Learning about yourself

My wife and I are foster parents to two great little kids.  But they are very active, I must say.  I have come to believe that the older one has ADHD.  I think I can say this since, over the past 8 years, we have seen 35+ kids come through our house for care, and I have never seen such an active and attention lacking child until now.  The scary part of this journey as I deal with this child is that I am hearing my mother's words to me when I was a child.  "Can't sit down for just one minute!" "Can't you just stop doing <fill in the blank> and listen for one minute!" "I just told you not to <fill in the blank>!"  "Please, please just do <fill in the blank> for me NOW!  I think you get the idea.

In order to deal with the child in our care now, I decided to research "How to deal with kids with ADHD."  I was surprised to read that some of the items on the check list, I had and still have.  My kids think that I MUST HAVE had ADHD as a child.  I simply dismissed that idea - "I am normal and not out of control. Everything is fine, thank you very much."  Then I talked to one of my brothers and he told me "Yup, we've got it" and then he said, "I think you were worse than I was." (His child was properly diagnosed with ADHD as a young child and received proper treatment.  He went from a D- student to an A+ student.  Wow).  ADHD is hereditary I learned.

I have more compassion for our (foster) children now.  I am going back into my childhood and trying to remember all those things that frustrated me so greatly as a child and trying to do a better job.  I now understand some of my short falls (and there are many) better and can at least put a label on it. I no longer deny that I may have had ADHD as a child (still not proven) and now just try to move forward with this fresh new knowledge.  I also now realize that I have developed coping mechanisms over the years not realizing why things worked for me in such different ways than other people, they just did.

I will be push 60 years old next year, and I find that we can still learn about ourselves.  You can teach an old dog new tricks.  What was fascinating about this was that I never looked to blame God for any of this.  Regardless of my earlier behaviors and the challenges that I presented to my parents and my family, God was with me through it all.  Do I wish that things could have been different when I was a child? Yes.  But on the other hand, it has made me the person I am today.  God has written it on my heart to understand this little child, not only to help this child in care in our home, but to help God's little child in His care - me. I see these kids in care (them and me) with different eyes now.  I know how the little ones feel and I can relate to them now.  Thank you God for this late teaching.  Better now than never.  And I am still works in progress.