Ted Kaczynski was intelligent but well adjusted seems a stretch.
  - jawzz 6y ago
    Not trying to be snarky, but no one remembers much before age 11 or likes bureaucracies or incompetence.
    - lazyasciiart 6y ago
      Kids who went through foster care frequently fail to remember entire years of their life, schools they attended, and families they lived with. There are multiple reasons for this, from trauma causing decreased working memory and formation of longterm memory during childhood to social factors such as lack of the same stability of and reminders of their life that a child who goes to one school for years and then has photos of themselves from that time to cement the memory will have. Most people do remember their life before 11 - the vast majority can name their school and neighborhood from back then without thinking, could tell you if they had a bike, if they liked school, etc. Some of these memories are indeed formed retroactively through stories, but they still exist.
    - octodog 6y ago
      This is a terrible comment. Obviously the GP is speaking in a relative sense, based on their observations and experience with others. Saying "not trying to be snarky" does little to minimise the snarky attitude.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Some of the amateur research we’ve done points to the idea that it takes a surprisingly small number of emotionally stable adults to help kids get through chaotic circumstances. If you read the testimonies from children from the foster system like you, or from children with mentally unwell parents, the ones that made it out ok always have some sort of story about how one adult in their life took an interest and helped them get through it. From what I’ve seen, teachers and coaches are the most common adult to help. Not peer reviewed stuff obviously, but the pattern is striking. Anyways, glad you made it out of such a tough spot doing ok.
- robocat 6y ago
  > the ones that made it out ok always have some sort of story about how one adult in their life took an interest and helped them get through it. How much time does that take of the person who is helping? Also, from article, “Most of the $30 billion spent on child welfare annually is funneled into foster care or adoption services”, “Roughly 23,000 kids across the country are churned out of the system every year”. That averages $100000 per child per year, assuming 300000 kids in care and all $30G spent on them.
  - candiodari 6y ago
    > That averages $100000 per child per year, assuming 300000 kids in care and all $30G spent on them. Yes, and you'll find nearly all of that money is spent on employees and organisations, mostly for locating abused (and "abused") children, with most services paid per-child (and of course ALL services have to catch a minimum amount of children or cease to exist). In the best of countries (not the US) in 60% of foster placements something bad enough happens that the foster family requests their immediate removal (this is called a "break-down"). The US is much worse. Foster care does not offer stability, so every kid has to be found a new foster home on average every 8 months. https://wehavekids.com/adoption-fostering/What-does-being-a-foster-parent-really-pay https://wehavekids.com/adoption-fostering/What-does-being-a-... $800 per month per kid is very well paid for foster care. All the other money goes to government services. The child receives, at most, $250 per month (in cases where they care for themselves). Studies point out that if you take outcomes, it would literally be better (children helped vs children harmed) if these services just outright did not exist. But I guess the problem would be much more visible. https://sci-hub.se/10.1257/aer.97.5.1583 https://sci-hub.se/10.1257/aer.97.5.1583
slothtrop 6y ago
I believe this is very understated, and collectively we tend to throw up our hands at the issue as though nothing could be improved. Even children growing up without a father figure or having divorced parents can have some developmental issues, I can't imagine how being separated from family must be.
- candiodari 6y ago
  It results in what is referred to as "Attachment Disorder" and is generally considered the worst possible psychological state. Especially where it is "Reactive" (ie. the problem started because of CPS involvement, because of being separated from figures the child was attached to), the worst possible option. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_attachment_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_attachment_disorder Reality is that, certainly on average, CPS is worse than neglect, worse than abuse. Reality seems to be that what parent figures provide for children is simply a predictable, stable environment. It does not matter if said environment has violence (especially if it doesn't directly harm the child). If the child is well provided for (ie. even poverty or neglect to the point of irregular availability of food). The vast majority of cases, by the way, are neglect, which means in practice the child being left alone for longer periods of time (hours, not days). Needless to say, this is not going to seriously damage any child over the age of 3 or 4. The same even with violence against a child. The not-so-common-but-considered-typical image of a father who gets drunk on fridays and then yells or even hits a child with flimsy excuses, but otherwise cares for them is just not going to do the damage even a single CPS placement does. Just to be clear: none of those things are good for a child. But they do not prevent the formation of a stable adult. CPS and child placement (and especially re-placing them on average 14 times before they grow up) prevents the formation of a stable adult in something like 45-60% of cases. I guess CPS just feels they "need to do something". The result of that need is tens of thousands of destroyed lives per year. But nobody can be blamed for doing nothing ...
