This has been one crazy week. Jonathan had his first of two performances Thursday night and he did great. It's Friday afternoon as I begin this blog and he's gearing up for tonight's second performance. I'm sure it will go just as well. It's amazing the talent level they have at Gaither High school - the singers, dancers, and the band there are just incredible. I'm so happy Jonathan is having the opportunity to learn under Debbie Connelly's tutelage - he has grown so much as a singer and a performer in just this past year.
I hope to be able to post some photos of his performance soon, so keep your eyes posted! More on that soon.
*************************
On to more crazy Rhocchini news
On Wednesday I thought I should check in on my AT&T bill online. Our new billing cycle started Monday the 21st and given last month's 279 page phone bill that cost me over $500 for the month, I thought I needed to keep a CLOSE eye on the whole thing this month.
Only two days into the month and I see that Kayla has talked over 40 minutes already and Kayte is up to 112. However, of those minutes, only 25 of them - each (25 for Kayla, 25 for Kayte) are actually eating into our family shared minutes. The rest of them are 'free minutes' as in... after hours minutes or other AT&T customers that we don't actually get charged for.
Hmmm.. Not too terribly bad, but - we can't keep going at that pace, for if all 5 of us did at that pace, with Chris much more as his is his business phone, we'd be over our minutes for sure by the end of the month, if my math is correct.
But - oh yes - there is more.
I hit the "DATA USED" button on Kayla's phone.
HOLY COW
I only looked at the first 5 pages, because I couldn't possibly stomach any more than that.
On Monday morning, between the hours of 8 am and 10:35 am, Kayla had over 500 text messages.
OVER FIVE HUNDRED?????
Some of you are thinking, "Hey, wasn't Kayla IN SCHOOL - in CLASSES - at that time on Monday?"
The answer to that very important question is "Yes". And, no, kids are not allowed to use cell phones in school. Nor are the allowed to text message in school. Not before class, between classes, not even at lunch.
I called AT&T to see if there was a misprint... if I was reading what I was seeing on my screen correctly. First, of course, they ask if they can review your bill. I said yes, of course. Then I explained what I needed. So she looked at Kayla's text messaging history. After she stopped LAUGHING, she apologized for laughing. Then with a chuckle, asked how her THUMBS were. Then she wondered if we should maybe get her to a doctor for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome or something.
I mean, really. I'm not panicked enough - I need to be laughed at by an AT&T employee? Really??
Yeah, there is no glitch. No computer error. Kayla has just.... what were the words of the AT&T lady?... oh yes.... Kayla has just "been one busy girl while she's at school." Yes indeed.
Well, it was all I could do to not call the school or email her teachers and ask them to LOOK AT HER. See - she MUST be TEXTING right in FRONT of them. Because - by my math, 500 text messages in 2 hrs 35 minutes means that freaking phone is buzzing every stinkin 18 SECONDS
18 SECONDS!
But I didn't. I waited until she got home to have a conversation with her. What I thought would be a rational conversation. What the heck was I thinking? She's a 17 year old girl full of hormones with a cell phone that buzzes every 18 seconds. Rational? Yeah... This is how it went:
Tina: Kayla, I almost called your teachers today and asked them to take away your cell phone.
Kayla: WHY?
Tina: Because Kayla. How many times have you texted on it?
Kayla: Who cares? I can text how many ever times I want to.
Tina: Kayla! You know you are not allowed to text in school! I just talked to AT&T and they told me on Monday morning, in only a little more than 2 hours, you texted over 500 times.
Kayla: Well, I paid you my $30 for my phone, so I can use it any time I want to. If I want to text while I'm at school, I'll text.
Tina: WHAT? First of all, regardless of what money you give to use the phone, cell phones are NOT permitted to be used in school. Regardless of who pays for them.
Kayla: You don't like it take away my phone. I'll go to metro and get a phone.
