Archive for February, 2010
Dr. Dixie van de Flier Davis
What the Children Really Need
Twenty-seven years ago I was the person who answered the phone when people called our office to inquire about children they’d seen on Wednesday’s Child.
“All he needs is love,” they’d say.
I’d respond back with something like, “Well, he sure does need love. But he also is going to need psychotherapy and probably some tutoring and maybe special education….and…..”
Then the caller would usually interrupt me and say, “Yes, but what he really needs is love, right?”
Lately I’ve come to the conclusion that they were right all along. It really is that simple.
It’s love for a child that causes a parent to change jobs in order to be more available. It is love that prompts a mom or dad to find the right school for their children. Or to drive across town and sit in a therapist’s waiting room for an hour two or three times a week while their child is getting much needed help. And love makes them drive back again to meet with the therapists themselves.
Love changes the one who is loved, and it certainly changes the one who does the loving. As the song says, “Love changes everything. . . Love will never ever let you be the same.” Love makes us change the way we do familiar things and makes us try new things we’d never considered before.
It causes parents to accept children just the way they are and then move mountains to get them all of the needed remedial resources so that they can become what is possible for them.
Today, if you ask me about any one of the waiting children, I’ll say, “Yep. It’s pretty straightforward, really. All he needs is love.”
To view recent Wednesday’s Child features click here.
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Learn more about Dixie.
Dr. Dixie van de Flier Davis
After Disaster
The sign on Beth’s office door was clear, “Don’t disturb me unless you’re willing to write a profile for one of the children we need to get posted on our website ASAP.”
She was busy, but I tapped on her door anyway. She and others had a deadline they intended to keep. All of the 256 newly referred children would have photographs and profiles on our website within the month.
Writing the profile to accompany each photograph takes time. When they read the stories of the children, staff members often stop and think. Or cry.
Beth reached for a photograph and piece of paper. She read the words of a seven year old girl who desperately needed a family, “I’ve been through the world a lot of times. My heart is crinkled.”
When a catastrophe happens, the news media lead a giant wave of response. One after another we step forward to help bring order. We each do our part to provide food, clothing, water, shelter and employment for the victims.
That’s a good thing. But it isn’t enough. All too soon another calamity will erupt in another part of the world. And before we know it, we’ll be distracted from the heartbreak of the last one while we pour our energy into the next.
Sometimes the tragedies come a little at a time. It may be a series of violent acts putting one family on the front pages. Perhaps years of gross neglect combine with social and behavioral circumstances to come crashing together and a sibling group can no longer live with their birth family. Or it may be a natural disaster that strikes hundreds at one time.
One thing these tragedies have in common is that the real healing and rebuilding takes days, months, years, decades. After the disaster there is work to be done.
For the children who wait in foster care in the United States the crises have passed. Now our staff here at The Adoption Exchange remain focused on their need for homes, as do their caseworkers and the families who step forward to love them.
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Learn more about Dixie.
Dr. Dixie van de Flier Davis
Happiness
Aurora Mental Health Center (spring, 2009) says:
When those around us are happy, we can feel it. It is like standing near a fire, the warmth spreads to all of those gathered around it. In fact according to a recent study that examined the happiness of almost 5,000 people over 20 years, your own happiness can affect people you don’t even know! The study was completed by the University of CA in San Diego and found that when you become happy, any friend of yours who lives within a mile becomes 25% more likely to also be happy. Amazingly, they also found that a friend of that friend becomes 10% more likely to be happy and a friend of that friend’s friend has a 5% increased chance of being happy.
No wonder the center began offering free “laugh classes” last year.
Lots of people have written books on how to be happy.
I’ve never really thought about pursuing happiness. But I have observed some things about people I know that are in fact happy.
friendship and family.
There are lots of people like that in the adoption community.
Diane is one of them. Since I’ve known her she has mortgaged her house to pay for mental health services for her adopted children, left a high-powered career she loved in order to be available to them, was laid off from a great job when the economy tanked, and has had a few other setbacks. Nonetheless her eyes sparkle, her voice has a lilting tone, her sense of humor is alive, she is a selfless volunteer, she looks as young as she did the day I met her … and she is genuinely happy.
From what I can tell, being happy is not the goal. It appears to be the byproduct.
Those of us who know Diane sure like being around her. We are warmed by the fire within her.
Do you have a story about someone you know who is happy?
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Learn more about Dixie.
Dr. Dixie van de Flier Davis
Being In Foster Care
A national survey in 2007 revealed that 45% of the American population thinks children are in foster care due to their own delinquency (AdopTalk, Fall, 2009).
So let’s set the record straight.
It not the fault of the children that their parents and care-givers are too lost in their own dysfunction to care for them. It is not their fault that there is no food, no heat, and no one to take them to school. It’s not their fault when their parents don’t come home at night.
It’s not the fault of older siblings that they are left to raise the babies. It’s not their fault that they have been beaten, pinched, kicked, burned and used.
Having their innocence stripped away from them before they lose their baby teeth is not their fault.
The children are not to blame that family holidays become nightmares of substance abuse and that violence is a daily occurence.
Hello out there – They are children!
It is not their fault.
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Learn more about Dixie.