Appendix K -- Lifebook Reflection

Lifebook reflection
Kendra Rhodes
My class partner, Ashley and I were matched with Keely in order to learn her story and create a lifebook for her to have. She is a ten year old girl who has essentially spent her life away from her mother and moved from home to home while living within the foster care system. During this time both her mother and father attempted to create in their lives an environment suitable to healthfully raise Keely. These efforts remained insufficient and Keely is now free from the foster care system and has been adopted by her half sister, Sheila. Learning about Keelys life and situation in order to make her lifebook was enlightening in terms of finding applicable connections to her development as well as recognizing the personal impact and emotional reaction it evoked within me.
When we began the process of learning Keelys’ story it was compoundingly saddening for me. The case notes were nearly exclusively negative. The only time anything was written in the case was when something had happened in order to contact the authorities to begin with. It was details about horrible conditions, accusations, contradictory stories, fights, addiction patterns of this family in severe turmoil. Each time I read yet another detail about the situation that Keely was born into my heart ached for her. It was excruciatingly painful for me as a mother of a toddler, to hear tales of someone so blatantly mistreating and neglecting their flesh and blood. It was impossible for me to experience the details of Keelys’ life without ingesting it in context of my own family and motherly love. I also noticed something very telling about myself and my own prejudices I carry. As a young girl, my trust was ultimately broken by an adult male that was Hispanic. I immediately noticed when I read a description of Keelys biological father that I’d been picturing him (an adult male negative influence) as being Hispanic as well, which he is not. Before that moment, I’d never realized how deep my associations really ran. Deep in my mind, negative male equals Hispanic male. This speaks volumes to me in terms of work for me to do in my self-awareness and eliminating (or at least recognizing) these prejudices.
As the youngest child Keely was moved around frequently and was regularly cared for by her two older siblings that lived in the home at the same time. Her mother was in the throws of an alcoholic addiction cycle in which she would spend weeks at a time completely unavailable to care for her children. This was a very important time for Keely’s development. “Preschoolers still seek attention and approval from their parents and they rush to their parents for comfort when they are frightened or hurt” (Sigelman & Rider, p 403). Unfortunately, in Keely’s life, her parents were unavailable for these times of need as a young child and she found the attention from her siblings and, in many instances, not at all. This reality in Keelys life did not go unnoticed by the social workers who were monitoring her. One statement written by a social worker was that Keely did not model appropriate attachments to adults in her life and further, was not enforcing appropriate boundaries for contact in her interactions, something that she should have been doing at her age.
Finally, there was enough cause for concern to remove Keely from her environment. She was introduced to a household that was clean, warm, attentive, and with a variety of healthy foods for the first time in her life. Her first foster home was with Julie and her family. According to Julie, Keely arrived with the worst hygiene she’d ever witnessed in a child and was only familiar with eating 2 or three different foods, including dry cereal. Keely had never known that cereal was eaten with milk or in a bowl at all (Julie Kerr, Personal communication). Keely lived with this foster family for nearly 2 years. Her time with this family provided a plethora of opportunities for Keely to experience traditions like pumpkins at Halloween, family outings at Christmastime, birthday parties, and dance lessons. Additionally, within this time, Julie was pivotal in learning about Keely’s development and how it had been affected by her birth mother (Theresa). Theresa began her struggle with alcoholism at a young age at around 15. She also became a mother for the first time (Keely has 4 older siblings) at a young age. Unfortunately when she met Keely’s father he had come from a physically abusive family and was not fully aware of how detrimental his physical violence would end up being on this family. They both struggled with alcoholism and addictions to other drugs. Niether of them had ever been able to shake their pasts and pull together a peaceful, nurturing home for Keely. This being Keely’s first foster home, the social workers, Keely’s parents and her foster family were trying to work out a system of visitation that would work for everyone. It was so very difficult for me to hear that Theresa would avoide coming to see her daughter and rarely return phone calls when she missed important dates. It was most difficult when I heard from Julie that Keely always remained hopeful and excited about the prospect of visitation with her parents, and, in the case of Theresa, Keely was more often than not, disappointed. Further, Julie pursued testing in order to determine if Keely’s physical and developmental characteristics were parallel with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS).
Alcohol consumed by the mother readily crosses the placenta, where it can directly affect fetal development…Children who were exposed prenatally to alcohol but do not have FAS experience milder alcohol-related effects labeled fetal alcohol effects. These individuals do not have all the features of FAS but have physical, behavioral, cognitive, or a combination of these problems (p.93).
