Transcript: Episode 44
44. Outside Kids
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
These are my kids. Today is the day that you meet them. They definitely do not like to swim.
Kids in unison: Yes, we do!
[Laughs]
Kids in unison: One, two, three! [background noise of splashing in water]
[Laughs]
[Background noise of playing in water - various children voices yelling]
Interviewer: Okay, tell me again, nice and loud. How old are you?
Child 1: Three
Interviewer: And what do you like about our family?
Child 1: Cupcakes.
Interviewer: Cupcakes! Anything else you like?
Child 1: No.
Interviewer: Okay, thank you. Go get in the water!
Interviewer: Don’t say your name. How old are you?
Child 2: Six
Interviewer: What do you like about our family?
Child 2: We get to go swimming.
Interviewer: You like swimming? What about Mama?
Child 2: She takes good care of us.
Interviewer: What do you not like about Mama?
Child 2: Nothing.
Interviewer: [Laughs] Nothing? You can’t think of anything?
Interviewer: Hi.
Child 3: Hi.
Interviewer: Don’t tell me your name, okay?
Child 3: Okay.
Interviewer: But tell me how old you are.
Child 3: Seven.
Interviewer: You had a birthday.
Child 3: Uh huh.
Interviewer: What did we do for your birthdays?
Child 3: Ugh. Get birthday spankings.
Interviewer: [Laughs] What is the best thing about our family?
Child 3: Sharing time together.
Interviewer: How do we share time together?
Child 3: Watch movies or play in the back yard with each other.
Interviewer: And who gets all the salsa?
Child 3: You.
Interviewer: [Laughs]
Interviewer: How old are you?
Child 4: I am 10.
Interviewer. Nice, double digits.
Child 4: Yup.
Interviewer: What is the best thing about our family?
Child 4: The best thing is about our family is how we got adopted.
Interviewer: Aww. Are you glad you got adopted?
Child 4: Yup.
Interviewer: You had some hard years, huh?
Child 4: Because...because if we didn’t get adopted, we wouldn’t get to do all this stuff we’re doing right now.
Interviewer: What are we doing right now?
Child 4: Swimming.
Interviewer: Nice. [Background noise of a high-fight] That was a very wet five. [Laughs]
Child 4: [Laughs]
Interviewer: What’s the craziest thing our family ever did?
Child 4: Our craziest thing is we had sleeping outside with camping.
Interviewer: Oh yeah, that was fun wasn’t it? Anything else?
Child 4: With all those toads.
Interviewer: [Laughs]
Child 4: And swimming and the craziest thing about Mama is she tickles us a lot.
Interviewer: Ah, no way. Is there anything you would change about our family?
Child 4: No.
Interviewer: Is there anything you don’t like?
Child 4: No.
Interviewer: Is there anything...well, tell me what we can do better.
Child 4: Not screaming or getting spankings.
Interviewer: Oh! How many spankings do you get ever?
Child 4: None.
Interviewer: [Laughs] Yeah, okay. Anything else? Anything else you can think of?
Child 4: No.
Interviewer: That was super good. Good job. Thank you. Go get in that water.
Interviewer: How old are you?
Child 5: 10.
Interviewer: What is the best thing about our family?
Child 5: Um..water fights.
Interviewer: Water fights? We would never have a fight.
Child 5: Yes, we do.
Interviewer: What kind of fights?
Child 5: You throw water at people.
Interviewer: What?
Child 5: You throw water at people.
Interviewer: I do?
Child 5: Yes.
Interviewer: I would never do that.
Child 5: You start every fight, every food fight, every liquid fight.
Interviewer: Food fight?!
Child 5: Yes!
Interviewer: I would never start a food fight!
Child 5: You throw popcorn. You throw marshmallows.
Interviewer: [Laughs]
Child 5: You throw any kind of food.
Interviewer: [Laughs] What is the best thing about our family?
Child 5: Uh, spending time together.
Interviewer: And what are three ways we spend time together?
