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My husband and i were on the last leg of being approved to adopt our fourth child through foster care. we just got an email stating that the agency is rejecting our homestudy because of a form of disipline that we used for our boys. they share the same room, and our younger son was turning the light on to play after he had been put to bed. our older boy would complain that he couldnt sleep, so we had to turn the light off again. this happened three times and since it was getting late, my husband made the decision to remove the light bulb from the light to get everyone to calm down and sleep. we had forgotten to replace the bulb when the caseworker came and she stated that it was a form of child abuse to have taken away the bulb. the bedroom door is open at all times and we leave the bathroom light on all night, so the boys' room in never in darkness. i am so confused...does anyone have an opinion?
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If this is abuse, my parents would have been in big trouble. They took away my brother's door because he locked himself in there. I don't really understand calling this abuse. Is your social worker new? Did they explain how it is considered abuse?
I can understand if you locked your child in a dark room for hours, but this seems ridiculous.
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Well shoot...my youngest son's bulb has been out for a week now and I haven't gotten around to replacing it.
Guess I better report myself.:rolleyes:
If this is a rule to foster a child,(not to remove a lightbulb) then that's fine and you'd have to adhere to that rule. I don't understand a denial of a homestudy based on this with your own children though? Nothing else was said?
The light bulb is completely inaccessible to the boys- it's a ceiling light inside a bowl fixture, so there would be no risk of them getting electrocuted. The caseworker stated that it could frighten a child coming from foster care to lose the light bulb, but i still think it's completely unreasonable to cancel our home study for that. She doesn't have any children and when i asked her what she would have done in that situation, she had no answer.
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i think we are going to go with another agency. i just can't see us having a good relationship with this woman or her agency. i asked her for more info, but she wouldn't give us any other than the form letter that she sent us. we are very discouraged. all i can think of is that she didn't like us personally and this was the only excuse she could legally use to get rid of us. also, she doesn't have any kids of her own, so what might be normal for those who have kids might seem strange to her.
That is nuts. There is NO WAY she should have rejected your homestudy based on that one little thing. I can see her saying something like "For foster care, you wouldn't be allowed to take a light bulb away from the child, just FYI. Minor things like that can really upset a child whose life has been disrupted or who has a history of abuse." Something like that. But to reject you over something so minor is just crazy. I would definitely go with another agency, because there is no way you'll be able to have a good relationship with this woman.
So sorry that happened to you!
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Wow, good thing she's not my worker. I've had to remove my son's light bulb because when he is sent to bed early, would get out of bed as soon as I left the room and would turn on his light. I would go and turn it off. We played this "game" I don't know how long, until I just took the light bulb out. I did put it back a couple nights later. But, it did the trick. Now, I have taken the light bulb out of the hallway because he was "too afraid" to walk into his bedroom without the hall light on. Mind you, his bedroom is at the end of the hallway, and the light switch is directly next to his bedroom. So, he had to walk all the way down the hallway, turn on the hall light while opening his bedroom door. It wasn't that he was turning on the light, it was that he would never turn it off, even though he could flick the switch from his bedroom! If I were you, I would appeal her decision.
I have read your condition and finds that, first it's very awkward that the agency has declined you on such a small issues. Second i think you have to talk to your children and make some positive changes to avoid such problems with a single room/place. Check what is good with each and every child and place them accordingly.If you think that "You are a bad parent!!" then i said no. It happens when you have to manage 3-4 children at one place and on the same time.
Last update on February 26, 1:22 pm by Melanie Hall.
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