Does PRIDE Training Really Prepare You?
Obviously my initial 4 or 5 hours of training did not prepare me for dealing with a preteen boy with multiple physical and emotional issues. The training I am going through now is much more in depth and has addressed some of the needs of a child who has attachment issues but I still wonder if it goes far enough.
I’m not going to sugar coat the doubts that I have. I believe that if you don’t question yourself then you really won’t be prepared for the issues you may encounter in caring for these children who have been through so much. I listen to the people in my class and I see myself 5 years ago. Wonderful caring people who want to make a difference in a child’s life but who really aren’t understanding the challenges in raising a special needs child.
Statements such as… “No kid is going to get up in my face. They will go right back the first time.” or “Oh no, no, I’m not going to have a child lying to me. There is just no reason to lie.” Or, “I’ll just play video games with them. It worked with my own kids.”
These are not bad people, they are wonderful, caring people who just don’t ‘get it’ yet. I know the instructor is trying to prepare them slowly. We went over discipline last night and the instructor was pretty honest about the level of anger that some of the kids experience and why they go through it. It’s the first time that he has actually gone much into behavior issues.
And of course, I am judging by my own experience with J but I have to remember that all children are different. They may not all react with so much anger, defiance and indifference. Maybe I am being negative but then I would rather be prepared this time. If I had known how to respond earlier then the outcome might have been different. So I make a pain of myself in class. I question everything until I am sure that I understand it.
Things I would like to see included in PRIDE training:
- Current Experienced Foster Parents - Their input could make the training so ‘real’ and could bring in some perspective of therapeutic foster care.
- Teen Issues– the teenage years are challenging for any child and it seems that most of training is focused on younger children. What specific issues might a foster child have during this age? How to deal with peer issues, etc.
- Special Needs — They tell us that we will be fostering special needs children but they never really go into what those might be. An introduction to some of them would be helpful.
Was there anything that you wish had been covered in training?
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My PRIDE training covered some of that. It’s just so crazy…because I think until you are in it, you can’t imagine what it will be like.
My favorite moment in my PRIDE class was when we had to go around and talk about what some of things we were looking forward to were. I had this single lady in her 30s in my class, and from things she said I gathered she was getting into foster care to combat her lonliness. She wanted to take in two teenage girls. She said she most looked forward to getting up with the girls before work to do yoga (at 5am … for AN HOUR!) and then make fruit smoothies together. She looked so excited, like it was going to be a big ol’ slumber party. The instructor gently let her know that most teenagers would NEVER rise at 5 to do yoga and would most likely be demanding an egg McMuffin for breakfast.
Oh my! No, even my bio children wouldn’t get up willingly at 5 am to do anything. And no matter how hard I tried, I could not get them to do smoothies, at least not without a ton of sugar. I always wonder how successful those parents are but then I guess understanding comes slowly. In talking to other foster parents, all of them said that they wish they had more knowledge of the developmental issues so that they could have understood and helped. My training this time has been SO much more helpful AFTER I had a foster child. Too late for J but not too late for the next one.