A moving account of broken childhood, happily enough coming with an insight on opportunities for mending. Being the person I am, I found in the pages of this book many lessons about empathy and understanding for other humans' weaknesses as well as for our own, skills that, I came to suspect, I need some exercising. ( )

I'm really not sure how I feel about this book. There was alot of emotional ups and downs that I experienced while reading it. Once I started it I flew through it as it was a very gripping tale. It was not without problems though and as this is the 1st book I have read from this author I am unsure if it's this story or just her style of writing. At times I found myself saying things like ...Really???...Seriously??. I have myself never been a foster parent but a few times I felt things were said or done that someone with Watsons experience should have known better or done differently. Perhaps it's just that the story felt incomplete at times. That I was missing something that would explain things that were perplexing to me. Still, it got my attention from the beginning and held it through to the end. Not one of the best books out there on this kind of topic but certainly has its merits. I'm just not sure I can recommend this book when I question so much about why things were done or said the way they were.

Casey Watson and her husband, Mike, serve as foster parents for seriously troubled children. This is the story of one of those children, Spencer, an eight-year-old who supposedly put himself into foster care. It becomes clear that Spencer has a host of problems, including habitual stealing, running away, and harming animals and peers. Casey is convinced that the story about Spencer's family is deeper than what social services knows. She hopes to uncover it.

It is absolutely essential to note that the Watsons are doing a very difficult job, and they are clearly passionate about the kids they parents. Their affection for Spencer is evident. That said, I do feel like some parts of this book must have been changed or embellished. The ending, in particular, was absolutely implausible to me. Without giving anything away, let me just say that, there's no way. That said, the book reads easily and moves quickly. ( )

Bullpucky.

I'm therapeutic foster parent myself and there is so much wrong with this story I don't have time to write it all in my review right now (she's been in the biz this long and hasn't seen RAD??), so until I have a chance to review it (soon) all I have to say is:

Bullpucky.

---- Updated Thursday, Dec. 6, 2012 (added below) ----
The following is my own opinion of the story and in no way is meant to insult or be libelous to the author personally. I laud her for her willingness to take in children with these issues and her ability to continue with them long past the point at which most people would give up. I would have given up after the boy deliberately injured an animal in a heinous way because I have animals and because it is one of the major signs of Antisocial Personality Disorder which is discussed below.) Casey's capacity for love is staggering and I am glad she is doing this job. My only concerns involve behavior and knowledge. This review is my opinion, and I do not make any claims that I know everything about these issues, just that I know a lot. I am very opinionated in general, and my passion in this review is due to that fact rather than the severity of what I perceive as the book's faults.

Too Hurt to Stay is allegedly the true story of a young troubled boy and the foster parents who take care of him for a few months. I say allegedly because it just doesn't ring true to me. I don't doubt that this happened but I think significant creative license was taken to the point the book was completely unbelievable to me. The story is interesting, the writing not bad, and the plot unpredictable which was very refreshing. Those who love stories about hurt kids, know nothing about foster care, and who can suspend their disbelief might well enjoy this book. Anyone who has a healthy bit of skepticism, knows what it's like to be a foster parent, or who finds the glut of stories about troubled children tiring should skip this one and look for something different.

According to the book, foster parents Casey and Mike have been providing specialized foster care for particularly difficult children for the past decade, what here in the States is called therapeutic foster care. They are experienced working with high needs kids with behavior issues and yet are thrown for a loop when an eight-year-old boy moves in (not the five- or six-year-old on the cover). The book is a chronicle of his time with them, the struggles and experiences of all three of them throughout his stay.

