Heroes Fostering Superpowers Thru Trauma in Foster Care with Daniel Hall

Jason Palmer 0:00
Foster Care nation. Listen, this is

Unknown Speaker 0:04
foster care and

Jason Palmer 0:10
string for the powerless courage for the fearful hope and healing for wounded hearts. Hello, and welcome back to foster care. And I’m Carol journey with Jason and Amanda. And today we have a special co host. He is coming in at about, what, eight months old? Yeah, he’s about eight months old, almost nine months old. And so if you hear a little bit of noise in the background today, we have our godson here today. And so you’re just gonna have to deal with some baby noises. If you want to listen to this one. He’s a pretty quiet kid. Don’t worry, doesn’t scream a lot. But we brought on our special co host and a special guest all at the same time. This is a monumentous occasion for us here. We have never had our little co host, and we’ve never really talked to Dan on here before. Although after I got to meet him a bit on LinkedIn, I’m pretty certain we should have been talking to him for a while. Dan has a wealth of information and experience. And we wanted him to share it with us today. How are you doing today? Dan?

Daniel Hall 1:20
I am doing wonderful. Jason, thank you so much.

Jason Palmer 1:24
Okay, man, I found you somewhere online, a member of I reached out to you or you reached out to me. But after we got to talking, and I was like, I don’t know how we haven’t run across each other before because man our stories have some interesting intersections, but some real differences as well. And you are super passionate about kids.

Daniel Hall 1:43
I certainly am. Yeah, we have six, six adopted, special needs children,

Jason Palmer 1:48
six adopted special needs children. I’m almost tempted to pull the card that I hate it when people do to me and say there’s a special place in heaven for people like you.

Daniel Hall 1:59
I mean, that’s,

Jason Palmer 2:00
I know, I get it, I get it. Right. Yeah. It’s not a special place in heaven. It’s but there’s a special place in this world. Because man, you’re obviously living out of passion. You’re living out of your heart and not out of out of somewhere else. You’re helping kids who really need help doing the job that most people are afraid to do. So number one is we’re not off the bat say you’re amazing. And what you guys are doing is amazing. And and we would love to hear your story today. So you got into foster care and adoption today. But if we rewind that all the way back, you’ve got more of a story behind all that right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So how did you start into that into the foster care world? What was your first step in?

Daniel Hall 2:42
Well, my first step in was a home in Vermont, it was a foster home where my two other brothers and I grew up. And I was in that home from age two to five. And during that stay, we were often beaten, time down. I know, I remember my foster dad backing me to a corner and telling me that I was nothing but a piece of shit. And I wouldn’t amount to anything in life. And it was quite a tumultuous time.

Jason Palmer 3:19
That’s a reason to be put into a foster home. Not something that would happen there.

Daniel Hall 3:23
Yeah, yeah. I think they definitely were one of those foster homes that people say are in it for the money. Because there was four other children besides us that were there. So and then the hall showed up. And I learned real quick how to self market myself. I I knew I needed help. I knew I needed think about out of that house. And so I whipped it out and I peed all over the wall.

Jason Palmer 3:59
That sounds like a marketing technique. That’s kind of new.

Daniel Hall 4:02
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 4:03
And

Daniel Hall 4:05
you know, somebody asked me what can you write your name now? So they Maggie, mae Hall and Jerry Hall Maggie. thought that I needed the most help. Of course, I was the first one she saw so and they could only take one. So they ended up taking me when I was five and they would adopt me two years later. Wow. So that was my my introduction to the foster care environment and what the bad looks like and to what the halls you know, eventually did for me. So,

Jason Palmer 4:48
no, did you have other siblings in foster care with you?

Daniel Hall 4:52
Two other two other brothers one was about a year and a half younger than I was so he was the one that was being tied down. Quite a bit, he was tied down into his crib. And my older brother, his name is Ted and my older brother Dave, who just passed away this last year of stage four glioblastoma, brain cancer. And so we were in the hot bath foster home together and they never got adopted. They were always just shuffled through the system.

Jason Palmer 5:26
Were you able to keep a relationship with them, even though you were moved and adopted?

Daniel Hall 5:31
I never understood that I was adopted. Well, I understood that I was adopted. But I didn’t really know I had other brothers at age two to five. There’s so much trauma there. And it’s hard to really understand what’s going on. And didn’t really understand that they were my brothers. I felt like it was just other kids that were in the house. So when I turned 16, my oldest brother Rick showed up on the halls doorstep. And he knocked on the door and I answered the door, my parents, my my, the hall said, you know, go into their door, see who it is. And my brother Rick, open the door, and he said, I’m your brother. I was just like whitewashed, and just completely floored that they all live within 30 miles of me and I had no clue, no clue that they were around. And so my brain can’t plan this out with with the halls making Jerry. And so, you know, they he basically had their blessing that, you know, I could go back and meet my biological family. And they want 100% supported that. So it was it was it was interesting, and Dave, Dave would eventually become my best friend. My only best friend in life. My biological brother Dave.

Jason Palmer 6:58
Wow. That’s weird. I mean, what a blessing that they were willing to allow your biological family back into your life.

Daniel Hall 7:06
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we were we were placed there because my biological mom had died of brain cancer. And my there was five of us. So I have an older sister, as well biological their sister, and he couldn’t take care of all of us. And having to take care of a one year old. Two and a half year old and a four year old. was tough for a single dad back in the 70s.

Jason Palmer 7:37
Oh, yeah. Yeah. A lot. Man, I’m not gonna lie. I don’t remember much of the 70s. I was I was only a couple years old when that when that all came to an end. But you know that I know that timeframe. It was it was not the idea of a single stay at home dad in the in the world. Yeah,

Daniel Hall 7:56
yeah, you’re right.

Jason Palmer 7:59
So you know, your brother shows up and knocks on the door. And you start to walk to that journey of reconnecting with your family? What did that do for you to find that you had, like biological siblings that you weren’t even really aware of out there? Did that help you really create that identity that, that you maybe were missing? I don’t know. Where are you missing that identity?

Daniel Hall 8:20
Oh, it confused the hell out of me. It really just confused the hell out of me.