Child 5: Swim.
Interviewer: Okay.
Child 5: Go out to eat.
Interviewer: [Laughs]
Child 5: And snuggle!
Interviewer: Snuggle. Do we snuggle?
Child 5: Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah, we do.
Child 5: Of course we do.
Interviewer: What is one thing you would change?
Child 5: Change?
Interviewer: Change about our family?
Child 5: Oh, um…
Interviewer: Or what could we do better?
Child 5: Eh. Be more nice to each other.
Interviewer: Oh yeah, totally. Always, right? Always a thing we could do better.
Child 5: Yeah.
Interviewer. Okay. What’s the craziest thing we ever did as a whole family?
Child 5: Go to LegoLand.
Interviewer: LegoLand? Nice. Very good. Get in the water before you freeze.
Interviewer: How old are you? It’s a voice. It’s recording.
Child 6: 10.
Interviewer: You’re 10. What is the best thing about our family?
Child 6: Going swimming.
Interviewer: Going swimming. What else? Two more things.
Child 6: Cuddling and…
Interviewer: Cuddling.
Child 6: ...spending time together.
Interviewer: Aww. What’s your favorite way we spend time together?
Child 6: When we have family movie nights on Friday’s.
Interviewer: Ooh, what’s your favorite part about that?
Child 6: When we have popcorn and lots of treats.
Interviewer: [Laughs] What is one thing you would change about our family?
Child 6: When we grow up, we change over time. That’s changing and gets together and we earn more stuff.
Interviewer: Aw, that’s very smart. You’re right. What do you want to tell people about Mama?
Child 6: That I like going on dates with her and she’s so special to me and I’m glad that we are adopted as a family together.
Interviewer: Aw, sweetie, you’re going to make me cry. Oh my goodness. You’re so wet and cold. [Laughs]
Okay, everybody swim! Thank you!
[Background noise of children cheering and splashing in water]
My family and these are our crazy stories.
[Eye of the tiger plays with violin and singing ensues with lyrics of their own - with the whole family]
Interviewer: Who has ever been mad?
Children in unison: Me.
Interviewer: Who has ever been sad?
Children in unison: Me.
Interviewer: Who has ever been happy?
Children in unison: Me.
Interviewer: Who has ever had bad dreams?
Children in unison: Me.
Interviewer: Who is really good at art?
Child (name unknown): Me.
Child (name unknown): Oh.
Interviewer: Who likes to build things?
Children in unison: Me.
Interviewer: Who likes to write things?
Child (name unknown): Me.
Child (name unknown): Papa.
Interviewer: Who likes to play outside?
Children in unison: Me.
Interviewer: Who remembers before they were adopted?
Children in unison: Me.
Interviewer: Who remembers...just think in your head...you don’t have to say it out loud yet...but think in your head of one bad thing or hard thing that happened before you got adopted.
Child (name unknown): Um…
Interviewer: Can someone think of an example that they’re willing to share? You don’t have to tell a a lot - just a piece.
Child (name unknown): Being thrown against a wall.
Interviewer: Being thrown against a wall. That was a hard thing.
Child (name unknown): Having to move from every single house with a lot of yelling, a lot of fighting.
Interviewer: That was hard, wasn’t it?
Child (name unknown): Being locked in the car with the windows open on a hot night and my parents were in a casino gambling.
Interviewer: Yeah. That’s a hard thing.
Child (name unknown): Getting locked into a room with my brother’s dad.
Child (name unknown): And me...and me.
Interviewer: Your baby sister died.
Child (name unknown): Being locked in the car in the trunk.
Interviewer: Being locked in the car in the trunk? That was a hard and scary thing.
Child (name unknown): Having the alcohol in my body from my mom drinking it.
Interviewer: Why do you think that we talk about these hard things sometimes?
Child (name unknown): [Inaudible whispering]
Child (name unknown): It’s okay.
Interviewer: Why does it help us to talk about the hard things?
Child (name unknown): Because we can get on with our days and feel better.