I have been a therapeutic foster parent myself for over 12 years and I have to say, either the author is altering reality for the sake of the story, or she is a terrible and untrained foster parent. I am not a perfect parent by any means, but I am very knowledgeable and experienced when it comes to foster parenting very difficult children so it is difficult for me to write this review without pointing out not only what she did wrong but what she should have done. (I try to put in the good things she did whenever possible.) I lost all faith in her as a reliable narrator somewhere around page 32 (my page numbers are going to be guesstimates since I read an ebook). She had been told this child was a horror, an animal-like child, someone extremely difficult to care for, and yet after being with him for about 10 minutes she writes,

"Where on earth was this evil, feral child we’d been expecting? In fact, the start of the meeting went so well and so chattily that it began to seem surreal that this child was in care . . . ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to seem presumptuous, but, well, he seems okay to me. I mean he’s obviously on his best behaviour, but the real child always--’

when she was interrupted by someone trying to set her straight. Every single child in care that I've met or worked with has appeared to be a typical child at first. Many were so polite it was painful, including my own daughter who I thought was the sweetest, gentlest kid before she moved in. (She was my first and the agency lied to me is all I can say.*) In addition, the line that basically says she doesn't understand why he's in care is offensive. Virtually no child is in foster care because of their behavior. They are there because the parents are not able to parent properly whether it's being able to cope with the child's special needs or from their own poor parenting. The child may have behaviors that are next to impossible to deal with, but if the parents can't cope even with every support they get, then the kid is put in group care or a mental hospital or something. After reading this book, I don't think England is any different than here in the US on this issue. This kind of statement just feeds into the idea that there's something inherently wrong with foster children, and a foster parent should know better.

There were so many places in the book where I had similar reactions that I can't possibly list them all here. I took notes on almost every other page, most of them complaining about something that the foster parent did wrong that was obvious, or something that I was incredulous about. But first the positives: the book was easy to read and flowed well. It was not predictable at all and I found myself finishing it solely because I wanted to know how it ended. She was often funny, such as when she refuses to make Christmas simpler that year and insists on putting up her three Christmas trees as usual, although I'm not sure that was intentionally humorous.

There were things that were interesting to me, too, particularly the perspective of someone in another country or even a place other than my home state. The woman gets paid to take on these kids and it's considered her job. Here in Washington State you're not allowed to do it as your job because they don't want people foster parenting for money. What's ridiculous is that kids of this level need to be parented 24/7 so you usually can't work outside the home. This makes it next to impossible for a single parent to be a therapeutic parent. I'm very lucky I've been able to manage it. I really like that there in England they recognize that this is a hard job. I don't do foster parenting for the money. But I do think it's reasonable for someone taking on these kids, whose life is full of chaos and stress every day, who is a caregiver of a special needs child 24/7, to be paid extra. People have no idea what it's like, which is why books such as this one are devoured by those who do want to know. But this is story is so unrealistic it's ridiculous.

Another interesting thing was that Casey is surprised at how much stuff the boy arrives with since his "suitcase was bulging." One suitcase? It reminded me of our American need for things and what we consider enough. Perhaps part of it is that foster kids generally don't arrive with a whole lot but even the child who came to me who had the least amount of stuff had a couple of boxes and garbage bags of things, only a few of them clothing. How many of us can claim the same? My kids take a bulging suitcase for a weekend trip. It was an interesting perspective for me.

I found the way so much was done by the agency to be as dumb as that of any here which made life more difficult for Casey and Mike. For example, the first visit with the child at home wasn't supervised and something bad happened. The second visit wasn't supervised either. Hunh? They placed this child an hour and a half away from his home and the school he continued to attend. It is much better for a kid to be homed in their own community to allow for as much normalcy as possible. It's not ideal--the father of one of my kids lives less than a mile away and is always asking to come over (not allowed) or do work for me which (awkward). Plus, the foster parents had to transport the child that far for visits. I had one child whose hometown was not quite an hour away and it was a huge problem because all of her supports were there, too, and a two hour trip for a one hour therapy session is absurd. It was also impossible for her to maintain her social life as I would have to spend four hours in the car for her to spend a few hours with a friend after school. With other kids to take care of who would have to sit in the car with me, this was just not realistic frequent socializing.