Unknown Speaker 8:26
We

Daniel Hall 8:28
I wanted to know so much about him. But when I started to peel away the layers, it was like, you know, these people are kind of more of acquaintances to me then. Family, it just didn’t. You know, I spent some holidays there. And it just, it was it wasn’t home. It wasn’t, you know, there was more chaos in that area, then, you know, it was great at first, but I really wanted to, I knew that me being with the halls was where I where I belonged. And it was great to, to to know where everything started and where I grew up. But at the end of the day, you know, I’m just so thankful that the halls adopted me.

Jason Palmer 9:21
Sounds like you’re really able to find your your true identity with your adoptive family.

Daniel Hall 9:26
100% correct on that, Jason,

Jason Palmer 9:29
did you ever had the opportunity to go back in and reconnect with your father with your birth father?

Daniel Hall 9:36
When my brother died? Yeah, well, I’ve known that he’s known where he lives. No one knew his phone number but never just wanted to call up and say, Hey, pop, how you doing? It’s just, I always felt like he should have been the one that if you really wanted to stay connected, that he should have made the effort to reach out to Me. And it wasn’t until after my brother Dave passed that I actually called him and, you know, just he. And that’s when I found out why he gave us up for adoption. So it was great to have closure. Great just to close the loop on all those unknown feelings of why, and just be able to be happy with the answer and to be able to move on.

Jason Palmer 10:35
into foster care nation, we’d like to take a quick minute to step out of the podcast here and ask you guys for a little bit of support, if you could share an episode with people, friends and groups, with family, anywhere where there’s somebody who would like to hear this. Also, if you’d like to join us and support our mission, a couple dollars a month would be really helpful. You can find us on patreon@patreon.com slash foster care nation. Now back to the show. So many men I know struggle with that Father wound. And you know, in full disclosure, I say this all the time, I didn’t really have a whole lot of that me and my dad got along great. But I do know a lot of men who struggle with that, that absence of a father without having that presence in their life. And that Father wound runs deep. How were you able to heal that in your in your life?

Daniel Hall 11:25
My dad, my adopted dad was such a great dad. And I say that, but it took me 40 years to realize that. And I remember Tina asking me, you know, do you want to adopt? Do you want to have, you know, your foster adopt? And I’m like, Oh, hell no. Not gonna happen. I don’t want to I do not want to have to parent a child, like I was growing up. I was a holy tear. And we had our first two placements, two little girls. And lo and behold, I, I saw myself for the first time in my life, through their eyes, I saw the behaviors, the lying and the stealing everything that comes with that trauma. And I just called up my dad is the first time I really appreciate what my adopted mom and dad had done for me. And I called up my dad. And I said, Dad, I am so sorry, that I always thought you are hard on me. And I said, I understand now you were only trying to give me structure. And I told him he was my hero. It was the first time that I heard my dad actually broke down in tears. So he was more of a dad to me, and he filled me up with all those feelings that a dad should. And he helped me become the man that I am today. And it was easier to get past knowing from my biological dad what had happened. Because I had already had that dad figure in my life, filling that void. So there was really no void to fill there. If that makes sense? Oh, yeah,

Jason Palmer 13:18
yeah, that’s amazing. I mean, I think one of the parts of foster care and adoption that gets overlooked a lot. And that’s the foster dad side. And we’ll talk about this since Amanda just walked off with a little guy, because I think she’s gonna go try and put him to sleep. And I think this is something that we see a lot. We hear about foster care, and you think you hear about foster moms. You don’t hear a whole lot about foster dads, about guys who have that on their heart to help kids. And you’re one of those guys who came out of that you had somebody reach into your life and give you a place of support and fill some of those holes. And now you’re doing it for other kids. That’s one of the things that I think we don’t talk about very often. But what you’re doing is creating that in, and we talked before we hit the record button here. And I wrote it down because I know I can’t remember means you have a five year old girl. And eight year old boy, a 10 year old boy and 11 year old girl, a 17 year old girl and a 20 year old girl, right? Yeah. And as much as we talk about dads, dads and their sons, I mean dads and their daughter to such an important part.

Daniel Hall 14:38
Oh, absolutely. And our youngest is attached to my hip. She’s dad, she’s a daddy’s girl.

Jason Palmer 14:47
You don’t look proud of that at all.

Daniel Hall 14:49
No, not at all.

Jason Palmer 14:52
But can you imagine what you’re doing for these kids and what that’s going to do for their kids and Their kids after them to to have had a good upbringing that started with a strong male role model that will help them step into life with some some real good perspective that a lot of kids, let’s be honest, foster care are not regular bio families, a lot of young ladies do not grow up with a healthy male role model in their life. And they struggle with those problems for an eternity.

Daniel Hall 15:22
You’re absolutely right. You’re absolutely right. And, you know, I’m thankful, so thankful for my wife, Tina, who just helps me navigate all the behaviors, all the traumas, and tell you, I’ll share a little story about our son, Isaiah. When he was two, I would scream, he would scream, I didn’t understand fetal alcohol at all. And I didn’t understand what he needed. And one day, Tina turned to me, she was pretty upset with me. And she told me, you need to start listening with more than just your yours. I just lost it. I completely just lost it. Because I knew what she meant. And the next day, I learned sign language, I started picking up sign language. And I started teaching at Isaiah. And within a couple months, he was doing more please and thank you. He was communicating with me and I could understand. And it filled me up so much. And I realized up until I met Tina, that I honestly didn’t give a shit about anybody in life. I didn’t give a shit, I didn’t care. I didn’t care, somebody died. I mean, I would go through the motions. But I honestly didn’t really care. And I talked about that I used to train inbound foster parents. And I would tell them, you know, up until my wife saved me, you know, she honestly saved me. She taught me how to love she taught me how to feel. She She just has this way of bringing out the best in you. It’s almost like she can retreat in touch your soul. And she does that for our kids. And she does it for me. She finds the best in me and she’s helped me to understand that it’s those small things in life that really are the most important. We all say here in our house, go smaller, go home not go big. Because it’s for us being you know, in foster care being having adopted children, and any children for that matter. Those small victories are priceless. Just to see a smile on a kid’s face is it fills me up now. My son Parker might run in, you know, in a little bit, I don’t get all worked up because I’m on a podcast or on a live stream. I’m, I’m happy because he’s coming down, he’s checking in with me. And he’s filling his bucket, and he’s filling mine at the same time. And, uh, girls do that too. They want to, they want to check in. And it’s so important for, for us as parents to check in. And for them. They are my heroes. I don’t I know, my dad was a hero to me. But they’re honestly my heroes. They saved me by having the opportunity to be a parent for them. They saved me They helped me understand who I was as a person. So

Jason Palmer 18:39
yeah, we talk a lot about figuring out how to heal through the trauma and your own childhood. And I mean, it’s obvious that you’ve had some trauma in your childhood. You’ve described some of it already. And most of us don’t realize that we’ve all had some level of trauma around childhood but finding somebody who can who can work through your mess with you Oh man that’s that’s that’s priceless.