Tina: WHAT? You think that you can get YOUR fancy phone at metro for what you give Chris and I for that phone? No. Watch your step little girl. You KNOW you are not allowed to text in school. Not MY rule, it's a SCHOOL rule.
Kayla: Besides, I'm getting A's and B's - so you can't say it's affecting my grades. So just leave me alone.
Tina: That's not the point, Kayla. You are not allowed to text in school. And not only are you texting in school, you are sending and receiving text messages every flipping 18 seconds. Don't you think that's a little excessive?
Kayla: You can't tell me what to do.
Tina: Just watch me.
And with that, I punished her and told her she couldn't go to the mall like she had planned on doing that afternoon. And I yelled at her. And BOY OH BOY it was a ROUGH conversation.
After this I called Chris.
He took a surprising stance on the subject Not on Kayla's side. But not on my 'side' either. He told me that -- I needed to "pick my battles" and that this might not be one of them.
No, it's not affecting her grades right now. No, she hasn't yet been caught. So... Maybe the best course of action was to simply tell Kayla that we strongly feel that she is EXTREMELY excessive right now with her text messaging. She needs to limit the amount of text messaging she does in school. AND - if she gets caught and they take away her phone - we are not going to pick it up for her. That will hurt. Because, once they catch you with it, they take away the phone and a parent needs to pick it up. She paid $400 of her own money for that phone. Losing it will hurt her, I'm sure. And if it's gone, it will no doubt teach her a hard lesson.
The other thing that I do realize is that ALL kids text message in school. Heck, even Jonathan does it. Kayte does it. Not excessively though. Just a few here and there. Nothing like a few hundred a morning, or a thousand a day.
The thing I'm wrestling with in my mind is this: at what point does the school consider me a rotten parent for NOT taking away the cell phone? Then, like I was telling my boss, I if I do take away the cell phone, she'll just go get another. There is not one single rule or law allowing her to NOT get one. I HATE that. Parents of kids who are very young who are reading this - beware - your time is coming. As technology improves and kids have more and more access to things... Parents are losing control over what their kids can and can't do. It's a terrible thing. And it's only going to get worse. I used to think it was simple... "Oh, just take away the phone". Yeah, not so simple any more. Then she runs out to Metro PCS and buys a phone that she can use at any time and I can't SEE when she's using it and who the heck she is talking to. Scary stuff.
So - for now - I've gone with Chris on the "Choose your battles" stance. I've told Kayla that she is way excessive and she needs to cut back. She agrees. I've told her that just because she pays $30 a month for the phone doesn't mean she can just use it whenever the heck she feels like it. She's still living under MY roof and under MY rules.
Ya know, I was just looking online for a great bible verse to put in at the end of this blog, and came a cross a site instead. The site discusses various verses in the bible at length. One of them is Ephesians 6:1-9. It's the one that talks about Children obeying their parents and honoring your mother and father and all that. Yeah, I get that and have read it a million times. Have blogged that verse before as well. But he had some interesting thoughts that I had not read before nor thought of.
Of course he starts off at one point talking about how when he was a teenager he had heated arguments with his parents. This caught my eye, of course. He talked about how, no matter how very passionate he was in his arguments at the time, if he took his Dad's position instead of the one he had 'so hotly contended for' things just turned out better for some reason.
He then goes on to say "For children to obey -- and for parents to enforce obedience -- is sometimes difficult. But children learn "in school of the home" the vital ability to submit their wills to another. How can a child who doesn't learn to obey a PARENT when wills conflict, ever learn to obey GOD when self-will is propelling him beyond God's limits? Parents have a sacred task to teach obedidence, for their children's siritual and physical lives are at stake. Obedience to parents is directly transferred to obedience to our Heavenly Father."'
He then goes on to talk about when a child goes on to marry. He or she leaves for form a new family and is required to HONOR and be united to his wife or husband. If he or she hasn't learned to honor parents... Will they transfer that to their spouse? In honoring parents, it's teaching them what they need to be good wives or husbands.
So I end instead with the verse below...
