Personal Stories

"The only thing wrong with this world is there are adults"

The above is a quote by an 8 year old that was in an institutional setting with her siblings and I was a substitute teacher in her classroom.

This quote probably reflects the feelings of most of the children without them expressing it.

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We had a 6 year old child who probably knew more about sex than we did. Her mother was at one time a convicted prostitute and we were constantly shocked by her words and behavior.

A Behavior Specialist came to the house at 6:00 A.M. to get her out of bed. She threw over a floor-to-ceiling bookcase full of books in a fit of anger and the neighborhood children would not (or could not) play with her.

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We had an 11 year old boy who just wouldn't stop bullying the kids at school. He was constantly in the principal's office.

One day I got a phone call to attend a parent conference. Evidently he jokingly threatened a boy with a gun. The boy's father was a policeman. Other parents showed up and he was unanimously voted to be expelled from school. He was also taken out of our home and put in a temporary institutional setting.

When he settled back with his dysfunctional family, he used to call us to see if we were okay and ask about other kids in the house.

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We had another boy, approximately 8 years old, we took out of an institutional facility to live near his brother who was in a foster home near us.