I have seen this question populate on my own search bar as I attempted to search for information about a foster care topic for an article. I must admit, I was a little surprised by the popularity of the query!

Is it true? Well, yes and no. Foster care will wreck you in the way that a 4-hour session of heavy squats at the gym might wreck you. But, it won’t wreck you like a Yugo taking on a train (if you’re old enough to remember what a Yugo is!)

It will destroy your bad days.

I am sure you have had a bad day at work. You know the days when the boss wants to double your workload so that he has more free time, but doesn’t think you need any additional time for the increased responsibility. Those days that sting when you have been a rockstar at work and you overhear your co-worker taking credit for your hard work.

Even worse, the review that was going to earn you a bonus turns unexpectedly south and you end up reprimanded instead of getting the anticipated bonus.

How about when you get home and clean the house and get an amazing dinner together, complete with candlelight and a gourmet dessert and your spouse seems too tired to notice any of it.

I learned all about bad days from a few children in my life. 

One little guy taught me that intense gratitude can be your response to something as simple as a glass of water; especially if your mother saw fit to limit you to one glass of water per day – and that is only if you were good enough to earn it today.

Watching a young woman fight and lose her battle gracefully from her hospital bed showed me that being full of grace can redeem even the worst days of our lives.

Talking to the first precocious little girl with no hair that you see roll by in one of the wagons at a Children’s Hospital teaches us that unless the battle has already been lost, there is still the opportunity to fight ferociously!.

Laughing with the happiest baby on earth who doesn’t seem to notice or care that your skin tones don’t come close to matching reminds us to love the people who live us, even when those who should love us do not.

Explaining to a 4-year old that his biological father lost his struggle with addiction and he will never know him and that his mother is still in the clutches of the same addiction that took his father’s life brings an appreciation of your own flawed family.

Destroying bad days in exchange for:

• Gratitude
• Grace
• Fight
• Love 
• Family

It ruins jealousy for you – for life!

Wherever you grew up, regardless of how bad it was, there is always someone to give you a slightly different lens to view it through. 

I recently read an article about a young man eating uncooked ramen to remind him of where he came from. At 6 years old, he was scrounging enough change to walk down to the store and buy a package of ramen to try to feed his younger brothers and himself because all the adults were usually passed out and forgot to provide food for them.

I have seen 2 siblings show up at a new foster home with less than 2 outfits between them. That’s it, no blanket, no shoes, diapers, pants. Nothing besides the partial outfits they were wearing.

There have been mothers whose addiction led her and her infant child to live on the streets with drug dealers and pimps as their only regular companions. Listen to this story!

Christmas morning has been a confusing time for many foster kids who have never experienced living in a home that was financially stable enough to get a Christmas tree – let alone put any presents under it.

I know a little boy who has completely fabricated a back story complete with grandparents who were eaten by sharks to explain his own adoption story.

I have heard a 3-year-old’s honest prayer thanking God that her “new Mommy and Daddy” didn’t die as her old “Daddy” did.

Ruining jealousy in exchange for gratitude for:

• Food
• Home
• Clothing
• Financial security
• Family

It will steal your judgmentalism.

I am sure I am not the only one who has watched as a 3-year-old kid threw an epic fit in the middle of WalMart and thought “what kind of people raise kids that behave that way?!?”

If I am being completely transparent, I have used those moments to point out behavior that would result in some form of punishment to my own children. As I get older and have more experience with life as it really is, I learn that when you see a “feral toddler” behaving like a maniac it may well be a child suffering from ADD, ADHD, Bipolar, or any number of other struggles that are not their or their parent’s fault.

A dirty toddler that looks like he belongs on the set of a Broadway production of Newsies walking through Walmart may be struggling through life on the streets with a single, homeless parent. Living in vacant houses and abandoned cars is not just a movie plot. I have known at least one little boy that lived that life in his youngest years.

If you have never known a child that has been systematically starved by their mother, it is hard to understand the ketchup-smeared face of a ravenous toddler eating a burger like a wild animal. It’s easy to dismiss them as an ill-mannered child without knowing their real story.