"Do not withhold discipline from a child. If you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death." Proverbs 23:13-14
My sister has had mental problems all of her life. In December 2005 she was into drugs and gangs and consequently lost custody of her three kids, ages 12, 13 and 14. Her kids were going to be sent to foster care and I knew we had to take them in. With the addtion of the kids plus our son, our Daughter and Chris's father we were suddenly a family of eight! I thought it would help to keep a journal of the daily happenings of our lives as it seems that every day holds something new for us.
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- Someday, from your mansion in heaven, you will look back on this day and smile, because you will realize that your light and momentary troubles were achieving for you an eternal glory that far outweighs them all in comparison. (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)
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In A Nutshell:
Here is a letter I sent to Dr. Phil which really sums everything up:
I am married to my high-school sweetheart (20 years this August), with two wonderful children (Amanda who is 20 and Jonathan who is 13). I have two sisters, both younger – I call them “my good sister” and “my bad sister”. My good sister is – well, good! Normal in every way. The bad one, Julie, has been in trouble since she was a kid. As a baby she cried all of the time. As a teenager she was in trouble all of the time. At the age of 14 or so I remember that she had run away from home to live with a grown man in Atlanta. This was one of many run a ways. As a teenager, she provided sexual favors to boys in school, as well as teachers. As a young adult she was arrested for prostitution. She’s done drugs ranging from marijuana to crack. She was diagnosed early on as bi-polar with personality disorder. She’s also a serious cutter to the point where she no longer hid the cuts. She’s cut things like “Ronald Cecchinni” into her arm… and “Fuck you Dr. XXX” on her stomach, in large letters. Julie is also a diagnosed sex-addict. She’s also recently (in the past year) begun ‘huffing’. (I honestly believe that this huffing has caused some permanent damage) She is currently 36yo.
Julie lost her husband Ron a year and a half ago as a result of Leukemia and Kidney Disease which the military attributed to his serving in the Gulf War. He left behind three children – Kayla who is now 15, Justin who is now 14 and Kayte who is now 13. Even when Julie was married, her psychiatric problems persisted. She has been hospitalized literally hundreds of times over the years. However, when her husband was alive, he would take care of the kids when Julie was mentally out of control. After Ron died, Julie lost control of the kids and her life. She began to spiral out of control, having pot parties at her home (to the point where the kids said a door would open and a cloud of smoke would come bellowing out of the room), smoking weed with her own kids, having sex all over the house with different men all the time, allowing young men (19 yo) to sleep over with her oldest daughter (only 14 at the time), and allowing Gang members to live in her home (she said she felt ‘safe’ with them there). In addition, she was attempting suicide daily, overdosing on medications hoping to not wake up the next morning. Mind you all of this while she was seeing her Psychologist every week and Psychiatrist once a month. Both of these Doctors knew what was going on at home, neither of them reported it to the proper authorities. I have even been told by one of them that he was told, by Julie, that she ‘heard voices telling her to hurt the children’ but that she was proud that she could ignore the voices. Still, these Doctors reported nothing.
I should add here that it was at some point in this period of time in Julie’s life when her children began suicide watches over their mom… each one taking turns to sit in a room with her at all hours (night and day) because their mom was less-likely to hurt herself while they were here. However, it didn’t always work – Julie constantly took pills in front of them trying to either dope herself up or overdose, and she would even cut herself in front of the kids.
Finally one day, she woke up furious that her last suicide attempt didn’t work. She got violent with her oldest daughter, police were called, and finally DCF was called. (I would like to add that we (other family members) had called DCF in the past to report things, but some of the cases were ‘unfounded’ and one other time the fled the state knowing CF only had jurisdiction in Florida.) DCF removed the children from the home in November 2005 and I gained custody of the Children shortly thereafter.
There are lots of things I could add here about my sister, DCF, and the horrible Foster Care or Custodial Care program we are involved with. However, that is not my main reason for writing to you.
