Storm

[Charles Andrew Wilson]

Child Application

Hi! My name is Charles Andrew Wilson and I am a 5th grader. I am 11 years old. Please use he/him pronouns when referring to me!

Basic Information

Full Name: Charles Andrew Wilson
Nickname, if Any: Charlie
Age: 11
Birthday: March 9th
Sex: Male
Pronouns: He/Him
Current Grade in School: 5th
Special Needs: Charlie has some deep emotional scarring from his mother's abuse

Personality

What are your greatest strengths? inquisitive; curious; adventurous; independent; hard-working; willing to help; kind to animals
What are your greatest weaknesses? disobedient; defiant; independent; tends to walk into trouble; annoying; sensitive; juvenile
What do you struggle with? Charlie's biggest struggle is dealing with people being angry or upset with him. If he perceives that someone is upset with him, he is likely to simply shut down rather than asking questions. Rejection and abandonment are huge for him.
What are your hobbies or interests? playing baseball; video games; reading; model airplanes; rc vehicles (airplanes and cars); skateboarding
What do you really enjoy? watching YouTube videos of skateboarders; playing baseball; big family dinners; celebrations; desserts; Christmas; summer vacation; movie nights; having people come to his games; following after the older kids; swimming
What do you really dislike? spending too much time alone; being made to eat foods he doesn't like; being stuck indoors for too long; green vegetables; wearing shoes all the time; being left out; learning history in school; going to school; teachers who don't like him
What are your favorite things? his baseball glove; an old birthday card he can't part with; his pillow
What do you fear? abandonment; rejection; people being angry with him; getting lost
Describe your personality in 100-500 words: Charlie is a very active young boy. If his mind or body isn't active, he tends to get into a lot of trouble, especially since his mouth can run away with him. He's smart, but he's not the quickest learner, which means that he's prone to repeating the same mistakes over and over again, often expecting a different result. Since most of his poor behavior isn't about doing things for which he might or might not be caught (in that he often misbehaves directly to an adult through disobedience or defiance). At his heart, he's a good kid with a big heart, but his fear of rejection or people getting angry with him tends to color the way he behaves, giving them reasons to prove him right, which only hurts his sensitive heart even more. This can make him difficult. He's a boy, and like a lot of boys he was taught to "man up," so he does his best to hide his feelings, all while they fester and often produce poor behavior as a result.

Relationships & Behavior

How do you normally get along with adults? Because he is desperate to be loved, Charlie acts out a lot to force adults to prove their love to him. Most adults outside of the Village don't particularly like Charlie as a result. He's defiant, he's loud, he's often disrespectful, and he's disruptive in his classes at school. All of these factors contribute to him being a child who does not generally get along well with adults. It doesn't help that he's conscious of the fact they don't like him, and the more they dislike him, the more he acts out. It's a cycle that he doesn't know how to stop on his own and up to this point, no adult has been able to help him stop it, either.

How do you normally get along with teenagers? Charlie's one of those younger kids who follows teenagers around wherever they go, getting in their hair and under their skin -- and often getting them in trouble, to boot. Teenagers generally prefer to avoid him, either because they find him annoying or because they often get into trouble because he's "made them snap at him." Meanwhile, he doesn't get in trouble for doing the thing that drove them to snap in the first place, leading most teens to prefer not to hang around with Charlie. He either doesn't know that he's bugging them or he doesn't care. It's hard to tell which it truly is.

How do you normally get along with other children? On the one hand, Charlie gets along pretty well with other kids his own age and younger, and that's fine. On the other hand, he prefers to hang around with the "big kids" (teenagers, mostly), and so he doesn't spend a lot of time around kids his own age. This doesn't leave tons of room for him to make friends with people, so while he gets along with them, he doesn't necessarily become friends with them the way that a lot of kids befriend one another around this age. It would be very good for him to develop these kinds of friendships, of course, but he's going to take some work before he can. (We'll also know more once there are more kids in this age range on the site!)