Interviewer: So we can feel better so we can get on with our days.
Child (name unknown): Forget about it.
Several children speaking: [Inaudible]
Child (name unknown): You talk about it because... so we don’t do it so our kids don’t get the same thing that we did... like what our parents or foster parents did to us.
Interviewer: That’s very true.
Child (name unknown): And it’s also very scary.
Interviewer: What’s scary? Remembering or talking about it?
Child (name unknown): Both.
Interviewer: Yes, both.
Child (name unknown): Like being locked in a dryer is scary and talking about being locked in a dryer is scary.
Interviewer: Right.
Child (name unknown): And being locked in a car in the middle of the night and it’s so hot is scary to talk about and to have done to you. Being smashed against the wall is scary to talk about and you don’t want that happening to you. Being moved from house to house is...no, having alcohol in your body is scary and you do not want to talk about that. Having a baby sister who dies is hard to talk about and it’s scary. Being locked in a trunk in the middle of the night at the casino is scary and also scary to talk about.
Interviewer: So some people would say you should never talk about it, because it’s hard or scary. But we’ve been really open with the things that our family has been through. Why do you think that’s important to us?
Child (name unknown): Because we need to know about what happened in the past so we won’t do it when we are grown up.
Interviewer: So we need to learn from the past so that we don’t repeat it when we are grown ups. That’s true. What else?
Child (unknown name): Like Journey to the Past, the song, it teaches you a lesson about the past.
Interviewer: Like Journey to the Past? Do you know how it goes?
Child (unknown name): No.
Interviewer: Can you sing it?
Several children speaking at the same time.
[Various children singing with the help of the interviewer]
Interviewer: That was so good. You did remember it. So one thing that’s important is learning from our past and another thing that’s important is not repeating the past. But then there’s one more piece that’s important and that has to do with, is it easier to go through all that alone, on your own? Or is it easier to go through it together as a family?
Child (unknown name): It’s easier to go through that as a family, because going through it as a family actually helps us to solve things.
Child (unknown name): I think both. There’s some stuff that was scary that was sometimes really inappropriate that only parents should know, because…
Interviewer: So that’s…
Child (unknown name): I think both, because it’s private by yourself, with your parents, and as a family together.
Interviewer: So well...so part of what you’re talking about is boundaries. Because do we just tell everybody everything?
Child (unknown name): No, you don’t just go up and say, “Wow, we have these awesome kids, do you want to come and meet them?”
Interviewer: Right. So even the pediatrician, she keeps your confidentiality when you have to talk about hard things?
Child (unknown name): Yeah, she doesn’t just tell with her friends and talk about what that private stuff with you’re doctor. You have to not talk about other people’s body parts. You think your body is just like a body so that you can move, but it’s actually really important. It can help you do stuff and it’s pure.
Child (unknown name): What will happen if Doctor’s talk about and telling people? What will happen?
Interviewer: So your pediatrician doesn’t tell people about your stories, because that’s the law that she can’t, and if she did she would be in trouble. Like she probably couldn’t do it anymore. But she doesn’t. But that’s why we say a doctor is a safe person to talk to or a counselor is a safe person to talk to.
Child (unknown name): Your parents.
Interviewer: Your parents should be safe people to talk to.
Child (unknown name): So it’s still about the communicating what [inaudible] said. But it’s like remember there was news you read to us about Fortnite and Minecraft. They both have texting and like…
Interviewer: Of being safe online? We don’t just talk to strangers?
Various children speaking at the same time: Yeah.
Child (unknown name): - like you could text…
Interviewer: What is the difference between sharing our stories so that we help other people and just talking to strangers online? What’s the difference? Why is it okay to tell some of our stories, not everything, but some of our stories online to help other families and not okay to just talk to anyone on the internet?
Child (unknown name): Um...like what if you were playing and it was like a grownup playing with you and you end up talking to them? They’ll be like, “Hey, do you want to come meet my puppy or something?” So they’ll get you to get out of the house away from your family. But then when you get away from your family, you’re stuck. You’re not safe anymore. You’re hooked.