It is so easy to judge others’ situations through the lens of our own experiences. However, the truth is that we rarely understand what is going on in the lives of others.

Stealing your judgmentalism in exchange for an understanding of:

• Behavior
• Cleanliness
• Mental Illness
• Abuse 
• Neglect

It will break your assumptions.

As my mom always said: never assume. It’ll make an “ASS” out of “U” and “ME.” Assumptions are the hallmark of the lazy and judgmental. 

When we see things we don’t understand it is easy to label it as bad, or worthless, or just plain wrong. Taking the time to understand the perspective of others can help avoid misunderstandings. 

We met one particular 3-year-old boy whose response to everything was either happy or a deep grievous wail that lasted for at least an hour. I don’t mean he fussed off and on for an hour, I mean he would scream a blood-curdling wail for an hour with no stops for breath, no moments of reprieve, just pure emotional wailing for an hour without a break.

It would have been easy to just respond to his traumatic fit with the standard “poor behavior gets poor results” mentality, but we knew he had experienced a deep trauma at an early age in the middle of a development stage. So for once, we decided to try something different.

We would take his mattress off of his bed and put it in the middle of the floor away from all potential dangers (he would usually roll and flop all around in his fits). Then my wife and I would take turns sitting with him as he dumped emotion. Occasionally I might ask him if he was ready to talk about anything yet, but it would usually be ignored in lieu of more screaming.

I would love to say that it was our powerful ninja-like parenting skills that led us this way, but truthfully it was serendipitous in nature. I quickly learned that his response didn’t change regardless of how I responded to him – so the only thing I could change was how I chose to respond and eventually model appropriate behavior for him.

I learned that his behavior wasn’t about me. All I could do was model good behavior for him. So that is what we did. Day after day after day. He slowly learned that there are more coing methods available to him than a full-blown amygdala based meltdown. 12 years later and we haven’t seen anything quite like those early days for a while. Today he is still a little closer to an amygdala reaction than he is to a well thought out response. But, not every day. His progress has been measured and slower than I had hoped for, but this is where the mantra “progress, not perfection” comes into play!

Breaking your assumptions in exchange for understanding:

• Assumptions steal your understanding
• Labeling like “good” or “bad” is not the whole story
• Trauma doesn’t care about your perspective
• Patience will overcome fear
• Progress, even slow progress is always better than perfection

It will wreck your anger.

Anger is a secondary emotion. It is experienced because we feel something else. Frustration, feeling hurt, or misunderstood can lead to being angry.

Much like fire, it can be an amazing tool when it is properly placed in our life. On the other hand, just like a fire in the living room floor, it can burn down our whole life if it is misplaced. Being angry at someone for a perceived misstep will often be the first step to breaking down a relationship.

I have come to realize that my anger is usually based on some assumptions that I have made causing me to write a story about the intention of someone else. Those stories in my head are powerful drivers of action in my life. 

Anger is the motive force behind most road rage incidents. An assumption is made as to why another driver is driving a certain way. I have been the guy breaking the speed limit by more than double the legal limit in order to get to a hospital for a severe allergic reaction that required a dose of epinephrine to save the life of my son. I am certain that some of the other drivers that day had no idea why I was flying through town that way.

The current political climate has neighbors, friends, and family members ready to tear eachother’s throats out over republican vs democrat issues. There is no shortage of anger surrounding bipartisan politics in America today. 

If you have or have ever had a 2 year old, you know the struggle to hold your temper is real. Imagine the internal boil-over that occurs when addiction rares its ugly head and the terrible 2’s are in full swing. It’s not difficult to see how abuse and neglect can happen under the right (or wrong) circumstances.

Wrecking your anger in exchange for the opportunity to:

• Understand others
• Build relationshops
• Work together
• Raise healthy kids

We may all need a good wreck.

It seems to me that there are a lot of opportunities to allow some toxic habits to be crushed in our life in order to create a life that will build community. A mentor once told me that he never would have become the man he was if he hadn’t shown up for demolition day. 

That day there were a lot of negative things that, once destroyed, gave him room to begin to build a place in his heart where love could blossom.