Daniel Hall 19:05
It is it is and and you know it helps me to want to learn so much more about what they’re going through so I can help them cope in along with with Tina and be a united front in the way that we parent our kids les look I don’t always get it right you know I’m tend to be sometimes the biggest kid in the house but and sometimes I need to get talking to

Jason Palmer 19:32
but I’m not the only one that’s

Daniel Hall 19:34
good. Yeah

Jason Palmer 19:38
you know, finding finding that you know, usually helps to reframe a lot of the things that we’ve grown up with we talked about your your Dad What about your your mom, you know, your adoptive mom was at a close relationship for you.

Daniel Hall 19:54
That was the closest relationship for me because you know growing up in Thinking My dad was always a hard ass, there has to be some balance to that. And Maggie was that balance. When my dad, my dad just passed this December of dementia, he’s taking bad fall and the home he was in. And I went back through, I was looking back through one of my yearbooks, and my mom had written in there. And she always she, she’s like Tina, she always found, she always finds those shoes, she found the best in people. And she wrote in there, don’t ever dwell on all your failures or your successes, be who you are, and be happy with what you become in life. So she was always the balance to my dad. So there may have been the rough edge of my dad. But my mom was always there to help me understand the the other side of what compassion looked like what empathy looked like, what trust look like, I mean, I trusted my mom and dad stuff, the trust thing wasn’t really about those. But it was a balance for me. And they both provided that.

Jason Palmer 21:17
Yeah, it’s great to have a good mother and father role. Because I mean, I don’t care what common culture says today about the world today. But a solid figure that can, you know, help you got a two parent household, where you have two different humans who are trying to take care of you, they tend to run the yin and the yang of the situation and, and help you understand where to be in those hard moments, whether it’s that moment that you need somebody to, to maybe kind of give you a little extra button. So let’s go let’s go do this. Or somebody who looks at you and says, Hey, man, this is tough time. Let’s go talk about it. And it’s also Yeah, you found that in, in your adoptive parents, and that makes a huge difference in a kid’s life. And I would just go ahead and guess I know the answer this already. But I would assume that that has a lot to do with where you’re at today in life.

Daniel Hall 22:13
Absolutely, absolutely. Especially the fact that I can see so much of my mom and Tina. And I tell her that frequently. He said you so much like my mom. And that’s a huge compliment.

Jason Palmer 22:29
That’s not the sort of thing most guys feel like they can say to their wife.

Daniel Hall 22:32
Yeah, yes. Oh, it’s a She’s amazing. And, and as far as, and she’s, she’s a lot like my dad do, because I’m probably the one that gets treated like the doormat most of the times. She definitely wears the pants in the family. Let’s put it that way.

Jason Palmer 22:56
Well, you know, there’s a whole masculine and feminine energy thing and, and we all have to work through that in our own space and figure that out for ourselves. But you and your wife have been together for how long?

Daniel Hall 23:08
15 years?

Jason Palmer 23:10
15 years. So

Unknown Speaker 23:11
you got a pretty good start going. Oh, yeah.

Jason Palmer 23:14
Sounds to me, like you might you might have some plans of just leaving it that way. for the long term.

Daniel Hall 23:20
It is it’s time for us to focus on raising our children.

Jason Palmer 23:26
Well, how old were you guys? When you when you met each other?

Daniel Hall 23:30
Oh, gosh, 15 years ago, I was about 35. Yeah. 3536. And she was just turning 30. Okay, okay. I just realized maybe that’s why she always says she’s 29 maybe she’s regretting

Jason Palmer 23:47
now. I hear you, I hear you. So you guys. I mean, you weren’t like super young when you started having kids. I mean, Amanda and I, when we first got together, she had a she had a son from from a previous relationship where dad had kind of just bounced. And so we got together and we just had a kid to start with. And pretty quickly, we had a second kid. And we were not that far off of 20 yet. You know, I think I was 22 and she might have actually been 20. So you guys have plenty of time to kind of begin to find yourselves as you walked into that relationship and and then walked into the the world of adoption and foster care and all that was that was a adoption in foster care, a conversation that you guys had at the beginning of your when you guys first got together?

Daniel Hall 24:39
Yeah, it was. And my response to Tina at that time was I’m not going to adopt and I’m not going to foster because I don’t want to have to parent a child like I was growing up. Because my mom and dad always told me I was a holy tear. And I didn’t want to have any holy terrorists in the house.

Jason Palmer 25:02
Yeah, but the holy tears tend to be the most fun to.

Daniel Hall 25:06
Yeah. And it was the holy tears that taught me a lot about myself. So I’m definitely thankful for that.

Jason Palmer 25:13
So what was it? Do you think that put down on her heart that she wanted to be a part of that?

Daniel Hall 25:19
She loves working with kids, she’s always love working with kids. And she, you know, some people like to figure things out. And for her, that’s her passion. She likes to figure kids out, figure out what makes them tick. What makes them tick, what they’re thinking about before they think about it, you know, it’s just you have that. That empathic skill of knowing. So she’s really good at that.

Jason Palmer 25:50
Sounds like a lot of curiosity at work?

Daniel Hall 25:52
Yes, absolutely. Yes.