The help line was something I was impressed by. Our state only has a CPS line for reporting abuse or incidents but nothing like a help line to assist a foster parent when running into trouble. I am licensed out of a private agency because this particular one does have such a line and it has been immeasurably helpful such as when I had a suicidal and violent child engaging in very dangerous and manipulative behavior. But most private agencies don't even have that. It's a critical asset, and I'm glad she had access to such a thing.

But despite that access to help, Casey was often so clueless about what to do, the book read like she was a first time foster parent not someone experienced working with behaviorally challenging children. First of all, she made a lot of assumptions. I mentioned before that she assumed that because the boy was polite, he couldn't have a behavior problem. Then, after that first visit home when something awful happened, she smelled alcohol on the breath of one of the parents and immediately assumed she had a drinking problem which had affected the kid's behavior. If the mother had just downed a drink to cope with this latest emergency that she could do nothing about at that point, an emergency that here would not allow her access to her child unsupervised, it would be understandable--not the wisest choice, but understandable. Casey also assumed that the boy doesn't have an opinion about things because he was used to having to be so polite. I can think of half a dozen plausible reasons why a child with a traumatic past would express no opinion, and that one wouldn't even make the list. Casey also assumed that the mother didn't care about the boy because she looked nervous when Casey and Mike come to pick up the child. Birth parents tend to be either nervous or angry when interacting with anyone involved with their child's care. Both are natural and are rooted in fear.

Casey did make some good observations, such as that his running away was probably attention seeking behavior, which works since everyone gets frantic trying to find him. But then she continues to reinforce this behavior by flapping all around him when he returns, going on about how he scared them, that they were worried, that he wasn't safe, or even just asking him why he did it. Most children can't answer that question and most foster children have learned that answering anything that starts with "why" is dangerous because they don't know what the asker expects. Since they've been so traumatized and their world completely shattered, usually over and over again, they don't know why anything and don't know if something they say will make the world crumble again. Once you've established why it's so awful to run, the next time this does not need to be repeated. Don't be mean or emotional, just comment in a normal voice, like stating any other fact, the rules & consequences, and what will happen next time; don't open up it for argument or manipulation.

Casey and Mike were shown this again and again when they tried the coddling route, and it blew up in their faces by him playing them. He was a master manipulator as so many kids in care are (most had to learn how to manipulate just to survive in the horrible situations they were in). For example, he was manipulating a positives-focused behavioral management system, using it to his own ends. The way it was set up, he could do just some of the simple things he was supposed to during the day and then even if he did something really heinous, like swinging a cat around by its tail and bullying other boys into taking the blame for it he would still earn points to go out the next afternoon. Casey was taken aback when she realized that there was nothing put in place for this scenario, like taking points away or carrying them over until a good day or leaving specific things off the list to earn (like he could still earn a special treat but not the right to go outside). It took forever for Casey to even question this system, and then the social worker and a case aide said that the points system was part of the program and needed to be followed. This was the same social worker who said if the boy runs, just let him go and just wait for him to come back. He was always gone many hours and often he was found sitting in the rain or in a garbage can or something else that wasn't the wisest choice. Here in my state that is illegal, never mind the fact that the boy was, again, eight years old. I did like when the social worker said that Casey and Mike should ignore the behavior entirely and act like the boy wasn't even gone. (That can work on younger children, but it won't work on tweens and teens.)

She rewarded him for running away by giving him a warm bath, wrapping him up in comfort clothing, giving him hot cocoa, and spending quality time with him. This kind of thing needs to be proactive behavior, particularly used during risky times when the child is likely to take off. This should not be used immediately after an incident. In this case, when he came home very late, I would have him immediately take a warm shower because he was wet and cold--not a bath (because a shower is faster)--have him go right to his room and put pajamas on, then make him get in bed. At that point, I would give him positive reinforcement for doing these simple things, and provide the nurturing he needs by giving him a long hug if he can handle it and telling him truthfully that I loved him. I would also say that I was glad he was home (using that word rather than "back" to reinforce that this was his home for now, and he belonged here). There would be no rewards for running and coming home after hours.

