Interviewing A Child Adopted from Foster Care

Summary

In an insightful interview, Let's Go Dad gives us an emotional glimpse into the world of Robert, a child who has transitioned from foster care to adoption. The conversation weaves through Robert's initial fear and uncertainty being in foster care, to finding solace and happiness in his adoptive home. Through his journey, Robert discusses the emotional scars left behind, the challenges of being in foster care, his experiences with other foster kids, and what it means to finally feel part of a family. He also shares his thoughts on how families can better support children in the foster system, emphasizing the importance of counseling and maintaining connections with biological family members. The interview is a heartwarming testament to resilience and the healing power of a supportive environment, reminding us of the complex emotions foster children navigate on their path to finding their forever homes.

Highlights

• Robert shares his initial fear when first taken into foster care by cops, highlighting the lack of warning or explanation. 🚨
• Feeling betrayed when his stay with his new family was unexpectedly extended, Robert's behavior worsened due to fear and anger. 😥
• Robert expresses happiness in his new adoptive home, although he humorously complains about video game restrictions. 🎮
• Describing the invisible scars that foster kids carry, Robert underscores the importance of counseling in healing. 🩹
• He acknowledges the intrusive rules in foster care, such as needing county permission to leave the area, which he disliked. 🚔
• Robert's joy at having a YouTube channel now, something he wasn't allowed during foster care, shines through. 🎥
• He advises on helping foster kids feel more comfortable by gradually introducing them to the family. 🏡
• Robert reflects on the mix of emotions when other foster kids come and go from his adoptive home. 🤗
• He stresses the need for maintaining connections with biological parents when possible, to understand their roots. 🌳

Key Takeaways

• Foster care can be a scary and uncertain place for kids, but supportive families can make all the difference. 🌟
• Adoption brings about a journey of healing and feeling of belonging for foster children. ❤️
• Maintaining a connection with biological family members can be crucial for kids in foster care. 🤝
• Counseling plays a significant role in helping foster children process their experiences and traumas. 🧠
• Every child's journey through foster care and adoption is unique, filled with triumphs and challenges. 🌈

Overview

In this heartfelt interview, Robert, a young boy adopted from foster care, opens up about his journey from fear to acceptance. Initially taken away without warning, Robert recounts the terror and the betrayal he felt when he realized he was staying longer than expected. Through the support and care from his new family, he grew to appreciate his new home, despite minor grievances like video game limitations. His candid narrative provides a poignant look into the emotional upheaval foster children face.

Robert's experiences highlight the delicate balance between past traumas and new beginnings faced by children in foster care. He speaks passionately about the internal scars that linger, despite outward appearances. Through counseling and a supportive family, Robert has managed to navigate these challenges, emphasizing that maintaining any connection with biological family members can aid in healing and understanding one's identity.