Kayte, the youngest, seems to be adjusting pretty well. She has a tendency to trivialize what her mom has done and the seriousness of it, but I think that is normal given that it is her mom. Kayte was in counseling, but she feels it’s ‘a waste of time’.
Justin, the middle child, is okay. As a young boy I'm told he was a terror. He used to hit his mother and at one point (only 6yo) tried to jump off a building to kill himself. Since then, his anger has turned in to an endless smothering of love and caring. He does everything for his mom… from getting her whatever she needs to rubbing her feet and back. Justin has seen a psychiatrist since moving in with me who felt that his issues were brought on by trauma. It was also at that visit with the psychiatrist that he confided in myself and the Doctor that he had suicidal thoughts often while living at home with his mom in her ‘state of being’ after his dad died. However, since he moved in with me he has done so much better (and continues to improve daily) that she didn’t feel he even needed counseling at this time. He would, however, need counseling before he was reunited with his mom.
Kayla, the oldest, has serious issues. She is also currently in counseling but feels that it is ‘a waste of time’. Kayla has always lied and stolen things. Family members feel sorry for her because you can tell that she doesn’t really mean any ill will by it, but it’s been ‘the way she is’ for a very long time. By far her biggest problems are lying and her need for approval by men (young and old).
Since the kids have moved in with us, my husband and I have set up rules. The kids already had myspace accounts, so we set ground rules for it. 1) We needed the login names and passwords. 2) Profiles must be set to private. 3) The only people they were allowed to have on their friends list was people that they actually knew. When Kayla’s list climbed over 300, and she was found to have inappropriate conversations (wanting to sneak out and ‘hook up’ with young men), we made everyone cut their list down to 30 friends, which included myself. 4) All vulgar language and inappropriate photos would come off immediately and would be monitored by myself at any given time. At times, they try to put up ‘sexy’ pictures which immediately need to come down.
However recently I have found that she has multiple website things going on in an attempt to pick up young men. I'll outline a few here so that you understand the gravity of the situation: 1) I found her 'normal' myspace account set to 'public view'. She has over 11,000 profile views(meaning people looking at her pictures and wanting to know more about her). I had reset it to private many times, but she keeps going back and resetting it to public. 2) I have found another myspace account which she went by the name 'Shannon' and used it to pick up young men, tease them, then later tell them that she was 'taken' but refer them to her 'cousin, Kayla'. She'd then give them all of Kayla's information. Of course thiswas also set to public. 3) I have found another social network website that was like myspace in which she had ONLY men (mostly from other states) as her 'friends' whom she corresponded with. The emails back and forth basically said the same thing as all of the others... more on that in #4 - only these were guys that not only did she not know, but they were not even in the area! 4) All accounts that I have found had basically the same thing... her emailing guys wanting to know if she was pretty, if they wanted to 'hook up', talking about going to their 'crib' or meeting up with them somewhere, and constantly seeking approval and affirmation from these guys.
I believe she gets this from her mom. And the sad thing is, if you met her, you would love her. She is truly a GREAT kid… but she has serious issues. I’ve described to you Julie’s behavior and Kayla’s seems to be the same way. Neither can make decisions on their own that are ‘the right thing to do’, and both lack the understanding of simple values, morals and ethics. I could go into so many examples. How do I describe the utterly amazing difference between Julie’s parenting style and my own?
