First Impressions

Do you remember when you made your very first impression on a job, or with a friend, or maybe even meeting your significant other? I remember when I was seven my family moved and I had to go to a new school. My mom pulled up to the school and it seemed so much larger than my last school that I attended. The halls seemed wider and it felt like there were more classes. I walked into my new classroom and there was a new teacher that I had to get use to along with 30 new kids staring back at me. I wasn’t so much concerned about making friends as I was always the type of kid that was shy and only had a few friends and was very selective of my friends.

I remember feeling overwhelmed because everything was new to me. I wondered a lot of things like, if the teacher was going like me? Is she going to be a mean teacher? Are we going to have a lot of homework? I just had to wait and see. Days past and I began to settle in and learn things about my teacher and my new class. This happened a few times in my life where I had to switch schools in the middle of the year and had to readjust. Although it was sometimes tough to leave your friends and your teachers that you liked, I took comfort in knowing that my mom along with my sisters and brothers were always there for me.  I knew that while I may have a tough day at school today I could come home and everything will be okay.

I think about how when I had to make my first impressions I had stability of my life. My daughter who I adopted from foster care has been in five different schools and homes where she’s had to make first impressions. The difference is because my daughter was in foster care everyone that she came in contact with already thought they knew her. These people were given a child life history on her and a psychological report so they were able to judge her even though they had never met her. Could you imagine how that must feel? Can you imagine walking into a new job and your old employers had given your new boss information about how you were when you worked for them?

Could you imagine them knowing your whole life history? Knowing your ups and down? Your medical history? What you were like as a child? All about your parents? How invasive is that? But that’s what happens every day with kids in foster care. Then, the longer they’re in there the more information they compile on them. People use this information of their lives to determine the type of kid they have placed in their home or classroom instead of looking at the kid that is present in front of them. I’m sure you would not want to be judged by the lowest point in your life so naturally I feel that is unfair to judge a kid by the lowest point in their lives. When I was adopting my daughter I did get a child life history on her to read but what I didn’t do is assume that all the things that were said were true.

I moved forward with her being placed in our and decided that I should see for myself. Most of the things that were in her report as negative behavior my husband and I did not see. Now I’m not saying that this happens all the time, but a lot of what is written is perception by another person. I certainly do feel like there’s a place for the child life history and it helps you have insight into the child’s life, which is valuable. However, I  encourage anyone who is looking to adopt from foster care to not solely judge the child by what you read and do not allow others like teachers to judge your child by their past.  You might be pleasantly surprised at who the child really is versus who you made to believe they were!

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