Jason Palmer 25:55
That’s one of the skill sets I did not have when we first got kids. Well, like I said, I started, when Amanda had got together, we started out with already having a kid and I had, it took a lot of years for me to learn how to really be true, truly, and genuinely curious about what was going on with them. Because I kind of grew up in a world where I would just make assumptions, like I said, to do this. And if you’re not doing that, it means you’re being rebellious and, and I’m gonna teach you and you’re gonna learn today, and we’re going to, you know, work through this, and you’re going to learn how to listen, son. And you might know how all that works.

Daniel Hall 26:28
Yeah, it doesn’t. It doesn’t work for me today. I, I’ve tried that approach.

Jason Palmer 26:35
It worked for a few years, it worked for a few years until my kids started getting older and actually grow their own personality and their own thought processes, and that sort of thing. And suddenly, it didn’t work anymore.

Daniel Hall 26:47
Yeah, yeah, it gets old for them.

Jason Palmer 26:51
So I had to learn to be curious at that point, and try to figure out what in the world was going on with them? How was how did that work for you? Did you have a similar journey?

Unknown Speaker 27:02
Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 27:03
yeah.

Daniel Hall 27:08
Say that again, Jason.

Jason Palmer 27:11
You have a similar journey as far as having to figure out how to be curious.

Daniel Hall 27:16
In regards to the children,

Jason Palmer 27:18
yeah, as to what’s going on in their life and why they are acting the way they’re acting? Why there may be acting out in certain ways. That doesn’t seem to make sense to you.

Daniel Hall 27:26
Got it. Got it. Yeah, yeah. The, our first placements of our two girls, a lot of the behaviors, I understood a little bit about it. But reactive attachment disorder was completely new to us. And we had no training on that, which is why I became a trainer, a co Trainer with our local DSS for invalid foster parents, because we had no training on what some of these some of these disorders were like reactive attachment, or dissociative identity disorder, anything like that. So trying to navigate and figure out that your kids have no empathy, they have complete lack of trust, and they have a complete cause and effect. They have no cause and effect thinking, just completely floored me. I remember our daughter before the day before she got adopted. She’s like, I don’t give a shit if you guys die tomorrow. That’s exactly what she told us. And we adopted her and she graduated high school last year at age 20. Wow.

Jason Palmer 28:43
Wow. wasn’t the one for us when we had a couple kids who are? Well, one of them was diagnosed rad. The other one was about a year too young for them to be willing to give a diagnosis. But I’m gonna say they probably found the same thing with both kids. And rats, one of those things that we’ve interviewed a couple people who’ve dealt with it. And in the episode we had with Shell rougeau, her and her husband had adopted a young girl. And man, that one turned out really difficult. Really, yeah, it just didn’t turn out well for them. As a family, they spent all kinds of time energy, blood, sweat, tears and money trying to figure out how to work it out. And they never could find a good solution for that particular girl. After after she’d been, you know, tried killing. Her sister had been killing animals and tried to burn the house down a couple times in the middle of the night. They eventually had to had to revoke the I forget what they call it. revoke the adoption, there’s a term for it and I forget what it is at the moment. But they eventually had to go that route. And we talked to Jeannie human as well just a little bit ago and Gina had a different story. They adopted a little boy from from Bolivia. I don’t know I’m going to get it wrong because it was a foreign country whose name Don’t remember terribly don’t hear in the news very often. So it started with a bee. But rain? No, I believe it was in South America somewhere. But that, you know, he came to them. And they found out later that he had read as well. And she talked about their journey through that. Her and her husband going through that journey, and helping him through that. And today, while he still has rad, he’s really well modulated on that on that particular disorder now, and he’s getting somewhere in life. He’s becoming somebody who’s going to make a difference in the world.

Daniel Hall 30:36
is, that’s amazing.

Jason Palmer 30:38
Yeah, yeah. And Gina human, is she has a TEDx talk, where she talks about read. And it’s just an amazing story. But those those stories are so wild, and so varied in the way that they they turn out because we don’t know a whole lot about it.

Daniel Hall 30:55
Yeah, yeah. And a lot of people don’t realize that most of your inmates in prison have some type of medium to severe reactive attachment disorder, because they lacked the empathy. They lacked the ability to trust, and they lacked the cause and effect thinking.

Jason Palmer 31:16
They’re foster care nation, if you’d like to find yourself in a group of like minded people, head over Facebook. And you can find us@facebook.com slash groups slash foster care, you j, we’ve got a group over there where we talk about foster care, we talk about adoption, we talked about all the things related, if your podcast player allows it, you can also reach out to hit that subscribe button. So you get notified every week, when we put up uploads. Every Tuesday, a new episode comes out. We’d love to see you next week. Now back to the show. I think that was part of what was difficult for me was understanding that, that what you said is exactly right. They lack the ability is not a desire to do things. And that’s the only reason I do it. It’s usually because it’s they really physically cannot their brain has been traumatized. And that trauma was rewired in a way that we don’t necessarily understand. And they cannot, it’s not a choice of don’t want to it’s a matter of cannot, and when fair how to deal with that as a society. Because I mean, let’s face it, we’re either going to deal with these kids, and in foster care, and adoption in the struggles in the youth juvenile facilities, or in the prison system. Or maybe we go back to that whole foster care adoption area, and we figure out how to work our way through that and get these kids to help they need to at least have the best fighting chance they can so that they don’t end up in the prison system.

Daniel Hall 32:45
Absolutely. And I worked with Jane Ryan, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Jane Ryan. And I know the name shoe, she wrote a book called The border, okay, and broke broken spirits lost souls. And she did a movie, two or three years ago, I created the movie poster for it. And I’m trying to remember the actor’s name. Andy, and I remember it probably by the end of the podcast, but he had reactive attachment disorder. She had him she and he had wanted to play the boy he had been through. He was adopted from a foreign country. He had rad. But he just wanted to play this part. So bad and Jane was like now Not gonna happen. And he kept writing, he kept writing to her. And eventually, he played the part in the movie. And in the movie is about reactive attachment disorder. Lifetime ran it Lifetime movie channel ran it. Couple of two or three years back, maybe it was around 2015. But they rebranded it as the troubled child. And it was just amazing. And she and she came out actually to Maryland, and met us and she showed the movie out here and it was just just she was just a wealth of knowledge. And she helped us understand a lot about reactive attachment disorder.