I know... Both Julie and I have myspace accounts set up to ‘monitor’ the kids. To illustrate the difference between Julie and myself, here is something that Julie and I both put on our myspace accounts. You are supposed to put something 'about yourself' by your picture. Here is mine: "I'm 38 years old. I have two amazing kids, Amanda who is 20 and Jonathan who is 13. I have great husband, Chris. I love to sing - and have been singing in Toast of Tampa Show Chorus for 10 years. I'm raising my nieces and nephew (12, 13 and 14). I love God and my family."And here is Julie's: "I am who I am and if you dont like me for me........FUCK YOU........ Plus if you dont like me for me....... Im gunna tell my kids and there gunna kick yer ass!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Here’s the other dilemma we are having; the two girls are in counseling that is costing me $25 EACH in co-payments every time they go. The State of Florida provides NO financial support to me as a relative caregiver, other than providing the three kids with Medicaid. They received small SSI checks because of their dad’s death, but it barely covers the food they consume. The DCF worker, having spoke with the girls and being told that therapy is ‘a waste of time’, has referred me to a clinic that DCF uses for cases such as this to seek mental care for Kayla (aswell as the others). However, the kids have TriCare as their primary insurance because their dad died from Military causes. TriCare requires the co-payment, regardless of the Medicaid secondary. Having said that, please understand that I worked in referrals in a primary care physician’s office for 16 years… I totally ‘get’ what is required for primary and secondary insurances and all the red tape. But because of the uniqueness of this situation, the kids are suffering!
I should also point out here that I have the kids for an indefinite period of time. Right now Julie is doing things that she has been told to do to get the kids back. However, she is still awaiting a court ordered detailed Psychiatric exam to determine if she can EVER parent again. Even if that Psychiatrist feels she can parent again, she’ll most likely need to be ‘clean’ and ‘episode-free’ for 6 months to a year minimum. In addition, Julie is only allowed supervised visits and one phone call a day. This came about because of her inappropriate behavior when she was with the kids and because when she was allowed to call any time she’d call 10 + times a day.
The other problem with Julie ever getting her children back is that… she doesn’t understand what she did wrong. She parents as if she were 15-years old herself. If anyone has ever done something bad and been able to ‘keep’ their kids, she sees no reason she can’t do it. She brought her daughter at the age of 13 in for a HUGE tattoo on the small of her back. It’s Tigger flipping ‘the bird’ with her gang name under it. She was also planning on getting a large tattoo on her 12yo before the kids were taken. Again, she sees nothing wrong with any of her past behavior.
So, you see, I could have these children for the rest of their teenage years. I honestly don’t know where to turn to get them the help they need.
I feel as if I am in a psychiatric nightmare and I just can’t wake up. Eight months ago I was at home, my biggest ‘kid worry’ was if my son was going to get good grades on his report card. Now I find myself in a crux worried about whether or not the lessons I teach them, this late in their young life, are going to be enough to turn these kids around and help them to be productive adults in the near future.
I am married to my high-school sweetheart (20 years this August), with two wonderful children (Amanda who is 20 and Jonathan who is 13). I have two sisters, both younger – I call them “my good sister” and “my bad sister”. My good sister is – well, good! Normal in every way. The bad one, Julie, has been in trouble since she was a kid. As a baby she cried all of the time. As a teenager she was in trouble all of the time. At the age of 14 or so I remember that she had run away from home to live with a grown man in Atlanta. This was one of many run a ways. As a teenager, she provided sexual favors to boys in school, as well as teachers. As a young adult she was arrested for prostitution. She’s done drugs ranging from marijuana to crack. She was diagnosed early on as bi-polar with personality disorder. She’s also a serious cutter to the point where she no longer hid the cuts. She’s cut things like “Ronald Cecchinni” into her arm… and “Fuck you Dr. XXX” on her stomach, in large letters. Julie is also a diagnosed sex-addict. She’s also recently (in the past year) begun ‘huffing’. (I honestly believe that this huffing has caused some permanent damage) She is currently 36yo.
