Welcome to the first post of my new blog, “Psychology in Real Life.” I have wanted to have a WordPress blog for a while, but just haven’t gotten around to it until now. I believe that psychology is the best education a person can get because it helps you see what is really going on in the world, no matter where you are or what you’re doing (work, school, parenting, etc.). It has certainly helped me greatly!
In this blog, I will use my psychology education to explain how I see the real world–specifically my real world. That world right now revolves around adoption.
My husband and I are in the process of adopting a sibling group of three kids ages 3, 4 and 5 and it has been a long process to this point. We started out getting approved to adopt from our state, but the kids we found are in another state. We are almost done with the process, and of course, something else has come up.
As a psychologist, I have worked with many children in the foster care system, as well as many parents in that system and the system itself. From the counseling side, working within the system is extremely frustrating. CPS doesn’t do what you think they need to do to protect kids and families when you want them to, and when you don’t want them to do anything, they go ahead and do it.
Now I am experiencing that inefficiency from the other side–as someone trying to adopt some of those kids out of the system–and it is equally as inefficient and frustrating as it was as a counselor. We have had so many road blocks and silly actions we have to take simply because the system is flawed. For instance, we have been waiting on our home study to be sent back to the state we are adopting the kids from, even though that state has had it since October of last year. When I asked why this was necessary, the answer is, “that’s just what the government says we have to do.”
Now our state has sent a request to the state the kids are in to ask their permission to allow them to use our home study since it is done by a private agency in our state that has a contract with the state. They told me they had to send the request because the kids’ state may not work with private agencies, and if they don’t we will have to start the approval process all over again since that state retained jurisdiction of the process. Ugh!
We are still waiting on the answer because the way these people communicate is through an antiquated e-mail system that sends the communications through the state capitals before it reaches the actual people they are making the request of. Again, ugh!
So in this real life experience, I am using my psychology education to know when to push the people I am working with, and when not to. I also use it to help me calm down and hold my tongue in frustrating times where everything in me wants to scream and yell and explain to them the error of their ways. 🙂
It is not easy, but it helps. Even before I use my psychological education, though, I always consult with my Heavenly Father and he lets me know which psychology techniques to use and gives me His peace that passes all understanding. After all, He is the Counselor of all counselors!
I will keep you posted on this and other events in my “real life.”
psychologyinreallife 