Jason Palmer 34:19
So when you do trainings with boss, inbound foster parents, how do you how do you help them understand this so that it’s something that they can actually handle?

Daniel Hall 34:28
We we, we give them some help them with some coping mechanisms. We help them understand what red is, and not only red, but like dissociative identity disorder. And we were basically I say we because my my wife talks Tina white, she talks as well. We help them understand what the good and the bad and the ugly looks like of fostering and adopting through Our journey through reactive attachment disorder to feed on alcohol. And we give them some some really good coping skills to take away from the training.

Jason Palmer 35:15
Okay, okay, we talked with Heather, I think we just left her name is Heather, for some privacy issues on on an episode, I think it was called surviving abusive out of foster care. And Heather, Heather was a girl who was who had fetal alcohol syndrome. And she had a lot of complications in her life, you know, up till the day, she’s still working through it and doing a great job, but still working through a lot of that with fetal alcohol syndrome. And you mentioned dissociative identity disorder. And that one, the little bit that I know about that one, that one’s kind of wild.

Unknown Speaker 35:52
I,

Jason Palmer 35:53
there’s a pie. I have zero connection with it. Although I love it. It’s called, um, this is actually happening. And then he has an episode that’s called, what if you had dissociative identity disorder? So I was like, Okay, I’m going to listen to this one. And I’ll warn anybody listening, if you’re going to listen to that one, do it without kids in the room? Do we have time to really process it? Because she details, the trauma, the absolute horrible trauma that she went through? And mean, her parents sold her as a young child time and again, and it was a really horrible experience. But she details her experience through dissociative identity disorder. And I probably would not do it justice. How would you explain like what that looks like to to a foster parent, if they saw that coming into their house?

Daniel Hall 36:40
Sure. So imagine yourself, and we’ve all done this, driving a car, you drive and the the drive is just so mundane, that you zone out for about maybe five or 10 minutes. And then you realize that you’re zooming out and you come back? And you’re like, how did I just get from 10 minutes ago to hear and being safe when you have that disorder. And that’s exactly what happens with dissociative identity disorder is because the traumas happening, kids will generally just check out and they won’t remember that part of the journey. So if you think about checking out on a car drive, like a lot of us do. That’s what that’s what it looks like. And that’s why you can’t remember, you can’t remember how you got from that part of the road to the next part of the road, because you’ve completely checked out. And with trauma like that, they check out and they don’t remember how they got there. And that’s the one therapist, she’s an amazing therapist described it that way. And I understood it clearly. Then what at a high level what it was. And we used to sit with our our 17 year old and I used to listen to her talking to herself. Hey, how are you today? Oh, I’m good. I’m good. It was just the voices. It was the freakiest thing didn’t understand what was going on. But it just kept on going. And there was different voices all the time. We never got her completely diagnosed with it. But the therapists that we saw for rad also knew a lot about di D. And she said it sounds like that. So she started her journaling. So bring these two bring all these personalities together through her journaling. And she’s an amazing young girl right now. She’s just man, she, she’s run all kinds of electrical wiring, you know, in the house, and she’s just wow. just completely blows me away. how far we’ve come with her.

Jason Palmer 38:59
Oh, yeah, it sounds like it. We talked with Frank King here a while back. And he’s, he’s he talks a lot about suicidal ideation and that sort of thing, because he’s a comedian. And so you would put suicide and comedians together, right. But that’s something that you know, he is a comedian. He’s dealt with suicide ideation for a long time. He’s got a lot of research under his belt. He’s learned a lot about it. And one of the things he talks about is how some of these different disorders and diseases can actually give you some of your own superpowers. They can really give you an ability. It’s not always doesn’t always have to be some sort of a handicap. Sometimes it comes along with it that you can build these amazing abilities. How have you seen that workout with with your kids?

Daniel Hall 39:44
I think my I that’s the abilities. I wouldn’t call them superpowers for me. I just call it I think my wife Tina has superpowers that she kind of just educates me on what she does. Um, it’s just, uh, you know, it’s, it’s really, I go back to saying this. For me, it’s not a superpower, maybe it is. But what she told me when Isaiah was, you know, screaming, and I was screaming, you know, listen with more than just your ears. And it’s amazing what you can see. And listen with your heart, close your eyes. And, you know, don’t even look, just listen, and then plug your ears and just look at what you’re seeing. And it’s just, That, to me is one of the biggest abilities that she has got me to understand how to do. And I think if I had a superpower, I that would be my superpower would be to be able to listen with more than just my ears.

Jason Palmer 41:04
You know, I’ve got we’ve got shovel kids and our kids don’t have any specific diagnosis is mostly because it’s nothing severe enough in our house that we felt the need to go get a diagnosis for necessarily, but I’m certain Yeah, we could find it if we wanted to. I mean, there’s plenty of post traumatic stress in the house. And I would look at it though, and say, like, I’ve got a little guy who is, I mean, this kid is off the charts wild some days, you know, but at the same time, as kids, also a blast.

Unknown Speaker 41:35
Yeah,

Jason Palmer 41:36
until you’ve met a kid like this, who will, by the end of the day, you will be worn out by his energy. The thing is, is when he wakes up in the morning, if you go up and wake him up in bed, and he wakes up and a smile spreads from ear to ear, and he just starts laughing. This kid knows how to how to have joy in his heart. And that’s something that I think comes out of his struggles is today he knows how to have joy because he didn’t hit one point. You know, and I think that’s, that’s a superpower that I I mean, I don’t have that one.

Unknown Speaker 42:07
I promise I get

Jason Palmer 42:08
up for two o’clock at two o’clock in the morning to go to work. I do not wake up laughing ever,

Unknown Speaker 42:15
ever.

Jason Palmer 42:16
But he’s that’s who he is. You know, I have another kid who’s who’s really super artistic with with the way that he sees his world. And he pushes that art into the world. And a lot of that I think came out of his own trauma and his own struggles. And I watch these kids and I go, Okay, yeah, they have some struggles out of them. But you know, you know, we talked about what odd PTSD, rad, autism, all these different things. And at the end of the day, yeah, they have their struggles, but they they can also end up having their own advantages too. And I think part of what my goal in life is to kind of identify what those those benefits are, and really help them to find that the struggle that that is actually a benefit for them.