How independent are you? Very

How do you normally react when you get into trouble? Charlie's first reaction to getting into trouble is to shut down emotionally. He will do everything in his power not to engage with the adult who is punishing him or about to punish him because he doesn't want to feel their anger and rejection. Fortunately, most adults at the Orphan Village know about this tactic and will push past it. Charlie needs that because otherwise he will be left to stew in a host of bad feelings, and that would not be healthy for him in the long term.

Link to your discipline sheet: click here ✅

Orphan Village
 
How long have you lived at the Orphan Village? Just Arrived
Which House do you belong to? Maple
What is your grade in school? 5th

How did you come to live in the Orphan Village? Charlie's mom was a single mother with a lot of problems. He's been in and out of foster care, often because she sent him to live with strangers, rather than him being removed by social services, and the last time she met a man she was more interested in than him, she sent him to Birchwood Isle -- which is, shall we say, permanent.

Who are your favorite people in the Orphan Village? The teenagers, mostly the "middle adolescents" around 15 or 16 years old. He's been following the girls around mostly so far, but that may be because there are initially more of them than there are boys. He has not, so far, bonded with any of the adults because he fears abandonment and therefore fears getting attached to them.

What are your favorite places in the Orphan Village? Easily the adventure camp. When he's not playing sports or building model airplanes, Charlie is outdoors and exploring, especially in places he's technically not supposed to be.

What are your favorite things to do in the Orphan Village? Explore. Charlie can disappear for hours and usually turns back up just in time to avoid anybody noticing he was out of bounds.

How do you get along with caregivers and authority figures in the Orphan Village? Charlie's been through the ringer when it comes to caregivers, and most of all he's quick to say that he has been lied to by most adults -- one of the reasons he's so quick to lie to adults. So while he struggles with typical adults (say, school teachers), caregivers are an entirely different classification that receives the widest and most significant distrust from Charlie. Caregivers lie. Period. He knows that. So he "knows" that when they tell him they care about him, love him, that he's a good kid beneath all of his toughness, he "knows" they are lying. This makes his relationships with caregivers in the Orphan Village especially challenging, at least in the beginning. His trust will need to be earned the hard way. The very hard way.

How do you get along with other children in the Orphan Village? Well, Charlie tends to be something of a ringleader with other kids his own age. He doesn't mean to be, but he's kind of fallen into a role where he proposes schemes that other kids wind up getting involved in, and the next thing anybody knows, there's a semi-large group of kids off doing something they aren't supposed to do and a wild search for kids who aren't where they are supposed to be. As previously stated, Charlie generally prefers to hang out with the older kids (teenagers), but that is obviously not always possible and in spite of his preference, he does spend more time either on his own or with kids his own age than he does trailing after teens.

How do you get along with teenage adolescents in the Orphan Village? That depends largely on who you ask. Charlie thinks he gets along great with the older kids because he considers himself one of them. On the other hand, the teenagers he's constantly trailing after find him pretty annoying, for the most part, and most of them aren't afraid to say that they find him ridiculous and annoying. He doesn't think much of it, and he quickly laughs it off, which is not something that the teenagers enjoy, but at least it doesn't seem to impact his self-esteem too much. For whatever reason, he can take their rejection, but not rejection from adults.

How do you get along with young adult adolescents in the Orphan Village? As far as Charlie's concerned, they're adults. He views them the same way and gets along with them the same way. Learning that they are classified like teenagers will be eye-opening for him.

Do you hope to be adopted someday? Yes

Describe your ideal adoptive family. It's actually hard to say. The most important thing for Charlie is that he attaches to his adoptive parents -- preferably both of them if there are two, but definitely at least one of them -- before the adoption process can even begin. From there, it is essential that they remain truly consistent with him as time goes on. He'd do best as the youngest in the family, but that is legitimately not set in stone.

Is there anything else we should know about your life at the Orphan Village? Charlie really struggles with following rules. He's never met a rule he didn't want to break just so he can find out what will happen if he does. It will help him a lot to have the structure of a system in place that forces him back into line when he steps out of it, but I imagine that he's going to wind up getting into a lot of trouble in the very beginning.

