[waitingtobeamom]

DH and I have been liscensed just over a year. 1 month after being liscensed we received a placement of 3 girls. They have been with us for over a year now! In the meantime we had one other placement although she was an infant.

We knew going in that having kids in the house would create some wear and tear on our home, but I am wondering if this is normal. To me is seems way over the top!

Here is a list of things that have been broken or ruined in our home in the last year:

Backdoor
Panneling on the wall
Shelf pulled off wall in bedroom (on purpose in a tanrum)
Antique dresser (on purpose during a tantrum)
dresser drawer
multiple curtains
arm chair (written on and won't come out)
2 bedroom doors (Old doors and knobs were pulled out)
recliner
bannister rungs (On purpose when in time-out)
multiple pieced of trimwork puled off the walll (on purpose)
Many holiday decorations
2 baby gates

Is this normal wear and tear? Or is it just these kids??

[hermommy]

I have had a placement of a sibling group that destroyed everything they came into contact with. I had them 2 months and had to have them removed. here is my list

-bedroom window broken
-headboard to bed
-mirror on dresser
-holes in walls
-the little boy went out back dug up dirt and mud and through into the pool.
-marked my couch up
-if he was eating and didnt want what I fixed, he would throw the dishes across the room.
-scratched hardwood floors on purpose

Im sure their is some that I am missing but those are the top lol.

[akcskye]

From my own experience only, I would say that this is normal for kids until they get old enough to understand to respect their stuff and the house that holds it.

My son was BAD about doing stuff like this.

He's 11 now...but it's like if he finds anything marginally broken, rather than give it to dad to fix...he has much more fun destroying it.

I didn't like it, but it didn't bother me as much on some of the junk he and his sister moved in with...even though they still got a lecture out of it...but when it moved on to things like my brick border in the front of my house (2 bricks old and broken...might as well bust them all up with a hammer, right?), I about went nuts!

What finally worked, you ask? For a kid like him who just WOULDN'T listen, ACTIONS speak louder than words.

The final straw was sneaking into the garage and dismantling the weed eater. Well, I did the same thing to his Nintendo DS, and not another thing has been torn up since.

I know, it's extreme, but for K, that was the only way to get him to TRULY listen.

If he wants a new DS, then he will have to work to pay for it, like I had to work to get a new weedeater.

Now, I realize you just wanted to know if it's normal...I honestly think it is...you've got to realize many children in foster care have absolutely NO value on material objects...they've lost everything, so they learn not to care about anything but a very few special things very fast.

You just need to start working with them early, and I just put the above about my son, should you or anyone have such problems, you then have an idea of one way that worked, at least.

[jbee]

that is not too horrible...our first placements kicked a hole in a door, smeared gooey stuff on walls, threw stuff at dh and broke it, and just treated everything like garbage during their tantrums (and when they were bored, lol).
even now the big boys live in one half of the house and our 'family' is in the new addition we put on. we were going to move the fosters in the new part but realized they have little respect for things. dh and i have never lived in a nice place and decided to move in ourselves.
the boys part of the house has had stuff spilled on the floor, blinds broken, shelves broken, shower curtains ripped down, marks on the bathroom vanity, towel bars ripped down, hooks broken, bunk beds cracked, and is just dirty in general.
i have to act like a bathroom czar to make sure it is even suitable for any guests that come over. i have to check it several times a day, find the offender who peed on the floor/left boogers on the sink/popped zits on the mirror/bled all over/cut hair all over the counter, etc etc and make them clean it up.
so yes, it is kind of normal. i think the level and kind of destruction just depends on the kid.
by the way, ds had a sharpie marker rampage once and got my fridge, cupboards, bathroom door, and a few walls. so its not just the fosters, lol.

[sergekel]

Jenny,

You are having me in hysterics reading your post.

OMG...kids make the biggest disasters. My 4 year old is the worst. You should see the sidewalk-chalk scribbles that go from the floor to the ceiling in his bedroom. How he managed that...I have no idea. The little neighbor girl gave him the chalk and I didn't know he had it till I saw Little Picaso's latest masterpiece.

We went ahead and painted a whole wall in that chalkboard paint so he would have a designated place to be artistic. You think for one minute that has helped?!

We now have a stand-up cabinet with a padlock to keep pens, pencils, paints, markers, vitamins, etc...in cause there is no stopping this kid. He WILL find a way to make a disaster one way or another. We just had to make it safer for him to do it.

Glad he got over the pour-the-maple-syrup-on-the-carpet stage. Needless to say , we have ripped up carpet and put in laminate.

I am always amazed when visiting others homes and they look like a picture out of better homes and gardens. And they have little kids!??

I just figure that either they don't homeschool and have kids running around 24/7/365....or their kids just don't have as much fun as mine do.

[jbee]

ha! i know when people bring their kids they never want to leave our house because it is a playland!
our house has the 'dumpy cabin in the woods' decorating scheme. i own no nice furniture, very few knicknacks...everything can be replaced with a run to the thrift store or the auction house, lol. when we buy anything, i honestly ask myself how durable it is and how it can be broken.

[shaylynn]

I know that I look at my walls and tell myself, "Yup, they need repainting AGAIN!" but I usually put it off because I know that in a week, they would look about the same again. My 12 yr old have an ink pen that was leaking so he decided to do splatter paint onto a poster of his in his room. That would have been okay with me if he wanted to wreck his poster but he also got it on the dresser, bookcase, two walls and the ceiling before he decided to throw the pen away. My woodwork/trim boards in almost all my main room looks like crap from so many cars being smashed and crashed into them. I had looked at getting new trimwork but then remind myself WHY? Right now I am looking for new wallpaper border because I had a kid who ALWAYS hung his pictures up-taped right on the border paper so when the picture was removed, it would tear the paper. My home will never look like it came out of a magazine. Oh, well, that is how it pretty much is with kids around.