Child (unknown name): It sounds like the two children who got killed.
Interviewer: So part of it’s about safety?
Child (unknown name): Yeah, and this is why we can’t talk to other people online and we can share some stories with other people and tell about hard times and tell about our life, but in videos.
Interviewer: So we want to be safe with who we talk to and what we share, but sharing some things is okay because it helps other people.
Child (unknown name): If we share everything and they ask you where you live, then you might tell them, because you feel good.
Interviewer: Do we tell people online where our address is?
Children in unison: No.
Interviewer: Do we tell strangers how to get to our house?
Children in unison: No.
Child (unknown name): So, at school I heard a story - it’s about a girl and her family. She was on the computer and this man came up and hacked onto her computer and said hey, all these stuff, come to my house. I got whatever you like. And then he said we’re going to go on a fun trip to wherever you...and then she said, “Okay.” But when she got there, she said I know you lied to me, but it’s okay. I’ll go to wherever you were planning. So she drove with him.
Interviewer: Is that safe?
Children in unison: No
Interviewer: So we need to be careful with things online, but also not just live to be afraid. That’s one reason that talking to people and sharing our stories is important, because when you share your stories to help someone, then you are having courage and you are practicing what you’ve learned and doing something good out of something that was hard. Which is different than just being afraid, because bad things happen. Right? And sometimes it’s hard to talk about, but if we don’t talk about them, then what happens? Our feelings get really, really big. What happens when we have big, big feelings?
Child (name unknown): We get upset.
Child (name unknown): It sometimes happens. We can sometimes not mean what we’re saying, but we actually say something rude to our parents and we don’t even know what we did, because we’re so upset.
Child (unknown name): So, here’s how we usually get big feelings. We hold our feelings down so tight that we can’t let them go so we have to get mad, so mad that it just brings everything out - like an explosion, like a volcano.
Interviewer: So when we don’t talk about things, it just stays inside and kind of bubbles until it explodes. It burns. Yeah…
[Violin starts playing and the family sings in unison about big feelings]
Interviewer: Do you remember that song?
Children in unison: Yeah.
Child (unknown name): My baby sister died.
Child (unknown name): Yeah, you told me 150 times.
Interviewer: Also, she has the same baby sister. You had the same mother.
Child (unknown name): I’m sad that my baby sister died.
Child (unknown name): That was actually your twin.
Interviewer: You were twins.
Child (unknown name): If she was still alive, she would look the same as you.
Interviewer: Wouldn’t that be funny to have [inaudible]. [Laughs]
[Children speaking at the same time - inaudible]
Interviewer: Lucy? I think we should call her Lucy. From now on her name is Lucy.
Child (unknown name): Yeah, but they have the same hair braid and everything.
Child (unknown name): What about I can be Lucy?
Interviewer: [Laughs]
Child (unknown name): It’s because of the name.
Interviewer: Okay, listen. I have a question. When we’re talking about big feelings, sometimes it’s because it’s something we’re learning, right? We’re just learning new things. Like you’re learning how to be in a family, because you didn’t have healthy families before? I’m learning how to be a mom, because I didn’t have six kids before. So we’re just learning together, right?
But you said something earlier I want to come back to. What is hard about fourth graders and big feelings?
Child (unknown name): Um… that the fourth grader wrote...since we’re getting our teenage brains, we will have bigger emotions and say the words you’re not allowed to say, like…. And we would like get so mad and frustrated we would have to go into our room and calm down. But the other night, the night where there was pizza or something like that, all I had to do was tell what I needed so my mom told me to go into my room and I had a big emotion and I cried about two hours and then I almost finally got to a stop. I was about to miss dinner and then I just told what I was needed to. And that’s one example of like…
Interviewer: It’s such a good example.
Child (unknown name): A lot of…
Interviewer: That was such a good example. Did you miss your dinner?