As it turned out, Keely was congruent with the findings of Fetal Alcohol Effect and not yet FAS. This is a finding that can change over time and requires further testing as she gets older. It was helpful for me to learn this information about the testing process and characteristics of FAS and FAE. I remembered our class discussion about the affects of pregnancy and what types of things would negatively affect the development of a fetus. Alcohol consumption during gestation was at the top of the list of dangers. Following this discussion in class we talked about the nature/nurture concept of the “bad gene pool”. Basically, we discussed that if a persons’ characteristics come from their genes that they can be likened to someone who cannot change, and are affected by “nature’s hand in people being helpable –or not helpable”. Keely fits into a category of people who could suffer from this stereotype. If attaining the label of an FAS diagnosis sets her into the stereotype of people who are less helpable than someone else, it may be something to avoid rather than something sought after. Keely’s foster mother Julie thoroughly considered this possibility before pursuing this avenue of testing.
Keely remained in the foster care system until near her 10th birthday. She was lucky to have only lived with two foster families in addition to two stays with her half sister who has now adopted her. There are many good things to say about her situation with her family now. Even though, Keely is still in the process of testing for FAS, is in therapy for a speech delay, and her sister, Sheila, also reports that she struggles with confidence, her age is so vital in building who she will become in life. This is important for Sheila to be aware of. Her support at this time is so vital because, “by mid-elementary school, children differentiate among 5 aspects of self-worth…scholastic competence; social acceptance; behavioral conduct; athletic competence; and physical appearance”(p.295). The timing for her placement with her sister has come at an extremely good time in her development in terms of attachment as well as creation of self-worth.
Adolescents seem to need the security as well as the encouragement to explore, provided by supportive parents to become more independent and autonomous individuals. Adolescents who enjoy secure attachment relationships to with their parents generally have a stronger sense of identity, higher self esteem, greater social competence, better emotional adjustment and fewer behavioral problems than thier less securely attached peers (p. 407).
The relationship between Keely and Sheila wasn’t always just right for them. A couple years before Keely came to live with them for good, she was there and the stage of the family was not right to include Keely. Sheila was in a developmental stage that was not conducive for taking in Keely. Sheila was a mother of twin toddlers and a baby under one year old. She tried to have Keely and it wasn’t working for them at the time. Sheila was aware enough of her family stage and needs that she honestly could not keep up. She called the social worker and had Keely placed in a temporary home until she could truly provide a good home for her. Now, with her twins around 5 and the “baby” around 4, Keely is a welcomed addition to the family. Sheila is at a better place in the development of her family to provide for Keely, and Keely will benefit exceedingly from a stable home environment.
Ashley and I were so honored to be able to attend the adoption ceremony the day that the adoption was final for them. We were elated to meet Keely after learning so much about her life. Sheila was there with her husband. We were able to talk with Keely and take pictures. At first I was struck with now calm they all were. No one seemed very excited. The other families were dressed in special clothes and seemed to wear their emotions on their sleeves. I soon realized that Sheila was just not a very ‘excited’ person, but indeed seemed pleased that the day had arrived for them. Keely received a gift from the Judge. A teddy bear. She named her teddy bear “fluffy”. Keely seemed, to me, like any other 10 year old I’d talked to. She was trying to eat as much candy as she could get permission for and gravitated toward the provided activities that interested her the most. She was quite with Ashley and me at first, and warmed up enough for us to ask a series of fun questions for our book. After I got home, I was still thinking about how non-challant they’d seemed at the adoption. I realized that when I’d talked to Keely about Sheila, she’d called her “my sister”. It donned on me that nothing much was changing for them. Keely’d already been living with them. Keely already knew her as her sister and they weren’t changing any lables or relationships with the adoption. Some of the other families were literally gaining a new mother, father and child(ren). It seemed to me, for Keely and her sister, it was just a matter of paperwork; and I can see how that would be less monumental.
At first this project was a very sad and negative experience to be witnessing, from the worst perspective someone’s displaced childhood. As our work progressed, I began to feel fond of Keely and in building her lifebook, it became more than an assignment for me. I feel very proud to have patched together what was once a scattered puzzle of a childhood into a creative fun, collection of pictures, facts, stories, and memories for Keely to build on with her new family and promising future.



References
Sigelman, C. K., & Rider, E. A. (2006). Lifespan Human Development (5th Ed.). NY: Thomson/Wadsworth.