The conversation touches on broader systemic issues like the restrictions foster children face, and the misunderstood nature of their emotional scars. Robert's journey serves as a testament to the resiliency of foster children and the transformative power of adoption. He encourages a gradual integration into new families and the importance of easing them into their new environments. Overall, Robert's story is a compelling reminder of the love and understanding needed to support children through their most difficult times.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Interview with Robert This chapter introduces an interview with Robert who shares his experiences related to foster care and adoption. Through this interview, readers will gain insight into what it's like to be in foster care, to be adopted, and to be a foster brother. The chapter sets the stage for a deeper understanding of these life experiences.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Robert's Black Belt Celebration Robert's Black Belt Celebration: Robert, after years of hard work and preparation, is finally ready for his black belt test. His parents are observing and sharing their excitement. Robert has options for how he'd like to celebrate his achievement, and they await his decision eagerly.
• 01:00 - 05:00: Robert's Experience in Foster Care Robert celebrated by choosing White Castle over fancy restaurants. He has long wanted to do this interview, making today special as he finally gets to share his story.
• 05:00 - 07:00: Adoption and Feeling at Home The chapter delves into the initial experiences of being in foster care. It begins with the protagonist recounting the abruptness of their removal from home by the police, a significant and unsettling moment. The protagonist describes their familiarity with police interactions due to frequent running away, yet the suddenness of being taken away without notice was a shocking experience. They share how they were first placed in a house for a few weeks before moving on to another placement, highlighting the uncertainty and fear faced during this transition.
• 07:00 - 12:00: Challenges and Reflections on Foster Care This chapter delves into the emotional and psychological challenges faced by individuals in foster care. It highlights the fear and uncertainty that comes with being removed from familiar surroundings and placed with strangers. The narrative captures the narrator's confused feelings, including the apprehension associated with new environments and caregivers. It reflects on personal recollections that include the initial emotions of entering a foster home, such as fear and anxiety. The excerpt exemplifies the complexities of adapting to a new life situation within foster care, peppered with anecdotal insights into the mundane yet unsettling realities faced by those in care.
• 12:00 - 15:00: Importance of Maintaining Biological Connections The chapter emphasizes the significance of maintaining biological connections, highlighting an emotionally challenging experience where someone was left in an uncertain and potentially unsafe situation. The individual's distress is evident as they were left waiting for someone to pick them up without proper communication. This scenario underscores the emotional turmoil and fear that can arise in situations where familial and biological connections are not properly maintained, resulting in feelings of abandonment and insecurity.
• 15:00 - 16:00: Conclusion of Interview with Robert The chapter discusses the emotions and reactions of an individual, presumably Robert, upon learning that he would be staying in a new home longer than expected. This change in circumstances left him feeling betrayed, as he originally believed he would return to his first home. These feelings of betrayal, sadness, fear, and anger contributed to a worsening of his behavior. The chapter concludes with a reflection on whether he feels happy in the new home, opening up a window into his emotional state and adaptation to the situation.