  - lazyasciiart 6y ago
    Attachment disorders are a fairly controversial subject and many former foster youth and advocate groups believe that they are largely garbage diagnoses for kids who are understandably angry, distrustful and unwilling to for a relationship with strange new carers. Among other things, actually diagnosing RAD requires that it show up before five years old, because it is in those few early years that a child develops their ability to attach to a caregiver. As for experience in CPS care - 50% of kids return to their parents, and (not exactly the same) 50% are in care for a year or less. The average number of placements is maybe 2 - are you perhaps thinking of the average number among children who never leave care? As for the idea that "even a single CPS placement" is worse than being left with violent parents - I've never seen anything supporting this but if you have some I'd love to read it.
duxup 6y ago
Yeah the trauma is really hard to quantify. My mom was a 3rd grade teacher for years. One of the kids was a foster child. He was a good kids, a good heart, but had self control realated issues. On the last day of the school they were drawing pictures of what they'd do that summer. His photo was of him being sad. He told her. "Some of us are sad because of summer vacation because we don't want to be at home every day." Just brutal to hear.... some kids have the deck stacked so far against them....
- chasd00 6y ago
  my wife is school teacher, when the pandemic hit and schools closed some of her kids were taken into CPS and some just flat out vanished. Elementary schools are basically social safety nets for some kids. I think that's why many governors were quick to re-open and very slow to close them down again.
  - btilly 6y ago
    The other half is that we realize that adults give COVID to kids but kids don't tend to give it to other kids or adults. Which makes COVID the opposite of diseases like the common cold or the flu where kids act like germ factories.
    - treeman79 6y ago
      My wife (teacher) got covid from small kids. Brought it home as a gift for the whole family. School closed again after maybe 5-10% had already been diagnosed.
      - btilly 6y ago
        The plural of anecdote is not data. Your wife notwithstanding, https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/kids-school-and-covid-19-what-we-know-and-what-we-don-t https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/kids-school-and-covid-19-... verifies that kids do not appear to transmit covid at the same rate as adults. Furthermore does your wife have proof that it was the kids that gave it to her, and not the parents during pickup?
omginternets 6y ago
>My experiences showed me that this trauma, combined with an institutional care system does not equip most kids to function in society. Can you elaborate on this? It abstractly makes sense, but what does this look like in practice? What kinds of situations come up whereupon a foster-kid-turned-adult wouldn't be "equipped"? What is it they wouldn't know to do? Or, what would they mistakenly think was an appropriate response?
- whoknew1122 6y ago
  Depends largely on how stable the foster family is, and how much effort the kid's social worker can (or wants) to put in. I've known children who left unstructured, chaotic situations and were placed in... unstructured, chaotic foster homes. Many foster homes are like warehouses with upward of 6-8 children at a time. Fostering children is a paycheck for some foster parents. I've also known a foster child who was placed in a home wherein the foster family had biological children in the house. The biological children were treated better and more lovingly than the foster child. The foster child left an abusive situation, only to find inequitable treatment. The foster child never had anyone model a loving, supportive relationship. So they bounced around from abusive, drug-addicted partner to abusive, drug-addicted partner until they got tired of being around abusive people and drugs. Without a role model, it's hard to be equipped once you're legally an adult and don't have someone making decisions for you. Being an adult is a big responsibility, and a lot of these children weren't prepared to make healthy decisions. And they don't have health coping mechanisms.
  - omginternets 6y ago
    Hmm. This is definitely interesting, and I appreciate the details, but I don't feel like I have a better understanding of what the maladaptive behavior looks like. I think you're describing the causes of being "not equipped", but I'm interested in how "not equipped" manifests itself in practice. That is: what is the actual behavior we see on the outside? The story about the foster kid who gravitates towards abusive relationships is closest to the level of analysis I was hoping for. In that specific case, what is still unclear to me is exactly how -- in the details -- a lack of a stable/loving home pushes one towards abusive relationships Do you perhaps have some anecdotes about specific people behaving in ways that well-adjusted people wouldn't? Speaking for the rest of us, I think it's hard to grok this kind of stuff without a lot of detail. I recognize that this is a hard question to answer, of course. It effectively asks you to become a novelist. I'm grateful for anything you can provide, but also don't want you to feel obligated.