Child (unknown name): No.
Interviewer: Did you have dinner on the table?
Child (unknown name): Yes.
Interviewer: Was it waiting for you?
Child (unknown name): Yes.
Interviewer: [Laughs] So it was pretty easy once all you had to say was what was going on, right? But sometimes it’s hard to talk about it, isn’t it? That has to do with how your brain works. We can talk more about that.
Child (unknown name): In front of our whole entire family, he was like embarrassed to say it in front of us. He wanted to talk with mom in private.
Interviewer: And everybody has little explosions like that, yeah?
[Violin playing and children singing about changes]
Interviewer: [Laughs]
Child (unknown name): I wish that was not the one where you were like [humming].
Child (unknown name): What was the supposed to mean?
Interviewer: That it’s going to be hard for us in a different way than it’s hard for you.
Child (unknown name): Mama. You and papa did…
Interviewer: That was good sign language. This is the talking one.
Child (unknown name): Hey talker, we’re going to have donuts without you.
Interviewer: [Laughs] When you’re doing the talking and they’re doing the listening, they’re called listeners.
Child (unknown name): Great.
Child (unknown name): Oh, thank you!
Interviewer: [Laughs] Okay, so here’s a question or here’s something I want to talk about. When you go through hard things like you have been through, or like what I went through when I was little. One thing that’s different is that you all got a new family and you got adopted and you are safe now, even though there are things we are still learning, right?
Child (unknown name): Yeah, that’s very hard to do that.
Interviewer: Right. Which means we have each other to talk about things as you grow up.
Child (unknown name): Mmhmm.
Interviewer: You have those things to help you and you have good teachers and you’re in safe places and you have lots of people. You have the therapist. You have all of these people who are on your side in helping you and keeping you safe and that you can talk to about these things, right?
That means right now, you are learning things already that make it better. When you talk about not wanting to do to your kids what you all went through, you’re learning that already by doing all of these things and it’s amazing.
I did not have that and I had hard things that happened to me and sometimes when you have hard things happen to you that go on and on and on, you have to kind of separate it into sections in your head so that you can keep dealing with things. Like what you said earlier about the whole reason you need to talk about it is so that you can deal with it and keep moving forward in your life. Do you remember when you said that earlier?
So if you can’t, then part of you kind of stays there and part of you has to keep moving forward. So then there’s lots of pieces of you instead of just one all of you. Right?
Child (unknown name): So did you like run away when you were like a kid or something? Like...eight or? Twelve?
Interviewer: That is a different conversation for a different time. It is an okay question for a private conversation.
Child (unknown name): Oh, so just like fourth graders…
Interviewer: It is a private conversation.
Child (unknown name): Like…
Interviewer: You can ask anything and I will tell you whether I can answer it now or if it’s a private conversation.
Child (unknown name): Um..
Interviewer: Wait. Turns.
Child (unknown name): The day we saw the kid that swam with us the other day by himself and you told us that sometimes your parents don’t want to go with you somewhere and you went through that same experience that boy did.
Interviewer: Right. Right.
So when we do stuff, we do it together as a family, right? And we saw that pool who was all by himself and didn’t have anyone with him and that happened to me a lot. That’s true.
Child (unknown name): Which is really scary. Like...I bet he wants to spend time with his parents…
Child (unknown name): But he can’t.
Child (unknown name): ...but he wants to, but his parents are not letting him. He had to go down by himself and get his own breakfast and he had to eat downstairs.
Interviewer: Well, there’s a difference between earning privileges and earning some freedom which is appropriate when you grow up.
Child (unknown name): Yeah.
Interviewer: And not having anyone with you ever.
Child (unknown name): Yeah. Well, he’s a nice boy. We hope he hadn’t took it.
Interviewer: We hope he didn’t steal my wallet, but I’m concerned that it was him. Because we had it right before that and it was gone right after he was gone. So we are concerned that he is the one who took the wallet.
Child (unknown name): Was it in your pocket?
