Expectations

The single most important factor influencing the kids' academic (and overall) success has been the fact that it was expected. Of course, their efforts and willingness to be successful were absolutely critical to the process, but without my expectations, things would have turned out very differently. Prior to me, they lived up to the expectations of those around them as well. The difference is, however, that the expectations of them prior to me were extremely low. In fact, when I adopted them, Malcolm was reading and writing four grade levels behind, and Mychael was earning mostly C's and D's. It's worth mentioning that the trend in his grades suggested that the C's and D's were moving toward D's and F's, and we all know what happens after that. They had the potential all along. Not to mention, they had the motivation; it just needed to be harvested.

I believe firmly that everyone is capable of being successful. Obviously, success is a subjective term, so it's important to define it based on the individual person or circumstance. For example, someone with Downs (like my Mom's brother) shouldn't be compared to someone not born with that extra Y chromosome. Regardless, if someone is not achieving success, there is always a reason. Clearly, in some cases, that reason may be due to a biological circumstance (which is way over diagnosed in foster care, if you ask me), but more often than not, lack of success is related to social factors.

A child being tossed from foster home to foster home is going to have a lot more difficulty than a child living in a permanent home. The child in transition might have several factors preventing academic success. First, they might not be able to keep up with the material due to early years of not being afforded a reasonable opportunity to learn (thanks to transiency) the fundamentals. Other factors might be best explained by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

How can a child who is concerned about needs, such as housing and the well being of their parents, move up the pyramid to tackle issues like success in school and self actualization? Maslow suggests she/he can't. So why are we shocked when kids in foster care struggle in school? Why do we want to attach a label to it and chalk it up as learning disabilities or ODD? These kids don't have their lower level needs met, as temporarily meeting them doesn't count because the fear of losing them is still very real, not to mention very realistic. Until that child is given a permanent home in which she/he can feel safe, they will have a very difficult time being successful in school. And by the way, a child with learning "disabilities" shouldn't be expected to fail either. The fact that a great mind like Einstein was "learning disabled" should not be overlooked. And he's not the only one believed to have been LD, add Da Vinci, Abe Lincoln and many others to the list as well. And for the record, I too, am on that list.

Regardless, for the most part, going along with Maslow's theory, once a child is afforded a permanent placement where the parents have made an unwavering commitment to the child's long term well being, self actualization and success in school is a realistic expectation.

I didn't expect all A's from my kids, at least not right away. In fact, they taught me to expect more and more from them. At first, I just expected them to perform a little bit better than they had been while living in foster care. I knew it would take time for them to adjust, and I did my part by constantly reinforcing that I was in it for the long haul. I also let them know that while I understood why they weren't meeting their potential in the past, I looked forward to them doing so in the future. We did all homework assignments together, and I monitored their daily performance in the classroom...like any good type A parent.

For Mychael, the first report card was all C's. The second was C's and a couple B's. The third was mostly B's, a few C's and an A. The fourth was B's and a couple A's. The fifth was mostly A's and a few B's, and the sixth was all A's. He didn't take easy classes, either, as we put him in college level courses and expected him to succeed.

When I felt his geometry teacher was a little Nazi'ish, I asked his counselor to move him, and because she was as committed to Mychael's success as I was, she did so immediately. There wasn't room in the geometry class taught by the nurturing teacher he had for Algebra (Mr. Masi), but she asked him if he'd be willing to take Mychael anyway. Because he's the bomb, he agreed to do so. In fact, we made sure to keep him with Mr. Masi for all future math classes. It wasn't just Mr. Masi's nurturing personality that was so valuable, Mychael understood Mr. Masi's teaching style and was able to be successful in his classes. With this in mind, we did the same thing for science (Mrs. Robinson) and English (Ms. Robinson). Basically, every time Mychael had a teacher with whom he clicked, we made sure to put him in their classes.

When my help and classroom time wasn't enough, we hired a tutor (and fellow classmate) for a year to help him succeed in Alegebra II and Physics. He took summer classes every summer to keep him in the grove (he does so much better when operating within extreme structure), and in the end, he was accepted to Purdue University.