aminozuur 6y ago

Thank you for sharing your experience. May I ask, how are you doing now? Did you find any ways to address or even overcome those past experiences?

batch12 6y ago
I am doing well for myself now. How I got here is pretty complicated. I can only attribute my ability to overcome these experiences to those who genuinely cared. These are the people who cared enough to help me succeed but also let me fail and deal with the consequences. In high school, I was a low C to D student. I slept in class. I refused to do homework. I thought the schools were only temporary, so therefore they did not matter. I only passed classes because I excelled at test taking and understood the material. I felt like it was all a game-- people, school, relationships. None of it mattered and all I had to do was find the right way to play. After foster care, I had a free ride (I was still in care), but failed out of college because I didn't see a point. I joined the military. This forced structure and discipline actually helped me. I understood this game and excelled. I used my experience in the military to get an entry level job in IT and continue to grow. There are residual effects that I will always deal with. I have huge gaps in memory from when I was a kid- I don't remember much before age 11. I compartmentalize things too easily. I can be impatient with people. I dislike and distrust bureaucracies. I don't have enough patience for incompetence. I could go on, but I'm sure that's not why you're here :)
- aminozuur 6y ago
  Thanks again for sharing. I find your story very relatable, from the gaps in memory (which is common after trauma) to rebelling and failing in the school system. I wish there was a community just for people in tech who've overcome messy childhoods.
- minitoar 6y ago
  In my book, disliking and distrusting bureaucracy is a hallmark of an intelligent and well-adjusted being.
  - lazyasciiart 6y ago
    Hmm, you might want to refine your criteria. I'll grant you Ted Kaczynski was intelligent but well adjusted seems a stretch.
- jawzz 6y ago
  Not trying to be snarky, but no one remembers much before age 11 or likes bureaucracies or incompetence.
  - lazyasciiart 6y ago
    Kids who went through foster care frequently fail to remember entire years of their life, schools they attended, and families they lived with. There are multiple reasons for this, from trauma causing decreased working memory and formation of longterm memory during childhood to social factors such as lack of the same stability of and reminders of their life that a child who goes to one school for years and then has photos of themselves from that time to cement the memory will have. Most people do remember their life before 11 - the vast majority can name their school and neighborhood from back then without thinking, could tell you if they had a bike, if they liked school, etc. Some of these memories are indeed formed retroactively through stories, but they still exist.
  - octodog 6y ago
    This is a terrible comment. Obviously the GP is speaking in a relative sense, based on their observations and experience with others. Saying "not trying to be snarky" does little to minimise the snarky attitude.

ashtonkem 6y ago

Some of the amateur research we’ve done points to the idea that it takes a surprisingly small number of emotionally stable adults to help kids get through chaotic circumstances. If you read the testimonies from children from the foster system like you, or from children with mentally unwell parents, the ones that made it out ok always have some sort of story about how one adult in their life took an interest and helped them get through it. From what I’ve seen, teachers and coaches are the most common adult to help. Not peer reviewed stuff obviously, but the pattern is striking. Anyways, glad you made it out of such a tough spot doing ok.

robocat 6y ago
> the ones that made it out ok always have some sort of story about how one adult in their life took an interest and helped them get through it. How much time does that take of the person who is helping? Also, from article, “Most of the $30 billion spent on child welfare annually is funneled into foster care or adoption services”, “Roughly 23,000 kids across the country are churned out of the system every year”. That averages $100000 per child per year, assuming 300000 kids in care and all $30G spent on them.
- candiodari 6y ago
  > That averages $100000 per child per year, assuming 300000 kids in care and all $30G spent on them. Yes, and you'll find nearly all of that money is spent on employees and organisations, mostly for locating abused (and "abused") children, with most services paid per-child (and of course ALL services have to catch a minimum amount of children or cease to exist). In the best of countries (not the US) in 60% of foster placements something bad enough happens that the foster family requests their immediate removal (this is called a "break-down"). The US is much worse. Foster care does not offer stability, so every kid has to be found a new foster home on average every 8 months. https://wehavekids.com/adoption-fostering/What-does-being-a-foster-parent-really-pay https://wehavekids.com/adoption-fostering/What-does-being-a-... $800 per month per kid is very well paid for foster care. All the other money goes to government services. The child receives, at most, $250 per month (in cases where they care for themselves). Studies point out that if you take outcomes, it would literally be better (children helped vs children harmed) if these services just outright did not exist. But I guess the problem would be much more visible. https://sci-hub.se/10.1257/aer.97.5.1583 https://sci-hub.se/10.1257/aer.97.5.1583

slothtrop 6y ago

I believe this is very understated, and collectively we tend to throw up our hands at the issue as though nothing could be improved. Even children growing up without a father figure or having divorced parents can have some developmental issues, I can't imagine how being separated from family must be.