Child (unknown name): So how are we going to be able to...?
Interviewer: We just won’t get it back, sweetie. That’s just...sometimes hard things happen. But that’s why it’s important to talk about hard things, because we can get through them together. Because when you go through a hard thing or lots of hard things, it does not...having a good family or being able to talk to good people about it does not make it un-hard. And you don’t have to be happy all the time or smile all the time, but it does make it easier to not have to go through it alone. And then when you are happy, do you still remember when you were sad?
Children in unison: Yes.
Interviewer: When you’re sad, do you still remember when you were happy?
Children in unison: Yes.
Interviewer: When you were adopted, do you still remember from before when you were adopted?
Children in unison: Yeah.
Interviewer: When you were at school, do you still remember what life was like at home?
Children in unison: Yeah.
Interviewer: When you’re at home, do you still remember what life was like at school?
Children in unison: Yeah.
Interviewer: So sometimes if you don’t get good help, where you can talk about things when you’re very little, when you don’t get good help to talk about hard things that you go through when you're very, very young, then you don’t remember everything as well. And it makes it harder, like you said, to keep moving forward.
Child (unknown name): Mama.
Interviewer: Turn.
Child (unknown name): If we freezing to ice, that will be bad.
Interviewer: Right. So sometimes, when I was at school, I didn’t want to think about how hard things were at home, because they were so bad at home and so then I didn’t remember. But that also meant that when I was at home, because things were so bad, I didn’t remember about school. And it was hard for me to do things like that because my brain separated everything. Does it makes sense?
Child (unknown name): If we don’t get it back, then you’re not going to be able to pay anything, except on your phone.
Interviewer: It’s true, but I will also tell the bank and they’ll send me a new card. It will just take a week. We’ll get a new card, a new pink card, okay? Good question.
Child (unknown name): How could he have taken it when we were watching the cart? That’s the question. How could he have?
Interviewer: You weren’t. You were unloading the cart to help me.
Child (unknown name): Oh.
Interviewer: And he took it while no one was looking.
Child (unknown name): Now that is sneaky and not okay. So like we were all turned around helping. So mom was over there, people helping keep the cart straight so that it wouldn’t fall and keeping the bags straight and then some people were over with mom and that’s when he was like...that’s my strike. So then he strikes.
Interviewer: So…
Child (unknown name): So how did he hide it so good?
Interviewer: It is okay for us to be angry at him. We have a right to be angry at him. That’s okay. But do we want that anger to be the boss of us?
Child (unknown name): No.
Interviewer: And do you think that it is easy for him to learn how to make good choices if he did not have parents with him or helping him or teaching him?
Children in unison: No.
Interviewer: Do you think that he knows about making good choices or bad choices.
Child (unknown name): No.
Interviewer: So, here’s what I want to say. One of the things that we’re learning together as a family is how to do things well and safely. I am learning how to be a mom. I did not have parents that were safe or that helped me and there are hard things that happened and we’ll talk about those more as you grow up, but that means that we’re really learning together as a family. So there are days all of us do better some days than other days and all of us have made progress. Do you think we’re better at being a family now than when we were four years ago?
Child (unknown name): Yes.
Interviewer: Do you think we were doing our best four years ago?
Children in unison: Yes.
Interviewer: I do too. Do you still think we’re doing our best even though now our best is better than it was?
Child (unknown name): Yeah.
Interviewer: So tomorrow, four years from now, will be even better and our best will be even better than now.
Child (unknown name): [Inaudible]
Interviewer: I can’t hear you, sweetie.
Child (unknown name): I’m worried about your wallet. I think we should tell the bank about the kid.
Child (unknown name): No.
Interviewer: I did. I told the bank.
Child (unknown name): What is that bank going to do?
Interviewer: They turn the card off so he can’t take our money.
Child (unknown name): Ohhhh.
Interviewer: And when he tries to use the card, it will say that it’s stolen and he will get caught.
Child (unknown name): Yes.
