Category Archives: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)

I feel like we are playing with fire here.  Admittedly, David also likes to play with fire.

David admitted to that too.  We had blamed another child for the small fires.  David claims that it was him that did the deed.  We have not had any of the fires during any of the periods when David has been in facility based care.

What methods can we employ do we deal with that?  Sure we can keep all matches, lighters, knives, candles, and other things that could be used to hurt the family, but at what point does it become too much?  In what reality is it fair for everyone in the house to live in an environment like this?  Why should the other kids feel like they too are being punished for David’s deeds?

Safety and Security

Sure we can fill the house with fire extinguishers, we have smoke detectors and other things like places where we can lock

Playing with fire

up knives.  But what if he lights a fire while everyone is sleeping?  Even as much as I stay awake when he is home and sleeping, even I can’t stay awake all the time.  It would kill me to try.

Plus he is smart enough to know how to disable things like smoke detectors.

We can put alarms on his doors and windows, but he is techy enough that he can figure out how to get around those devices.

Reasons and Logic

I can think of so many reasons why he shouldn’t come home.  Then too, are the reasons why he should be able to come home.

Regardless of what I, the facility, or the state want, what keeps people safe? What is best for David?

How can he learn to interact in public without being able to be out in public like his peers?  What can we do to help him learn that it is not acceptable to try to kill other living creatures, including people?  How?

At the end of each day, I only have more questions. More fear.

David and I are traveling six hours tomorrow to get him evaluated for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.  This is a second opinion.  At 15, he likely will not be able to get any services for the diagnosis.

But like I have said in the past, I don’t want anyone to say we haven’t tried to do everything that we can for him.

I made arrangements to pick up from the residential facility where he lives. I purposely didn’t tell him, and I told the staff that we weren’t going to tell him.  He obsesses about things.  So why cause him stress unnecessarily?

Guess what?  Someone told him what was going on tomorrow.  It isn’t the end of the world for me that he knows, but you would think his world is ending. I have talked to him more since Friday than I have talked to him in the last three weeks.  I love that he reaches out to us, but don’t want this to be the only reason he does so.

I am not moving him to another facility, this is his second facility in a year, it is supposed to be a transition to home, a step down facility.  He moved there a couple of weeks ago.  During intake, they told him he would likely be home in six months.

This is not for them to decide all by themselves.  That is a team decision, and will be addressed in team later this week.  More on that later.

How hard is it for professionals to understand that parents have some idea of what their kids are like?  Even if they are in a facility?

The frustration

I am frustrated that the professionals in these facilities don’t hear me.  If they don’t hear me, how are parents who don’t know how to make themselves heard able to get their points or concerns across to the professionals?

My bet is that they don’t.  I find that troubling indeed.  So what can be done about it?  How do we change it?  This isn’t the 1800’s where parents put their kid in a facility and walk away.  Heck this isn’t the mid 20th century.