Julie lost her husband Ron a year and a half ago as a result of Leukemia and Kidney Disease which the military attributed to his serving in the Gulf War. He left behind three children – Kayla who is now 15, Justin who is now 14 and Kayte who is now 13. Even when Julie was married, her psychiatric problems persisted. She has been hospitalized literally hundreds of times over the years. However, when her husband was alive, he would take care of the kids when Julie was mentally out of control. After Ron died, Julie lost control of the kids and her life. She began to spiral out of control, having pot parties at her home (to the point where the kids said a door would open and a cloud of smoke would come bellowing out of the room), smoking weed with her own kids, having sex all over the house with different men all the time, allowing young men (19 yo) to sleep over with her oldest daughter (only 14 at the time), and allowing Gang members to live in her home (she said she felt ‘safe’ with them there). In addition, she was attempting suicide daily, overdosing on medications hoping to not wake up the next morning. Mind you all of this while she was seeing her Psychologist every week and Psychiatrist once a month. Both of these Doctors knew what was going on at home, neither of them reported it to the proper authorities. I have even been told by one of them that he was told, by Julie, that she ‘heard voices telling her to hurt the children’ but that she was proud that she could ignore the voices. Still, these Doctors reported nothing.
I should add here that it was at some point in this period of time in Julie’s life when her children began suicide watches over their mom… each one taking turns to sit in a room with her at all hours (night and day) because their mom was less-likely to hurt herself while they were here. However, it didn’t always work – Julie constantly took pills in front of them trying to either dope herself up or overdose, and she would even cut herself in front of the kids.
Finally one day, she woke up furious that her last suicide attempt didn’t work. She got violent with her oldest daughter, police were called, and finally DCF was called. (I would like to add that we (other family members) had called DCF in the past to report things, but some of the cases were ‘unfounded’ and one other time the fled the state knowing CF only had jurisdiction in Florida.) DCF removed the children from the home in November 2005 and I gained custody of the Children shortly thereafter.
There are lots of things I could add here about my sister, DCF, and the horrible Foster Care or Custodial Care program we are involved with. However, that is not my main reason for writing to you.
Kayte, the youngest, seems to be adjusting pretty well. She has a tendency to trivialize what her mom has done and the seriousness of it, but I think that is normal given that it is her mom. Kayte was in counseling, but she feels it’s ‘a waste of time’.
Justin, the middle child, is okay. As a young boy I'm told he was a terror. He used to hit his mother and at one point (only 6yo) tried to jump off a building to kill himself. Since then, his anger has turned in to an endless smothering of love and caring. He does everything for his mom… from getting her whatever she needs to rubbing her feet and back. Justin has seen a psychiatrist since moving in with me who felt that his issues were brought on by trauma. It was also at that visit with the psychiatrist that he confided in myself and the Doctor that he had suicidal thoughts often while living at home with his mom in her ‘state of being’ after his dad died. However, since he moved in with me he has done so much better (and continues to improve daily) that she didn’t feel he even needed counseling at this time. He would, however, need counseling before he was reunited with his mom.
Kayla, the oldest, has serious issues. She is also currently in counseling but feels that it is ‘a waste of time’. Kayla has always lied and stolen things. Family members feel sorry for her because you can tell that she doesn’t really mean any ill will by it, but it’s been ‘the way she is’ for a very long time. By far her biggest problems are lying and her need for approval by men (young and old).
Since the kids have moved in with us, my husband and I have set up rules. The kids already had myspace accounts, so we set ground rules for it. 1) We needed the login names and passwords. 2) Profiles must be set to private. 3) The only people they were allowed to have on their friends list was people that they actually knew. When Kayla’s list climbed over 300, and she was found to have inappropriate conversations (wanting to sneak out and ‘hook up’ with young men), we made everyone cut their list down to 30 friends, which included myself. 4) All vulgar language and inappropriate photos would come off immediately and would be monitored by myself at any given time. At times, they try to put up ‘sexy’ pictures which immediately need to come down.