candiodari 6y ago
It results in what is referred to as "Attachment Disorder" and is generally considered the worst possible psychological state. Especially where it is "Reactive" (ie. the problem started because of CPS involvement, because of being separated from figures the child was attached to), the worst possible option. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_attachment_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_attachment_disorder Reality is that, certainly on average, CPS is worse than neglect, worse than abuse. Reality seems to be that what parent figures provide for children is simply a predictable, stable environment. It does not matter if said environment has violence (especially if it doesn't directly harm the child). If the child is well provided for (ie. even poverty or neglect to the point of irregular availability of food). The vast majority of cases, by the way, are neglect, which means in practice the child being left alone for longer periods of time (hours, not days). Needless to say, this is not going to seriously damage any child over the age of 3 or 4. The same even with violence against a child. The not-so-common-but-considered-typical image of a father who gets drunk on fridays and then yells or even hits a child with flimsy excuses, but otherwise cares for them is just not going to do the damage even a single CPS placement does. Just to be clear: none of those things are good for a child. But they do not prevent the formation of a stable adult. CPS and child placement (and especially re-placing them on average 14 times before they grow up) prevents the formation of a stable adult in something like 45-60% of cases. I guess CPS just feels they "need to do something". The result of that need is tens of thousands of destroyed lives per year. But nobody can be blamed for doing nothing ...
- lazyasciiart 6y ago
  Attachment disorders are a fairly controversial subject and many former foster youth and advocate groups believe that they are largely garbage diagnoses for kids who are understandably angry, distrustful and unwilling to for a relationship with strange new carers. Among other things, actually diagnosing RAD requires that it show up before five years old, because it is in those few early years that a child develops their ability to attach to a caregiver. As for experience in CPS care - 50% of kids return to their parents, and (not exactly the same) 50% are in care for a year or less. The average number of placements is maybe 2 - are you perhaps thinking of the average number among children who never leave care? As for the idea that "even a single CPS placement" is worse than being left with violent parents - I've never seen anything supporting this but if you have some I'd love to read it.

duxup 6y ago

Yeah the trauma is really hard to quantify. My mom was a 3rd grade teacher for years. One of the kids was a foster child. He was a good kids, a good heart, but had self control realated issues. On the last day of the school they were drawing pictures of what they'd do that summer. His photo was of him being sad. He told her. "Some of us are sad because of summer vacation because we don't want to be at home every day." Just brutal to hear.... some kids have the deck stacked so far against them....

chasd00 6y ago
my wife is school teacher, when the pandemic hit and schools closed some of her kids were taken into CPS and some just flat out vanished. Elementary schools are basically social safety nets for some kids. I think that's why many governors were quick to re-open and very slow to close them down again.
- btilly 6y ago
  The other half is that we realize that adults give COVID to kids but kids don't tend to give it to other kids or adults. Which makes COVID the opposite of diseases like the common cold or the flu where kids act like germ factories.
  - treeman79 6y ago
    My wife (teacher) got covid from small kids. Brought it home as a gift for the whole family. School closed again after maybe 5-10% had already been diagnosed.
    - btilly 6y ago
      The plural of anecdote is not data. Your wife notwithstanding, https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/kids-school-and-covid-19-what-we-know-and-what-we-don-t https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/kids-school-and-covid-19-... verifies that kids do not appear to transmit covid at the same rate as adults. Furthermore does your wife have proof that it was the kids that gave it to her, and not the parents during pickup?

omginternets 6y ago

>My experiences showed me that this trauma, combined with an institutional care system does not equip most kids to function in society. Can you elaborate on this? It abstractly makes sense, but what does this look like in practice? What kinds of situations come up whereupon a foster-kid-turned-adult wouldn't be "equipped"? What is it they wouldn't know to do? Or, what would they mistakenly think was an appropriate response?

whoknew1122 6y ago
Depends largely on how stable the foster family is, and how much effort the kid's social worker can (or wants) to put in. I've known children who left unstructured, chaotic situations and were placed in... unstructured, chaotic foster homes. Many foster homes are like warehouses with upward of 6-8 children at a time. Fostering children is a paycheck for some foster parents. I've also known a foster child who was placed in a home wherein the foster family had biological children in the house. The biological children were treated better and more lovingly than the foster child. The foster child left an abusive situation, only to find inequitable treatment. The foster child never had anyone model a loving, supportive relationship. So they bounced around from abusive, drug-addicted partner to abusive, drug-addicted partner until they got tired of being around abusive people and drugs. Without a role model, it's hard to be equipped once you're legally an adult and don't have someone making decisions for you. Being an adult is a big responsibility, and a lot of these children weren't prepared to make healthy decisions. And they don't have health coping mechanisms.
- omginternets 6y ago
  Hmm. This is definitely interesting, and I appreciate the details, but I don't feel like I have a better understanding of what the maladaptive behavior looks like. I think you're describing the causes of being "not equipped", but I'm interested in how "not equipped" manifests itself in practice. That is: what is the actual behavior we see on the outside? The story about the foster kid who gravitates towards abusive relationships is closest to the level of analysis I was hoping for. In that specific case, what is still unclear to me is exactly how -- in the details -- a lack of a stable/loving home pushes one towards abusive relationships Do you perhaps have some anecdotes about specific people behaving in ways that well-adjusted people wouldn't? Speaking for the rest of us, I think it's hard to grok this kind of stuff without a lot of detail. I recognize that this is a hard question to answer, of course. It effectively asks you to become a novelist. I'm grateful for anything you can provide, but also don't want you to feel obligated.