Heaven Warrior

seventeen

"Heaven it's nice of you to join us." Daloni's new social worker smiled, welcoming her into the room with the other future parents. His new social worker was a middle-aged black woman that so happened to be Kenzie's godmother.

"Hey everyone." Heaven introduced herself, sending everyone a small wave. She had only been to two other parenting classes, this was her third. Daloni's social worker Ms. Walker told her it would look good when they presentend the case to the court. Plus it would help Heaven get the hang of motherhood.

Everyone introduced themselves and then gave their attention back to Ms. Walker. This particular session they were going over attachment and neglect.

"So as we all know more than half of the kids are in the system because of child neglect. Neglect is failing to care properly for a child. Whether it's physically, mentally, and emotionally."

"Has anyone ever experienced neglect?"

Heaven slowly raised her hand biting down on her bottom lip. Heaven's parents raised her great physically but they always abused her mentally and emotionally. They had Heaven's life all planned out, but when she decided that she wanted to be a nurse they started neglecting her. 

"Even if we haven't experienced neglect, there's many ways to prevent them. You always want to make sure the child is comfortable with themselves and their surroundings." Ms. Walker explained, standing up and walking to the dry erase board.

"Can anybody give me some examples on how to see if a child is comfortable?" Ms. Walker asked the future parents.

"Their body language." Heaven said.

"That's a great one. Body language can say a lot even if they are a little one you can still read their language." Ms. Walker nodded.

"You can ask them." One couple pointed out.

"Yes, we can ask, but sometimes a child that has neglect issues will be hard to talk to. One thing we don't want to do is to try and force them to talk." Ms. Walker said, writing on the board.

"Let's switch gears for a bit, lets talk about attachment. For my foster couples have you or the kid started getting attached?" Ms. Walker asked.

"So Laylah does this thing where she wants to cling to our legs all day. Like she literally wraps her body around our legs." A white couple smiled. They were fostering a black child, looking into adoption.

"But I don't have a problem with it, I actually love it." The wife nodded.

Ms. Walker chuckled and looked at Heaven."Heaven what about you?"

"Yes. We're both attached to each other. All he wants is me." Heaven smiled, just thinking about Daloni. No matter what anybody said, she wouldn't trade Daloni's clinginess for anything.

"Well our little one is having a hard time. I don't think he's adapted yet, we sometimes have to bribe him to eat his food."

"So attachment can be tricky. We need to know the difference between good attachment and bad. Secure attachment is when the child is feeling secure whenever you're around. Anxious-Ambivalent attachment is the child being anxious of their surroundings in fear of being abandoned." Ms. Walker explained.

"I think we're dealing with Anxious Ambivalent." The first couple nodded.

"Honestly I think I'm dealing with both. Daloni is comfortable with me but I also think he's scared that I'll leave him." Heaven stated.

"And that's fine. I'm going to give you both two assignments. For the McQueens, everytime Laylah clings to your legs I want you to remove her from them and see what she does. If she throws a fit, then confirm your theory and write what type of tantrum she threw and what you guys did to stop it. But you cannot let her cling to your legs just to get her to stop the tantrum." Ms. Walker explained.