Background

Describe your history in 150-1000 words: Charlie's mother never wanted children. The story goes that she was actively preventing pregnancy at the time she became pregnant with him, and that she attempted to have an abortion but it "didn't work," according to her. She was forced to become a parent when she didn't even want to become pregnant, and Charlie spent most of his life before Birchwood Isle hearing about how she didn't want him, he was a nuisance, and she was in the way of the things that she wanted to do with her life. She had been "saddled with him" according to his grandparents. There was never a father in the picture at all.

He internalized all of this, and being unwanted became Charlie's identity.

Charlie was five the first time his mother put him in foster care. He spent two weeks sleeping on the floor of the social services building where he lived in Wisconsin before a family could be found for him. Then he had four months living with a decent foster family before his mother applied to have him back. Nobody told him why she wanted him back, but Charlie was... Well, relieved at first. No child wants to be placed in foster care, even when the caregivers are decent and the parent is not. So he returned to the familiar home, the familiar emotional and verbal abuse, the familiar neglect, and he stayed there until he was seven years old, when his mother met a new man who had no intention of allowing a little boy to ruin their relationship. Back to foster care he went, this time to a family that was rougher around the edges, rougher on him, and reinforced what his mother had told him. He stayed with them for a few months before being bounced to another family, and then... home again.

All in all, Charlie went into foster care and back to his mother five times between the ages of five and eleven, when she finally took him to Birchwood Isle and simply dropped him off there, alone, for a customs agent to take him to the police station, then to the department of social services, and finally to the Orphan Village. He'll never admit to it, but Charlie is deeply confused by the culture of the island and doesn't understand what it means that he can't simply go back to his mother this time around. Everybody says they are protecting him, but he's lived with worthlessness as his identity for so long that he doesn't understand why he can't go back home.

Other

Is there anything else we need to know about you? not at this time

[Phoebe Eloise Robinson]

Adolescent Application

Hi! My name is Phoebe Eloise Robinson and I am in the 7th Grade. I am 12 years old. Please use she/her pronouns when referring to me!

Basic Information

Full Name: Phoebe Eloise Robinson
Age: 12
Birthday: March 12th
Sex: Female
Pronouns: she/her
Current Grade/Year in School, if Applicable: 7th
Special Needs: Insulin and a special diet. Phoebe is T1D

Appearance

Height: 4'10"
Build: slender, slightly underweight
Hair Color: blonde
Eye Color: blue
Distinguishing Features: round face, full mouth, glasses
Brief Description: Phoebe's a cute girl, with a round face, full mouth, and deep-set eyes. Her smile ranges from gentle to truly bright, although she doesn't smile often. Her eyes often reflect a deep sadness that comes from years in the foster care system without finding anyone interested in adopting her. She usually wears her pale blonde hair loose halfway down her back in very loose waves, but sometimes she wears it in a braid or a ponytail. Typically, she dresses in jeans or shorts with a t-shirt or sweatshirt, and most of the time she keeps her body covered. She has prescription eyeglasses that are round and a bit too big for her face.

Personality

What are your greatest strengths? creativity; perseverance; willingness to try; accepting of other people; nonjudgmental; quickness to commit; awareness of others; general obedience
What are your greatest weaknesses? easily distracted; not especially bright; struggles to make friends; jealous; easily disappointed; withdraws when upset; sensitive to criticism; easily tired
What do you struggle with? waiting for 12 years to be adopted and feeling like nothing is ever going to change
What are your hobbies or interests? loves to draw; enjoys board games; caring for plants; roller skating; horseback riding; adult coloring books
What do you really enjoy? having chores to do; meals that make her feel normal; attention from adults; field trips; watching movies with friends; making new friends; being outside; shopping for new things; real carnivals; sleepovers; cats; horses; grownups who talk to her like she's human; girls; new clothes; gaining weight
What do you really dislike? reading; school; school parties; eating at friends' houses; having friends over; injecting herself with insulin; going to the doctor; having to make the right choice all the time because wrong choices could literally kill her; getting in trouble for actual accidents; "adoption fairs;" dogs; social workers
What are your favorite things? Nearly-completed coloring books full of her own coloring work.
What do you fear? never being adopted; dogs; snakes; opossums
Describe your personality in 100-500 words: For everything she's been through, Phoebe is remarkably outgoing, sociable, and friendly. While she's not always kind, most people perceive her that way at the outset. The trouble is often that people begin to layer her truth over her personality and then their perspective of her shifts from seeing the person she is to seeing what she might have been had her circumstances been different. This is what makes Phoebe hard for a lot of people to get to know; They superimpose their perceptions of her experience on top of who she actually is, and when that happens, she is quick to withdraw, which changes her significantly from an outgoing, friendly person into a withdrawn adolescent who wants nothing to do with the people who so easily pass judgment on her.