Interviewing A Child Adopted from Foster Care Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 what's it like to be in foster care what's it like to be adopted what's it like to be a foster brother today we're gonna find out by interviewing robert one two three let's go [Music] so
• 00:30 - 01:00 [Music] so after years of work it is finally time for my son's black belt test tonight robert has his test and he's really nervous but we'll let you know how it goes so robert had the option of doing anything he wanted to celebrate that he got his black belt and robert what did you choose to
• 01:00 - 01:30 do white castle yeah robert chose to get white castle that's a big celebration could have gone to any fancy restaurant in the country chose white castle here we are so one of robert's dreams has been to do this interview he's talked about it for a long time and so we thought today was a good time to give you a shot so thank you robert for uh for coming at us today so robert
• 01:30 - 02:00 what was it like being in foster care it was very scary at first because i was just at home i was the cops like i was used to the cops checking me out because i ran a lot and a cop car just pulled up and they just took me away pretty much no morning no nothing just like they just said get over here like they just took me away went to the house for a couple weeks that then i moved to a new person
• 02:00 - 02:30 what to dad and that is pretty scary and it wasn't easy to be in foster care it was very scary because i didn't know what was happening it was like all the time i took away from everyone i knew and loved and it's put with some random dude that had a beer for some reason i didn't know why i didn't have a beer back then i just had to go tears yeah go tea whatever so do you remember what it felt like when you first came into the home going to my home i was scared i was
• 02:30 - 03:00 freaking out i don't know if i was safe i'm like oh shoot is this gonna what's this person gonna do to me are they gonna hurt me is he gonna hurt me it was hard i didn't like it it was pretty scary now when you first came it was just supposed to be for the weekend yes it wasn't long and then no one ever came to pick you up and i kept calling and calling and finally on like they were supposed to take you on wins or on monday finally on wednesday i got a hold of someone they're like oh are things going
• 03:00 - 03:30 well well why doesn't he just stay there when you found out you'd be staying with me longer was that weird yes yeah because you thought you were going back to that first home yeah they told me i was so i felt betrayed almost yeah and i didn't know my behavior worsened right there pretty bad i think that wasn't because i was saying forever for a long time longer i think i was just so sad scared and angry i'm betrayed are you happy in our home
• 03:30 - 04:00 though yes i am definitely happy here now yeah hey except that i don't give you enough videos yeah he doesn't give me any like all the vegans i like he takes away from me now so yeah he doesn't let me have any of the good ones anymore none of the good video games what a mean dad i am yeah my eyes are let me play video games why would your dad do that because he should be nice what's behavior like after you play video games why are you laughing when you say that when you were first being adopted what
• 04:00 - 04:30 was that like it was weird in a way because i didn't know what was happening i don't know what adopted means how old were you when you were first adopted or when you were adopted not that you were adopted uh nine i think yeah that's about right yeah yeah i'm nine years old and i came to him when i was seven almost eight that i was only with him
• 04:30 - 05:00 for a few years by that time so yeah with me about two years two what this means i must be staying with him permanently there's no going back and i think i was pretty scared about that but i am i have to be part of this family and it is satisfying yeah so robert do you feel like your life is different than kids who haven't been in foster care yeah when you're kind of foster so just try for yourself at first in a kid's boots like i'm going to tell you mine i was
• 05:00 - 05:30 young when i was second y i was only seven and i just graphed like i've done words you don't have a clue you're so freaked out kids are definitely been scared if a kid didn't have any bad stuff they wouldn't be in foster care so like sometimes you could tell outside like they were like they've been through hard times like or foster care sometimes you can tell by looking at them you mean yeah like sometimes they have like scars somewhere or maybe they have so they might have physical scars yeah physical but then most times foster kids like
• 05:30 - 06:00 most kids if they're saying they if i haven't told them they wouldn't even expect i was a foster kid they say oh i was you know my dad is my real like biological dad if you take away my layers and you look into my heart and soul there would be scars from the past every kid's gonna have their scars those scars are never gonna go wife you have to make sure you help them through those scars because those guys when they when you first get those when this risk is coming their scars are going to be
• 06:00 - 06:30 bleeding like crazy like they're inside scars yeah their inspectors are gonna be just like they're gonna be bad they're gonna have lots of memories at the first i still have memories but i went for counseling and most people probably wouldn't want to go counseling like you should definitely go and the cancer if you look at it their whole what they're trained for is literally for events like foster kids in hawaii they're meant to help us our foster kids out with the scars
• 06:30 - 07:00 so you don't if they the kid doesn't go to counseling it's not gonna be there and the whole point of a counselor is to help them robert i remember that you were really glad when you were adopted that you wouldn't have to follow certain of the rules from foster care anymore or that our family wouldn't have to follow any of those rules uh yeah do you remember which rules you didn't like yes i remember them very clearly one of the many rules and at least back in california here
• 07:00 - 07:30 was well you weren't in foster care here though you were only in foster care but we've had kids here yeah yeah and some of the rules with them i mean most of them at least was you had to be you had to tell the county where you go you can't leave the county without telling them you were leaving and i just like that and you know the obvious reasons like it took time and also i just i almost felt like the candy just had to know what i was doing and everywhere i was and i do not like
