The class
was required for our foster care license, which, if I’m honest, is possibly the
only reason my husband and I went. There
were plenty of other places we would have preferred to be on that Tuesday
evening. We sat near the back of the
stuffy room, far enough away from the front that we could pass notes or whisper
to each other without drawing too much attention to ourselves, but not all the
way in the back back. After all, we
didn’t want to be rude.
If I
remember correctly, the instructor that night used a frozen candy bar as an
illustration of an abused child’s “hardened” heart. Heating it up too fast, with a blow-dryer for
example, or warm water or in your hands, would cause it to melt on the outside
and remain ice-cold on the inside. The answer, apparently, was to be patient
and let it thaw on it’s own until it reached room temperature. That, he promised, is how you “thaw” the
heart of a traumatized child.
I do
confess that it took a lot of willpower that evening not to roll our eyes. Good thing we weren’t sitting too close to
the front.
Except for
the licensing requirement, we didn’t really need to take this parenting
class. We already knew pretty much
everything there was to know about raising children. We both come from solid, in-tact families,
with parents who had set good examples for us while we were growing up. We both were well-educated young
professionals who had successfully graduated from college. We had one whole shelf in our home library
devoted to popular parenting books. And
even without all of that, we had an abundance of competence and common
sense. I mean, how hard could it be?
But then .
. . we had kids. Or more specifically, we
had foster kids. And we very quickly
found out that what we thought we
knew about parenting was woefully inadequate.
In fact, to quote a good ol’ Southern boy we know, we have often said to
each other over the years, I ain’t got
nothin’!!