Interviewer: So, that’s a good example…
Various children: [talking over one another - inaudible]
Interviewer: If someone touches your body without permission, what do you do?
Various children: [talking over on another - inaudible]
Child (unknown name): You want to bite, scratch, punch and kick and get away as fast as you can.
Interviewer: And then what do you do?
Child (unknown name): And scream.
Child (unknown name): Scream.
Interviewer: And then what do you do?
Child (unknown name): Tell the police.
Child (unknown name): Then you find someone, a police, a group of moms.
Child (unknown name): Who are together.
Interviewer: A group of women together.
Child (unknown name): Or a mom who is taking care of her children and has children.
Interviewer: So that’s if you get lost in the crowd, you stay in place, and you find an adult who is in a uniform or a policemen or a group of women together or a group of mom’s with babies that they’re doing a good job of taking care of them and you ask them for help.
Child (unknown name): I know things might be hard and if we do get caught by somebody, this is okay if we get caught. That’s okay.
Interviewer: If someone is trying to take you, then you should….or touch you, then you should absolutely...that is a time you have permission to fight. But what did you say you’re supposed to do?
Child (unknown name): Tell.
Interviewer: Tell who?
Child (unknown name): Tell police.
Interviewer: Tell mom and dad first. Tell mama and papa first.
Various children: [Talking at the same time].
Interviewer: Also the police. And if we ever had to talk to the police, we would do that together. You wouldn’t have to do it by yourself. Also it’s okay to tell.
So this is an example though, because we don’t keep secrets about bad things that happen or hard things. We talk about it. So he took our bank card and we’re sad because he took our bank card and we’re angry because he took our bank card. But we deal with it by talking about it as a family, by having a safety plan. Did we go hungry? Did we still have a way to get food?
Children in unison: Yes.
Interviewer: Yes. And we told the bank. Right? Those were the proper authorities in this case. That’s who we told. So if someone touches your body or is inappropriate or tries to take you then we would yes, we would talk to the police.
Child (unknown name): It’s a little tricky. It looks like a boy is being nice or a girl or even a kid and then when you’re not looking, they take something of yours.
Child (unknown name): Listen, if we only did not do [whining noise], he would not have helped us and he would not have stolen our wallet.
Child (unknown name): Yup. That was kind of our fault.
Child (unknown name): And the bank could contact her credit card to tell it to turn off.
Interviewer: Yeah, it’s just called a bank card. Our family doesn’t use credit cards.
Child (unknown name): What about?
Interviewer: But you’re saying something important I want to come back to, because just because someone is nice to you does not mean they are your friend.
Child (unknown name): Yes.
Interviewer: I don’t want you to be afraid of having friends. I don’t want you to be afraid to be kind to people. You were being very kind to that boy, but you do need to be wise and careful, just like when we talk about online stuff, right? You don’t just tell everything to someone. The same thing when you’re making friends with people. We are careful with who we make friends with, not because we’re afraid to be friends. We want to be good friends. That’s a good thing to want to be good friends. We don’t want to just live afraid of people, but we’re careful with who we invite into our lives and what we share with, even when we want to teach. And people know you because of your stories.
Child (unknown name): If he get caught, what if the person tries to call the police on you? That you did something wrong, but you really didn’t.
Child (unknown name): What?
Interviewer: If you didn’t do anything wrong, then the police will just stop. So think about what happened this Christmas - someone called the police on us this Christmas.
Child (unknown name): What?!
Interviewer: You were there. The lady came and talked to us. And they said that our family was going to be in trouble because of why? Do you remember?
Child (unknown name): No.
Interviewer: Because of our books, the books about our families, and because of speaking about our family. And so they read everything and they listened to everything and what did they say?
Child (unknown name): They said it’s fine.
Interviewer: It was fine.
Child (unknown name): Even she said, “I have a good family. I even got to write my own book. My brothers and sisters are nice.” No one’s mean.
