[lucyjoy]

I keep thinking if I yell it from the roof tops loud enough it will somehow make a difference. I've get the message clearly, it won't. Noone wants swimming lessons, just a life raft after they start drowning.

Last week I got a call from a desperate dad wanting me to help his rescue his son from an alternative school. He felt his son wasn't like those other kids and would learn bad habits. His son had been suspended after repeated class diruptions, he ran from the school, assaulted the sherriff, tried to take the sherriffs gun, stayed with me while suspended, assaulted me, attempted to run away, was arrested, but I agreed to drop charges on the condition he had eval done. Kid spent 8 days in the hospital returned to school and assaulted a teacher and was suspended pending a hearing on placement in the alternative school. I investigated the program which is free and a good success rate. Not what dad wanted to here. He wanted me to get his kid out. He was desperate to prove it wasn't the kids fault, just the divorce...

In the past week I've been called about a 5 year old disrupting because her tantrums didn't stop when left alone in a room, another 5 year old adopted out of age order who was constantly taunting the mom who is exhausted and fears for her what her younger children are learning from this, a 16 year old whose career mom decided she didn't want to keep him, an 8 year old who drinks her own urine and wants to kill her brother, and a 7 year old also out of order that clearly told his therapist his plans to kill his family.

When I talk to these parents it's easy to see all the wasted time using normal parenting and regular therapy and wonder if these kids and families could have been saved if they parents had been better prepared.(I also clearly remember all the time I wasted before I learned how to parent to my child's needs)

But the answer is no because the louder and stronger you push to try to educate and prepare people, the more they fight back because they don't want it to be true.

MY teens have talked to foster parent panels. I have a son with 18 moves and a disrupted adoption and a parent asked him why this home was different. His answer -This mom never let me get away with anything. The man asked-You liked that? His answer-not at the time, but it let me know I could trust her, she meant what she said, and I was safe. When It's tough to follow through with what I know is right, I remember that.

I feel great passion for people, especially children that haven't been given a chance. I am very open and very blunt about what I feel. And I do get upset when drowning people are trying to give swimming lessons while they're drowning.

There is more than one way to do things and each child dose need something different. But, there are also ways I think that are wrong for all children and some that are always wrong for traumatized children.

I will continue to study success stories and learn how those successes were made. I will continue to help drowning families learn to swim. I will continue to love my children and any more that come with all the passion I have.

But I'm done helping people that don't really want help and done trying to educate people who just want to jump in.