Daniel Hall 43:06
Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, just my, my adopted parents, the halls did that for me. They, my mom would drop me off at this is back in the 70s. And you trusted a lot more people than you do today.

Unknown Speaker 43:27
Yeah, she would,

Daniel Hall 43:28
she would go to church and where I grew up in caskets and for mom, the college there, the castleton state college would allow kids from or people from the community to come in and use their computer center and their library. So it AJ, she would drop me off there, make sure I got in and I stayed in there the whole time. And I would use the computers so I started writing software when I was eight years old. And that turned out to be my passion and my love throughout my career. I write computer software to this day, and they helped me find something that I absolutely love to do. And for me going to work is fun. It’s so much fun. And they helped me find my superpower there. And like you said with our kids, it’s finding and zoning and it’s so important to zone in to find something that they absolutely love to do. And that’s key for me and Tina is to to help them find their passion to help them find their superpower as you would say. And not an easy thing to do when you’re trying to navigate also navigate all the disorders and all the all the the the regular day to day stuff that comes with some of the amazing outcomes at the end of the day. Some of the things Start the day. And then you look at the end of the day. And you’re like, wow. Because through one day, things can change so much. But you realize how resilient It doesn’t matter how much you think you failed in any given day. And I tell this to people, if you think you’re a failure, you’re not a failure, because you show up every day, to show your kids how you can fail and how you can pick yourself up. And you can keep going and keep going. And you get knocked down. So you show them what that looks like. And then when they grow up, and they turn 40 years old, like I did. They understand what failure looks like, and they understand what an amazing journey looks like. And my kids are heroes, they are undoubtedly heroes with many different superpowers, the ability to make you laugh, the ability to make you laugh until you cry, and the ability just to tear your heart out and wonder why somebody would do that to them. Before they came to you.

Jason Palmer 46:17
Well, yeah, oh, yeah. I’ve told this story before, but we had one particular little girl, she’s not so little anymore. But when she first came to stay at our house one of one evening, we sat down for dinner and said, who would like to say blessing before dinner? And she says, I do I do. And she folds her little hands and bows her little head and she just says, Dear God, thank you that my new mommy and daddy haven’t died yet.

Daniel Hall 46:45
Wow. Wow.

Jason Palmer 46:47
And yeah, suck the air right out of the room. Because I was busy feeling sorry for myself that dad had a rough day at work, or whatever was going on. And all of a sudden, it’s like God, kind of just gut punch man said Oh, yeah. Pay attention here. Pay attention. You thought you had a bad day? Huh, didn’t ya?

Daniel Hall 47:03
Wow. Wow. Yeah.

Jason Palmer 47:07
And the ability they have to really just speak into our lives in ways that that the most noted gurus, the people with all the books and all the knowledge and all the experience that everybody wants to listen to, you know, the Tony Robbins of the world, Tony Robbins could not have taught me that lesson any more effective way?

Daniel Hall 47:26
Not at all.

Jason Palmer 47:28
Because I learned real real quick how it is to, to go ahead and shift your perspective into one that Yeah, okay. Okay, yeah,

Daniel Hall 47:37
you don’t you don’t have a clue until you’ve you’ve really experienced it. Or you’ve you’ve lived through somebody live with or through somebody that’s experienced it.

Jason Palmer 47:49
Yeah. Because I mean, even today, she’s 13 today, and she’s still with us. And yeah, 13 year old girls don’t always like, think dad’s the most awesome guy in the world. Understandably, I don’t think I thought the same thing about my parents at 13. But today, she is still an amazing young woman. She’s still it’s hard for me to say amazing young woman because I’ve known her since she was a little bit he get older. You don’t want to say that now? No, she’s still my level girl.

Daniel Hall 48:19
You know, I was pretty girl.

Jason Palmer 48:21
But it’s those are the moments that you look back to and realize that man, the wisdom of a toddler, sometimes especially these kids have been through such hard times. Who can really just speak into the world in a way that that we couldn’t do? They can speak into our lives and teach us so much. If we have ears to hear?

Daniel Hall 48:41
Absolutely. Absolutely. And my youngest, our five year old, she was talking she’s quite intelligent. She’s probably.

Unknown Speaker 48:53
Yeah,

Daniel Hall 48:53
I think we clocked it at about when she was two, she bought ahead about 150 word vocabulary. And yeah, she’s just blows me away, blows both both of us away. And she came up to me one day, and she said, Daddy, can I ask you? Like, what can I ask you? And, of course, our oldest one is using a lot of slang from high school. Instead, can I ask you a question? She was trying to ask me a question. She’s like, Daddy, I asked you. So yeah, I forgot where we’re going with that. Jason. I’m sorry. But that’s just whatever you were talking about. This popped into my head must have been a squirrel moment for me. Sorry.

Jason Palmer 49:45
I was going across my horizon all the time. I’m certain if I was to go spend enough time and money somewhere that eventually diagnosed what it is in my head. That’s not typical. The problem is, I think they need a couple sheets of paper to print all that out.

Unknown Speaker 50:01
Are ream.

Jason Palmer 50:04
But you know, these these kids have that ability to speak into our lives if we’re willing to sit back and listen. And I love what you said earlier, you know, listening with more than just your ears. Because if nothing else, English is not our first language. It You know, it isn’t for any human. The first language we ever learned was body language. You know, just like little our little godson over here who, who, you know, when he wants a bottle, trust me he he’d let you know he wants a bottle. And he does not say Excuse me, sir, but I’m kind of hungry, can you give me a bottle of formula, please. We learned to read that violence, he learns to speak that at a brand new little infant stage, and then we forget it. We don’t forget how to use it, we just forget that we use it. And when these kids a lot of times, some of the biggest benefits I’ve found is being able to step back. And really pay attention to all the little parts and pieces of who they are, what their body language is, what’s your tone us like? And understand what’s going on and stop and be genuinely curious and ask some questions. And suddenly you find out this kid is being just a total pain in the butt today. He’s gone through some stuff. There’s some old trauma and something triggered it. He’s deal with that. And suddenly, this kid who I wanted to, you know, pick him up and Homer choke him, like, Come on, stop being a button. Like, Oh, wait, wait, okay, let’s, let’s, let’s sit down and have a real conversation.