Interviewer: Right. So when you don’t do anything wrong, then they know that. There’s always evidence of who you are. The choices that you make and how you treat people, that is the evidence of who you are. So we don’t have to worry about those things, of people saying and it’s not true.
But when it is true then we have consequences. Like if we have a timeout, even I have a timeout, right? If I’m like, “Oh man, I’m having a bad day. I don’t want to yell. I need to go take a timeout.” Those things help us to make good choices. It’s important to have consequences.
Child (unknown name): Will the kid who stole our wallet...wait, wait, wait....so we know for sure he stole our wallet?
Interviewer: We don’t know for sure, and if he did, his father will talk to him about it - his family. That’s their job. We can’t make guesses about what will happen.
Child (unknown name): Yeah, but if he did then he uses it...will he go to jail or?
Child (unknown name): No, kids don’t go to jail.
Interviewer: Children don’t go to jail, but he would have consequences, yes.
Child (unknown name): From his parents?
Interviewer: And also the police probably.
Child (unknown name): Oooh. Big deal.
Child (unknown name): Why did he want to take the wallet? That’s the question.
Child (unknown name): We don’t know if he actually took it.
Interviewer: Well I’m sure what he thought was there’s a wallet and that means there’s lots of money in it. But he picked the wrong family to take a wallet. [Laughs] There wasn’t any money in there.
Child (unknown name): There was only a credit card.
Interviewer: It’s not a credit card...it’s just a bank card.
Child (unknown name): Oh yeah. A bank card.
Child (unknown name): And they can turn it off so he can have none money from us.
Interviewer: Right. Right. And my driver’s license was even in there, because I just got my Kansas license and so they took my license and they’re going to make me a new one. So that’s not even in there.
Various children: [Responding to the comment Interviewer made - inaudible]
Child (unknown name): How is he going to get in trouble if they shut off the whatever?
Interviewer: Hmm?
Child (unknown name): The bank card.
Child (unknown name): The bank card. How is he going to get caught?
Interviewer: Because he’ll try to use it and it will say that it’s been turned off because it was stolen.
Child (unknown name): Does it make like a noise so somebody knows?
Interviewer: They know in those papers they print out. It says on the screen - stolen.
Child (unknown name): It will say that on the screen. That’s what I was thinking in my brain. Like when he put it in something would be like all the screens will start working and say, “Stolen! Stolen! Stolen!”
Interviewer: That would be fabulous. Here is what I want you to remember. Is that when we talk about hard things, when hard things happen to us, when we make our own mistakes, when we make our own life harder, when other people make our life harder, all of these things, if we talk about all of these things, when we talk about it, it helps us not have to be alone. And the more that we’re aware of what we’re going through, the more access we have to be all of who we are. So you should be able to be the same person at home and the same person at school and the same person…
Child (unknown name): At a restaurant as at home.
Interviewer: At a restaurant and the same person at grandma and grandad’s and the same person at church and the same person on the playground and the same person in the swimming pool and have access to all of those different parts of who you are.
What makes our family amazing?
Child (unknown name): Explaining what happened in the past sometimes.
Interviewer: So helping other families by telling our stories?
Child (unknown name): Our family is amazing because we don’t just write books so we’re famous or stuff, we write books so that everybody knows about our past and we don’t just give it to everyone. We give it to certain people we know and trust. We also don’t just say we love you, because it’s a kind thing. What we want to do is say actually, for real, you actually love them.
Child (unknown name): Like when we were all in foster care, we couldn’t do anything we wanted or something. You had to do what everybody else was doing. But now we can do anything we want if we have freedom, enough freedom to do this or that or this or that.
Interviewer: [Laughs] Okay, I have one final question to end our interview. Who is hungry?
Children in unison singing: We are hungry!
Interviewer: Who wants some chicken?
Children in unison singing and clapping: I want some chicken!
Interviewer: [Laughs]
[Violin begins playing and the family starts to sing]
Interviewer: [Laughs] That was awesome!
Various children: [Talking and laughing among one another]
[Break]
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