• 07:30 - 08:00 people like kind of doing that you felt like you were being watched by a lot of people yeah and really to me it was really none of the business what i was doing and where i was going and another rule was probably that my pictures or videos so like what we're doing here can't be done like i couldn't post it my voice can be on anything public like on online and you wanted to do youtube videos oh yeah for a long time yeah after watching a couple of game youtubers and a guy named
• 08:00 - 08:30 and another youtuber i just wanted to do like it was like i just talked about it talked about it so that was your dream as a kid and you weren't able to do it right yeah what could parents do to make foster children feel more comfortable when they're coming in we've had a number of foster kids and you were a foster kid so when someone first comes into the house they're taken away from their family they're often scared they're sad
• 08:30 - 09:00 they're taken to this stranger's house knock on the door what could we do from that point on to help make them feel more comfortable i think when you open the door don't like i think keep it so so not the whole family's there like trying to keep it so there's like you if you don't if you're married make sure you and the person you're doing with is there and like slowly introduced like that if you aren't just make sure you're there and if you have other piece of the house wait to introduce them later
• 09:00 - 09:30 and that's probably what i would say yeah that's really good that's really good now we've had about seven foster kids come and go in the time that you've been in this home seven other kids have been here uh what has been good about that they always like at least two of them i i know have went back to the families i'm pretty sure both of them are still there and it feels nice because i feel like god is
• 09:30 - 10:00 really making a difference with me and my dad do you think kids who are in foster care feel different from other kids do you think that maybe they feel like they stand out or they're not the same as the other kids in their classrooms definitely yeah is that hard for those kids that is going to be that's hard because you know you hearing all these kids well about like getting angry at their parents like being angry and sad about how like they don't have the newest watch they
• 10:00 - 10:30 don't have the newest shoes they're not in fashion and you're just sitting there like what are you talking about i've been for your bad place and you're so i've been through a bad place and you're describing something that i was grateful to have what can teachers and parents and other people do to help kids feel more included to feel like they're part of groups and part of the classroom or part of the family i think what parents do is force the kid to do something straight off the bat like
• 10:30 - 11:00 go make friends right now that's like so they're not like wait whoa what's going on what's happening like give the kid time i'm not saying it's gonna be like i can easily do this it's gonna be hard for them but they're more likely to get to know the kid and if they're not feeling like they have to know the kid the kid really doesn't feel like my parents want me to be friends with him i have to so what have you liked about having other kids in the home oh i have more kids to talk to people to talk to you like to talk oh yes yeah a lot
• 11:00 - 11:30 well the other ones you like to watch play video games yeah i like watching you play video games talk to you about bananas sometimes i was allowed to even play video games with them and it's and i like and the younger ones i like them because i have someone else to play with like to have fun with yeah now you've been really sad sometimes when kids have left and you've also been pretty kind of i don't want to say happy but at least relieved i think when a couple kids have
• 11:30 - 12:00 left what's been hard about having kids in the home they have a very bad habit with my dad since we take teenagers most of the time we had he they have a bad habit of not telling us anything like they give him like a little or with one kid they actually said no we don't have anything about him and they had a whole boatload of stuff that was bad and then probably seeing the kids leave sometimes because i get so attached to some of them like i feel like i get really close and then when they i know like the la the second to last one we had right
• 12:00 - 12:30 before the last one we kind of had i got so attached to him like i almost i just kind of said when he left i can't wait to stay as a brother almost if there's one thing you could tell people about foster care or adoption what is that one thing that you would want everyone to know you said like the dad was trying to do all he could he could to get the kid back but he just couldn't don't yank that kid away from him he my dad he didn't do that he kept
• 12:30 - 13:00 he made sure i was still in touch with my dad and that really helped me but my dad always came back he only missed a meeting if if if he was in the hospital he just had to if he didn't have to he would come pretty much yeah do you remember how often we met with your dad before he passed away was it every other week or once a month every other week because we used to see him a lot sometimes you don't know how long that parents are going to stay if they've been doing bad stuff like
• 13:00 - 13:30 i didn't expect my dad to die that soon but he did and i was lied to by my mom saying he never lived like he was dead already so you kind of lost your dad twice huh yeah in a way that's hard and i barely knew him like i got to know him really well it must be like oh no maybe i sent it but and then my dad asked me would i wonder about him like i must have would have wondered how who he really was and that was true i did wonder i wanted to know who my dad
• 13:30 - 14:00 was and i learned it but if the parent was trying and is trying to get the kid back and then if it's over like you adopted the kid keep the kid in contact so the kids still could be with at least someone who they kind of know a biological parent and now that's not going to make it worse actually i think most kids once they get older they're going to appreciate you more than they would if you didn't well think about the adults now who do
• 14:00 - 14:30 like all the dna tests and stuff to be connected to their past their history their ancestors it's kind of the same thing that kids want to be connected to their family no matter what right yeah definitely yeah well robert thank you for this talk and i hope that uh hope that you uh you know are traumatized thinking about this or talking about it but you've been dealing with this stuff for a long time you were adopted what uh four years ago i think so almost
• 14:30 - 15:00 four years ago and so you've had a long time to think about and process some of this thanks for your time thank you guys for having me on and thank you dad for having me on your channel this is really nice yeah good i'm quiet