Daniel Hall 51:31
And you, he hit the nail on the head there. It’s it putting your emotions aside. And just like you said, having that ability to listen with more than just your yours is not easy sometimes. Because you get so emotional sometimes. And it’s just having the ability to take the step back and say, Wait, I know exactly what’s going on. They’re hungry. Or they’re tired. And they just don’t know what to do with themselves. And part of that is just exactly what you said. It’s just understanding them and understanding what their needs are and understanding that if your child is calling you stupid, or an idiot or a butthead that there’s something else going on exactly what you said, Jason?

Jason Palmer 52:30
Well, I learned that lesson, because I’ve made that mistake more times than most. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when I fail,

Daniel Hall 52:36
fail, fail, fail, fail, succeed. And it it goes with you. And that makes you who you are. And it makes me who I am.

Jason Palmer 52:47
And that’s the only way that we get to success. Yep. The only path to success I’ve ever found is through failure.

Daniel Hall 52:54
Absolutely.

Jason Palmer 52:56
And we have to get done with the fact that we’re gonna mess a lot of stuff up along the way.

Daniel Hall 53:01
You got it?

Jason Palmer 53:03
Why, at least I assume everybody else has to do it the same way that I did. Yeah.

Daniel Hall 53:11
earned a lot of bridges grown up. Absolutely.

Jason Palmer 53:14
Yeah, but But today, here we are, you know, like I mentioned earlier, two dads, to dads who have kids who you know, may or may not be biologically related to you, in your house, that you’re looking at trauma, you’re looking at problems. And one of the things that for me, it really means a lot is the fact that I’m leaving a legacy on a daily basis. And so I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s that’s been one of the real driving factors for me is that I’m leaving a legacy, whether I want to or not, you know, when the boat goes across the lake, it doesn’t choose whether or not it leaves a weight behind it. It’s going to be there. You just get to choose what that looks like. And it’s the same way with legacy, you get to decide what your legacy is going to be. And I remind myself on a daily basis, probably many times a day, that in every moment, especially every month with my kids, one thing I’m doing was I’m writing an obituary, I’m writing mine, my kids are going to have a legacy that they’re going to leave behind them and it’s going to be really impacted by who their dad was, and what I choose to do and who I choose to be. And has that legacy piece. Been something for you. That’s really important.

Daniel Hall 54:32
It has and I’m going to to give you a little story about my my legacy is reciprocal kindness, you know, just and that was evident. I believe for the first time when we adopted we went down and we adopted we didn’t stop we were trying to get custody of our last placement Bella Who was a sibling of three other children or home? She was she’s basically kinship and a great niece. And my daughter, who was seven at the time had to get up on the stand. And the judge asked her first, you know, did she understand what lying and and telling the truth was and stuff? And he asked her, What do you want for Christmas? And she’s like, I don’t want any toys. I just want my little sister to come home with me. And it’s seven years old for the kindness that was in her heart that day. And we knew both knew there wasn’t a dry eye in that courtroom that day. But we walked out of there. And there’s a whole story behind, we fought Florida for a year. And our daughter, when she went out of that courtroom, said, Mommy, I did all the heavy lifting today, didn’t I? and Tina was like, she’d cry. And she’s like, Yeah, you did. You did an amazing job. And I just see that kindness in all my children, they have their days, gosh, we have our days as parents.

Unknown Speaker 56:30
And

Daniel Hall 56:32
just, I want to give back to the world. And I, you know, just what was given to me, the chance the halls gave to me. I want to be able to teach our kids and my wife and I want to be able to teach our kids what kindness looks like. And, to me, that’s what I want to be remembered for. is to be able to reciprocate kindness.

Jason Palmer 57:01
That sounds like an amazing legacy to leave. Most men that I know don’t have an intentional legacy that they want to leave behind. And from what I can see, you guys are not only have that figured out, but you’re doing it. Yeah. I know you have an amazing story with with trying to get your daughter Bella to your home. You know, can can you run through that?

Daniel Hall 57:32
Sure. Sure. So like I said, we have we had Olivia, I say, in Parker, Olivia, we got we got from Florida, eight months. And this is my great niece was the was the biological mother. And I’m gonna say biological mother, because that was the rub that prevented us from getting Isabella. So we got Olivia eight months.

Unknown Speaker 58:00
I say it, we

Daniel Hall 58:01
got it nine weeks. Parker at seven weeks after they were born. We were right there. We knew they were going to be born. We communicated with DCF and said, We want to be a resource. We want to be a resource. Well, when Isabella was born, we have done the same thing. And I don’t really know why Florida put up such a fight. I can only speculate that and please don’t get me wrong. We have lesbian and gay friends, great friends. And in Florida. That year, I think it was 2016. They just passed the law to allow LBGT LBGT couples to be able to have the ability to adopt. And I don’t know for sure, but I think that may have had something to do with it. And the fact that I’m going back to saying biological mom, because Tina and Olivia went down to court. I think this was May of 2016. And Tina said the term bio mom, and for some reason it just pissed off the judge why she was so floored that Tina was calling her bio mom. And Tina tried to explain that. Hey, look, Olivia knows that she’s adopted. We have a video of her when she was three. She’s like I grew up in mommy and daddy’s hearts. And I grew and in Christy’s belly, who was a bio mom. And we have always explained her that’s her bio mom. So Tina was using terminology that Olivia can understand. Because Olivia was there in the courtroom. That just set a whole different path set us on a whole different path. The judge was so mad that she offered this was wasn’t even six months into With the placement, she’s asked the foster parents if they wanted to adopt. And we were like what? And so they’re on after that pursued a year long legal battle of trying to get Isabel on our home. And two more court appearances down in Florida, hiring a lawyer and being denied every single time down in Florida to be able to have visitations of Olivia was denied twice to be able to visit with her sister, Isabel. So, and that video that I sent you in, catalogs our journey, and even the Dr. Phil show at one point, asked us if we’d be interested in in discussing the journey. And we opted out for that, because we didn’t want to put the kids through it.

