York County 3-Year-Old
"Totally Different" After Triple P
Nan Goforth was in tears when she came into Sara Castillo's office at the Catawba Family Center in York County. She had tried everything she had learned in the past decade as a foster parent, but nothing in her experience had prepared her for Lisa.
"She would run into the wall and get a knot on her head and get up and do it again. She was biting herself. I had no control over anything she did. I was scared to death she would hurt herself," Goforth said.
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The Triple P - Positive
Parenting Program helped Nan Goforth’s foster daughter Lisa (seated
on her lap) become a “different child.” The Goforths are adopting
Lisa, who plays with dog Jack and 8-year-old foster sister Jasmine. |
Lisa, now 3-years-old, had been in Nan and Tom Goforth's care since she was 3-months-old. She had never been a typical child, diagnosed early on as suffering from a "failure to thrive." Compounding Lisa's behavior problems were sensory problems. She could not tolerate certain noises, certain tastes or certain textures of food. She was also painfully shy and slow to start talking.
She was 18-months-old before she hugged her foster parents. "And then, it was only on her terms," said Tom. The Goforths considered that a breakthrough, but Lisa's behavior gradually grew worse.
"She climbed before she could walk. I had to take her out of her crib early because she'd climb and jump out of it. She had bruises all over because she had no fear of anything," Nan said. "I was at a loss. I had never seen a child like her and I didn't understand what she needed."
She sought help and was finally referred to Castillo, a certified Triple P – Positive Parenting Program provider. Nan admits she was skeptical of Triple P's promise to provide her with the strategies she needed to handle Lisa.
"How was anyone else going to teach this two-year-old to do anything? I'm not teaching her anything so how can someone else teach her anything in 30 minute sessions once a week?"
But, after viewing the Triple P Survival Guide videotapes and going through Triple P's Level Four intervention, Nan and Tom were believers.
"She's a totally different child," Nan said. "I couldn't get over how she changed once I changed. I learned different parenting skills that in turn helped her. Triple P showed me how to love Lisa into doing what she needed to do."
In addition, Nan said, Triple P showed her that even the most experienced parents often need to learn new ways to work with their children. Nan, 59, and Tom, 57, both have adult children from previous marriages and have considerable parenting experience between them.
"I found out that parenting is not always what you learned when you were 20. Things change and I needed to grow and learn to do things because I didn't know it all," she said.
As they worked with Castillo on their parenting skills, Nan and Tom discovered what Triple P strategies worked best to reduce most of Lisa's behavior problems.
"Getting her focused on something else when she's doing something that's not right or misbehaving that works the best," Tom said.
Certainly, Lisa still has her moments of misbehavior, the Goforths said, but they both credit Triple P with their foster daughter's transformation. Now they are seeking to adopt Lisa and add her to their family which already includes 8-year-old adopted daughter Jasmine.
"She has blossomed. She greets everyone and says hi. She wants a hug. She's just a super-friendly little girl now. I'm biased but I think she's wonderful, and I think, since I've learned new parenting skills, I'm pretty cool now," Nan said.
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