This may sound harsh but this wasn't first time behavior, this was continual behavior. If a child in a regular situation runs away for the first time, as most kids do at some point, then do what you need to do to reinforce your love and give the child the nurturing the s/he needs. But with a youth who continues this very dangerous behavior, it is important to maintain rigid boundaries filled with love and appropriate nurturing, not coddling. It is not helpful to say, "Do you know how upset and worried we were?" Don't ask. Don't say "upset." That gives him power over your emotions. Try not to say anything about it tonight. Tomorrow, if you and the child haven't discussed the issue yet--such as when has run away from other placements but not from you before now--make a statement like, "We were worried for your safety because we love you and there are many dangers out there for a child of any age." You can say more, but not too much--children stop listening after just a few sentences. (This is a major problem I have. In case you can't tell, I can go on and one about a subject. I told you I'm not a perfect parent by any means.) Don't leave any room for argument or manipulation.

In the same vein, never ask "Why did you do that?!" or "You're too young to be out there." These are major triggers. Talk about the situation later when emotions are lower, preferably the next day. Engage the child in evaluating his/her own behavior. Instead of asking "Do you know why you did this," which could just be a prelude to you telling him/her why they did it (you don't know for sure and presuming what they think or feel is a huge trigger for these kids), ask "Why do you think you ran away?" which implies there are multiple answers and that you might have some in mind but you might not. This creates dialog rather than a lecture. These kids are usually smart--at least street-smart. They likely can't voice what we would think is a good answer, but it gets them thinking rather than going on the defensive. Be positive about anything they suggest as if it's a possibility, even if it's ludicrous. "Sure it could be because you thought heard the ice cream truck in Minnesota in January. Can you think of another reason?" Help them, if necessary, with either silly suggestions like, "Because your shoelaces were the wrong color?" or with fomenting questions like, "Do you know what you were thinking about or feeling when you decided to leave?" or "What was happening when you got the idea to take off?"

The reality is that kids crave boundaries. As most of us know, acting out behavior is generally because a child is testing boundaries. But the reason they're testing those boundaries is greatly in part because they want to know the boundaries are there. Children without boundaries do not feel safe and loved. They may not be able to voice it, but that's the basic reason. The more unsafe a child feels and the more they act inappropriately, the more rigid those boundaries need to be. Kids who act out in abnormal ways are not happy. Children in care need to know that there won't be any surprises. If they do that, this will happen, always. The unpredictability of emotional reactions is where so much of their fear comes from. A certain level of rebellion is normal and important as a youth learns who they are and what their place is in the world. The consequences show them where they stand and how much they are loved. So a fourteen-year-old who dyes his hair purple and pierces his eyebrow is asserting he's different from his parents (this is just a general example--stay with me people) and asserting he is his own person. How the parent(s) react will tell him how okay it is to be different and just how different is okay. (There are no right or wrong answers here--well, mostly.)

But a reaction is important because it shows that the parents care, whether it's "Hey, that's a great color on you and I have a titanium barbell I haven't worn in ages if you want it," (which probably isn't what he is going for) or he's grounded for life (probably a bit more extreme than he was anticipating). If the reaction is too extreme or emotional, it may reinforce the fear that the child is not loved such as if he gets a beating for dying his hair. Whether or not he is loved is irrelevant--the youth needs to know that he is okay even if his actions aren't. If a twelve-year-old starts stealing, she is trying even harder to see if her parent(s) care, to see if she has any boundaries. How the parent(s) react show her not only what is right and wrong, but just how important the adolescent is to them. The most important advice that I can give any potential foster parent, is to always reassure the child that s/he is a good person inside, that behavior is very different than who a person is as a person. And if you love the kid, tell him/her this every day (don't lie, though), and that your love is unconditional. Mike and Casey showed the boy this to quite an extent, although they only voiced the difference between behavior and the person once and I don't remember them telling the child that they loved him, even though they acknowledged to each other that they were very attached. (They were saints for that.)

{Apparently my review was too long so I will post the rest of the review in the first two comments.} ( )