Jason Palmer 1:00:54
Yeah, yeah. So you guys went through quite a journey just to be able to, to get there. I mean, make sure that the obvious bow is still put on it. In Your House today, right?

Daniel Hall 1:01:08
She She is in her house today. And she is just, I think the sometimes the energy that feels the fire. And sometimes she’s the energy that just makes you laugh until you cry.

Jason Palmer 1:01:21
I have one of those.

Daniel Hall 1:01:22
Yeah. But yeah, it’s she’s just, she’s an amazing soul. And there’s one thing I wanted to say about Bella. I just, I’ll remember it here.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:35
You know,

Jason Palmer 1:01:37
keeping those biological siblings together such an important thing. And you think that that was that was maybe fueled by your own lack of having been given that as a kid?

Daniel Hall 1:01:48
I’m not sure. You know, we were even afraid to tell Florida that I was adopted. And that was because that would have that would have not made Isabella our biological or biological. Me. Great. Nice. We were so afraid to tell Florida that I was adopted, which was sad. And finally, we know we contacted the about ombudsman down in Florida, and they put us with a worker, I think she was from DCF. I forget, Juanita, What was her name? And she was pulling up all our paperwork. And she’s like, what is going on here? You guys should have her by now. And she kept looking and looking. And that’s when we hired a lawyer. And they had a hole. I don’t know how many people were in that room that day. But they they went around and they kept asking us questions. And I think there was like, maybe 20 people in the room? Have, why? why you did we think that we didn’t have you know how much money I made and all this stuff. And at the end of the day, you know, we got a call back from Juanita. And it’s like, nobody can understand why you don’t have her. Why you don’t have Isabella. And, you know, it’s just, it still plagues me to this day. But we’re very grateful for Miss Juanita, who now is their kind of adopted grandmother, because nobody else would listen, she did. And she she kept all the siblings together.

Jason Palmer 1:03:40
That’s, that’s great. You know, there’s, there’s a few angels in this world who are there to, to help us along. And, you know, just as part of my own story, one of the things I’ve learned is, you know, we lost our daughter. And that was, that was a hard time that it took me years to figure this out. But where I would never have traded her for anything, obviously. But in every dark moment, there’s a little piece of light that comes out of it. Man, whether you’re a spiritual person or not, you believe it’s a universe or it’s God, or it’s just happenstance. If you go through those hard times, there’s almost always something that you can take out of it. And in this world, I would say that, that the Daniel Hall, who’s sitting here talking to me today would have maybe a different story, or less of a story, maybe not be the advocate he is if he hadn’t walked through that so it may be a blessing in disguise that you guys walk through such a journey.

Daniel Hall 1:04:40
I have no regrets. No regrets whatsoever on my life. If I did, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you. I wouldn’t have six amazing children. And I have to add that I do have a biological son from another marriage Ethan that you give a huge shout out to him because he’s an amazing young man. And so I definitely don’t want to leave him out. But yeah, no, we absolutely no regrets in my life. And I think that’s what it winds up. Being is just being happy with, with who I turned out to be.

Jason Palmer 1:05:21
And an amazing legacy to leave behind, because you’ve done so much of it in the public eye. So much of it, you know, you have journal than in video journal than and will be something that’s seen by many generations to follow.

Daniel Hall 1:05:35
Absolutely.

Jason Palmer 1:05:37
I believe I believe that everything maybe that really does happen for a reason. I just don’t think we always understand or appreciate that reason in the moment.

Daniel Hall 1:05:46
Absolutely not. I can attest to that. That’s absolutely right. Jason.

Jason Palmer 1:05:51
Yeah, I’ve struggled through those moments myself. And, and I can see from the other side of some of those moments, the benefit that can come out of it, if I was willing to pose willing to walk that journey and keep my eyes open and have a have a spirit to pay attention to what I can do to make the world a better place.

Daniel Hall 1:06:10
reflection is amazing thing, if you’re willing to take it on.

Jason Palmer 1:06:15
Well, I appreciate you coming here and telling us your story today, Daniel, I mean, you’ve got, you’ve got so much experience to share with people. And if they want to reach out to you, LinkedIn is probably the best platform for them to find you on. One of the things I can say is, I’m on we have a LinkedIn profile. And when you go to try and find us, I’m not terribly active there, I need to figure out how to be more so. But you, you have a real active profile there. So anybody with some some questions around the the adoption world, especially in some of the struggles we’ve talked through today, in would be well served to go and at least find you and listen to a lot of the things that you’ve put up because you share a lot of your journey and a lot of your wisdom on a regular basis. And I know that that’s going to help a lot of people. So that would be a great resource, I think for people to find you. Is there any better place or any other place that people can really find you?

Daniel Hall 1:07:11
Yeah, on LinkedIn is the best place to find me. And I will certainly talk to any foster parent, any social workers that need some some feedback. So yeah, definitely LinkedIn. Jason. Great, great.

Jason Palmer 1:07:26
Well, we’ll make sure that that is linked up in the in the show notes here. So people can find you if they need to reach out to you for anything. And we will. We’ll make sure this gets out so people can can hear your story. I appreciate your time, man, and your openness and vulnerability. That’s to share your story, when it’s not always an easy thing to do.

Daniel Hall 1:07:49
Yeah, I’m definitely so humble that you guys made me a part of your life made me a part of your podcast. I can’t put a price tag on that. It’s priceless. Thank you so much.

Jason Palmer 1:08:02
Okay, foster care nation. Thank you for listening to Daniel’s story. Now take his knowledge and wisdom to heart so you can create love and healing in your family and community. Be sure to come back next week in new episodes every Tuesday. If you’d like to share your story as a guest, you can reach us at foster care at uj. Now to reach us at foster care uj@gmail.com you can connect with other like minded people on facebook@facebook.com slash groups slash foster care uj. And don’t forget we have a Patreon. You can support our mission there for as little as $5 a month. It’s patreon.com slash foster care nation. The links to everything are in the show notes or on your podcast player or you can find all at foster care. nation.com. And as always,

Unknown Speaker 1:08:49
you are so super awesome.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:50
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:57
They give thank Thanks. Thanks