Yes, there were a lot of people working behind the scenes to make sure Mychael succeeded, but his acceptance to Purdue belonged solely to him. He owned that success and watching him react upon opening the admissions letter was one of the most rewarding experiences I've had as a Mother. He was so proud. And why shouldn't he be? He did all the work; all I did was make sure he had all the tools to do so successfully. At his graduation, Shawn was looking through Mychael's high school book and saw the envelope to the acceptance letter. It read: Congratulations, you have another Boilermaker in the family on the return address. Shawn said, "I think I'm going to cry," in his cheesy/try to be funny voice. Not surprisingly, I did.

Malcolm came with a different set of academic circumstances in that he was reading and writing four grade levels behind. During the most tumultuous and transient time of the kids' lives, Malcolm was in first and second grade. He literally missed out on the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of reading and writing. It's actually quite remarkable that he had done as well as he had considering that he never learned the difference between a short A and a long A, or how to put letters together to make words. As such, his language skills were extremely phonetic. Needless to say, we took a different path.

Malcolm spent his first six months at Sylvan. I logged a lot of stressful miles on my car during that six months, and thanks to my partner at work covering for me (and my ability to drive 95 on the 8 without getting arrested for reckless driving), I somehow managed to transport him (and Mychael) back and forth between school, Sylvan and practices without losing my job. Malcolm had a good attitude about Sylvan, which was expected, and managed to finish up six months sooner than was originally anticipated.

I worked with his teachers and counselors to find alternative means to meeting his academic needs until he was able to catch up. They put him in a few correspondence classes so that he would have more individual time to work on assignments. Additionally, when I felt (knew) his English teacher was a total *%#@, one of Malcolm's wonderful counselors moved him into an English class that he was teaching, despite the fact that the class was already full. I met periodically with his teachers and used email and the internet to keep track of his grades.

As with Mychael, Malcolm and I stayed up late nearly every night working on homework assignments. Basically, I knew what he was turning in to the teachers every day and was extremely familiar with what he was studying. Toward the middle of the second semester, during a meeting with his counselors and teachers, we determined that Malcolm still had some needs that were probably more extensive than Helix could address--in the manner that I wanted them to, that is. They cared a lot about Malcolm, but Helix is a huge school and there was only so much they could do.

As a result, I decided to sell our house in San Diego and utilize the proceeds to move to Indiana and send Malcolm to a private high school and Mychael to Purdue. Not to mention, there were scholarships available at Malcolm's high school that helped with tuition as well. Once I explained Malcolm's situation to St. Joe, they were willing to take him as a student.

To say that the transition was beneficial for Malcolm would be a gross understatement. Malcolm came alive at his new school. The combination of nurturing values and teachers, and high academic expectations allowed him to blossom and come into his own. He produced mostly B's along with a few A's and a few C's. Additionally, like Mychael, he played football and lacrosse and earned his share of other achievements. In the end, he, too, was accepted to Purdue, and I, again, shed tears as a result.

So, despite what the social workers (and society for that matter) tried to tell me, my kids were capable of the same successes as their peers. They might have taken alternative paths to get there, but they got there nonetheless. What I found along the way is that there will always be plenty of naysayers. However, more importantly, there are a lot of people who will help you if you just ask. You might have to ask a hundred times, and you might have to do a lot of begging and persuading in the process, but if you keep at it, you'll get what you're asking for.

I always expected the same output from myself that I expected from my kids. It would have been unfair for me to expect them to work harder than I did. There's no "I" in team, after all, and I am the one who signed up to be their parent. I must note that anyone who's served as a parent, especially a Mother (no offense to the dudes), knows that there is no job more important than raising children. There is also no job more all-consuming, demanding, exhausting and thankless. If anything, the thanks we get can be found inside that envelope that reads "You have a new Boilermaker in the family" on the return address. And remarkably, that's plenty.