However recently I have found that she has multiple website things going on in an attempt to pick up young men. I'll outline a few here so that you understand the gravity of the situation: 1) I found her 'normal' myspace account set to 'public view'. She has over 11,000 profile views(meaning people looking at her pictures and wanting to know more about her). I had reset it to private many times, but she keeps going back and resetting it to public. 2) I have found another myspace account which she went by the name 'Shannon' and used it to pick up young men, tease them, then later tell them that she was 'taken' but refer them to her 'cousin, Kayla'. She'd then give them all of Kayla's information. Of course thiswas also set to public. 3) I have found another social network website that was like myspace in which she had ONLY men (mostly from other states) as her 'friends' whom she corresponded with. The emails back and forth basically said the same thing as all of the others... more on that in #4 - only these were guys that not only did she not know, but they were not even in the area! 4) All accounts that I have found had basically the same thing... her emailing guys wanting to know if she was pretty, if they wanted to 'hook up', talking about going to their 'crib' or meeting up with them somewhere, and constantly seeking approval and affirmation from these guys.
I believe she gets this from her mom. And the sad thing is, if you met her, you would love her. She is truly a GREAT kid… but she has serious issues. I’ve described to you Julie’s behavior and Kayla’s seems to be the same way. Neither can make decisions on their own that are ‘the right thing to do’, and both lack the understanding of simple values, morals and ethics. I could go into so many examples. How do I describe the utterly amazing difference between Julie’s parenting style and my own?
I know... Both Julie and I have myspace accounts set up to ‘monitor’ the kids. To illustrate the difference between Julie and myself, here is something that Julie and I both put on our myspace accounts. You are supposed to put something 'about yourself' by your picture. Here is mine: "I'm 38 years old. I have two amazing kids, Amanda who is 20 and Jonathan who is 13. I have great husband, Chris. I love to sing - and have been singing in Toast of Tampa Show Chorus for 10 years. I'm raising my nieces and nephew (12, 13 and 14). I love God and my family."And here is Julie's: "I am who I am and if you dont like me for me........FUCK YOU........ Plus if you dont like me for me....... Im gunna tell my kids and there gunna kick yer ass!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Here’s the other dilemma we are having; the two girls are in counseling that is costing me $25 EACH in co-payments every time they go. The State of Florida provides NO financial support to me as a relative caregiver, other than providing the three kids with Medicaid. They received small SSI checks because of their dad’s death, but it barely covers the food they consume. The DCF worker, having spoke with the girls and being told that therapy is ‘a waste of time’, has referred me to a clinic that DCF uses for cases such as this to seek mental care for Kayla (aswell as the others). However, the kids have TriCare as their primary insurance because their dad died from Military causes. TriCare requires the co-payment, regardless of the Medicaid secondary. Having said that, please understand that I worked in referrals in a primary care physician’s office for 16 years… I totally ‘get’ what is required for primary and secondary insurances and all the red tape. But because of the uniqueness of this situation, the kids are suffering!
I should also point out here that I have the kids for an indefinite period of time. Right now Julie is doing things that she has been told to do to get the kids back. However, she is still awaiting a court ordered detailed Psychiatric exam to determine if she can EVER parent again. Even if that Psychiatrist feels she can parent again, she’ll most likely need to be ‘clean’ and ‘episode-free’ for 6 months to a year minimum. In addition, Julie is only allowed supervised visits and one phone call a day. This came about because of her inappropriate behavior when she was with the kids and because when she was allowed to call any time she’d call 10 + times a day.
The other problem with Julie ever getting her children back is that… she doesn’t understand what she did wrong. She parents as if she were 15-years old herself. If anyone has ever done something bad and been able to ‘keep’ their kids, she sees no reason she can’t do it. She brought her daughter at the age of 13 in for a HUGE tattoo on the small of her back. It’s Tigger flipping ‘the bird’ with her gang name under it. She was also planning on getting a large tattoo on her 12yo before the kids were taken. Again, she sees nothing wrong with any of her past behavior.
So, you see, I could have these children for the rest of their teenage years. I honestly don’t know where to turn to get them the help they need.
I feel as if I am in a psychiatric nightmare and I just can’t wake up. Eight months ago I was at home, my biggest ‘kid worry’ was if my son was going to get good grades on his report card. Now I find myself in a crux worried about whether or not the lessons I teach them, this late in their young life, are going to be enough to turn these kids around and help them to be productive adults in the near future.
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