[aclee]

pretty normal kids stuff...I don't even think it's foster kid per se...just KID KID. When I was a Nanny one little girl got a mark on the couch, so she solved the problem by pulling out her trusty blunt end scissors and cutting the mark right off the sofa cushion. Made perfect sense to her! Thankfully I wasn't on duty when that happened. I was on duty once when two boys (about 7) were rough housing and I ran to grab the phone, came back there was a hole in the wall and one was missing a tooth. Not the one I was responsible for either...but one of his friends. I almost died. Called his mom and she said...Is it a perminant tooth? I said, no he said it was just another baby tooth. She ok, no biggie. I guess he had knocked out 3 other baby teeth on other occasions when he was on his bike and crashed into the garage door with it...

Kids have no respect, and I just don't think they get it until you spell it out. One little boy lost his whole CD binder of playstation games and asked his parents to buy new ones. They had him do the math on that, and then he worked off the expense. He was MUCH more careful with the three games he was able to earn the money to buy himself.

[NotAMomYet]

Sounds "normal enough" to me. I remember being about 12 and my 10-year-old sister and I were horsing around in the converted attic space. Well, we kicked a hole in the sheet rock and tried to "fix" it. The walls were light blue so we took a bit of un-lined paper and some blue chalk and covered the paper then taped it over the hole. For an added bit of repair, we then "feathered" the chalk from the paper to the wall. Looked good to us.

Daddy noticed it the very next time he entered the room.

After raising SIX daughters, you can still see the evidence of little terrors all over the house. Gouges in doors here and there, permanent marker on headboards, names carved here-and-there.

This is why I want to hold off on the "perfect" Ikea couches until we have our kids. I won't cry if they destroy our UGLY, second-hand, floral-print couch and love seat! The antique dining set that we just spent hours and hours refinishing is a different story ...

[my2guats]

I am feeling really thankful for my kids who have yet to destroy anything or color anything in my home.

[AmyAnne]

Our rule has always been: You break your own stuff, fine, you do without. Unless it is something you MUST have such as socks or part of the school uniform or Shampoo. Then you're going to be the one replacing it. Don't have the money, you can work it off. Ditto goes for replacing personal items belonging to anyone else or items owned by the entire family, including the house. When things have gotten damaged in the house, kiddo is expected to take an active role in helping DH fix the damage, or chipping in a reasonable amount to replace it. Or he's simply not allowed to use that item anymore (Like, say, if he broke the TV. We would replace it but he would not be permitted to use it for a certain amount of time)

But we have had our damage. My favorite was when he scratched his name in the wall with a nail. HIS OWN NAME and then tried to blame it on the cat. You know, see that's what really annoys me. We had owned that cat for eight years, and then suddenly, there she is, writing Austin's name on the wall!! He broke a Christmas ornament I had gotten as a gift. He THREE TIMES broke an award I had received that was important to me. He did damage to walls and doors purposely flooded the bathroom and did water damage to the ceiling twice, smeared black shoe polish on towels, dumped my $16 a bottle hair product down the drain, peed on carpets, gotten sharpie marker on the wood coffee table, ripped one of the wallpaper appliques I worked so hard to put up in the bathroom down, hid our cats toys from them, purposely spilled food and drinks.

The good news? He's 11 how and hardly ever does this stuff anymore.

[katiejack]

[quote=AmyAnne] My favorite was when he scratched his name in the wall with a nail. HIS OWN NAME and then tried to blame it on the cat. You know, see that's what really annoys me. We had owned that cat for eight years, and then suddenly, there she is, writing Austin's name on the wall!! QUOTE]

This is funny (not at the time though I'm sure). Rarely does anything make me laugh this hard that is posted online. I can sooo see my bs doing this...

[Boulderbabe]

I think accidental breakage and stuff like writing on furniture is pretty much par for the course.

What worries me more is the property damage during tantrums. That is NOT normal. Can you make a "safe place" where the kids can't do any damage, and take them there if they're tantrumming? I don't mean leave them there alone, but pick them up and move them there to have a fit with a parent silently watching until it is over?

[thelowlanders]

It may be normal behavior, but it is not acceptable in our home. By anyone's children. They CAN be trained to respect the home and things, people, and pets in it. This is called character building. I don't expect mine or others children to be perfect....but there had better be consequences for their actions no matter what the age, and steady progress showing. Consistency is the key.

A good example......a friend of mine's boys are aloud to do ALOT where they live. They have come in my home and ruined the paint on the doors, trim, baseboard etc. Put multiple chips in wood floor. Pee wherever the kids are playing. These are her bio children by the way... The funny thing is, they now know a complete difference in rules at my house. That I ***will*** follow through and that there is no obvious need to ruin things on purpose or there will be consequences.

Kids do not just simply out grow it. Just look at society......

[AmyAnne]

Originally Posted by thelowlanders

It may be normal behavior, but it is not acceptable in our home. By anyone's children. They CAN be trained to respect the home and things, people, and pets in it. This is called character building. I don't expect mine or others children to be perfect....but there had better be consequences for their actions no matter what the age, and steady progress showing. Consistency is the key.

A good example......a friend of mine's boys are aloud to do ALOT where they live. They have come in my home and ruined the paint on the doors, trim, baseboard etc. Put multiple chips in wood floor. Pee wherever the kids are playing. These are her bio children by the way... The funny thing is, they now know a complete difference in rules at my house. That I ***will*** follow through and that there is no obvious need to ruin things on purpose or there will be consequences.

Kids do not just simply out grow it. Just look at society......

Reminds me of my DH. Does not matter the age of the kids visiting here or if they're here with parents or not... he will put EVERYBODY in time out.