Relationships & Behavior

How do you normally get along with adults? It really depends on the adult, to be honest. For most of her life, Phoebe has been an inconvenience to people who aren't prepared to take on her special needs because as impactful as her diabetes can be on her life, social services has not considered it to be an especially high need, which means that she's been repeatedly placed with adults who consider her more of a burden than she ought to be on them. Phoebe is good enough to give most adults the benefit of the doubt, and she doesn't judge them on one mistake, but those who don't know how to handle her disease or her angst over 12 years in foster care often wind up being the ones she's most likely to avoid. This quickly turns into a vicious cycle.

How do you normally get along with teenagers? Not especially well. Phoebe's high needs tend to generate a degree of jealousy in foster care environments, and teenagers have typically had a tendency to make fun of her. As with children, her needs often impact the entire household in ways that other adolescents don't appreciate, and Phoebe is sensitive about their judgment of her and their feelings that she's impacting the way they're allowed to eat and not eat. She's always been told by adults, as well, that it's her fault that the household has to eat this way or that way, and so she's had a lot of bullying from teenagers over the years, causing her to avoid and distrust, judgmental or not.

How do you normally get along with other children? Similarly to teenagers. If food and eating don't come into play, and if she doesn't have to stop to make sure she gets her blood sugar up, she can enjoy playing with children close to her own age, but often relationships drift because friendship with Phoebe becomes inconvenient for the other child. This is obviously impactful and hurts her deeply, so while she is friendly and outgoing, she doesn't tend to seek out long-term friendships because of concern that she'll wind up losing those friends when they find out the "truth" about her.

How independent are you? Phoebe has had to be pretty independent because she's inconvenient when she's not, but the truth is... She really relies on adults.

How do you normally react when you get into trouble? It depends on what her relationship with the adult with whom she's in trouble is like. If the relationship is close, she's more likely to be cooperative, but tearful. If it's not close, she's more likely to shut down emotionally and refuse to engage.

Link to your discipline sheet: click here ✅

Orphan Village

How long have you lived at the Orphan Village? Just arrived
Which House do you belong to? Birch House
Are you currently enrolled at the Orphan Village Academy or BWI College? Orphan Village Academy
What jobs or responsibilities do you have at the Orphan Village? Keeping up with her own health regimen is a full time job. Phoebe also helps with the community garden when it's in season

How did you come to live at the Orphan Village? Phoebe's case worker was at her wit's end. There was, in her mind, absolutely no reason why Phoebe had not been adopted in the twelve years that she'd spent in foster care, and she hoped that by moving Phoebe into an entirely new system, she would open doors to getting Phoebe adopted.

How do you generally get along with caregivers and authority figures? It really depends on the caregiver and how they treat Phoebe. The ones who treat her like she should be wholly independent at her age are going to set themselves up for disappointment, and she will spiral. These will not be strong relationships. The ones who hover over her like she can't possibly be trusted to take care of herself are going to set her up for frustration and disappointment, and she will spiral. Her strongest caregiver relationships will be with those who understand that they may need to prompt her to check her blood sugar but not remind her that she shouldn't partake of a cookie at the party. She knows she can't eat sugar all the time, but she doesn't like sticking herself. There has to be a balance, and with those adults who find the balance for her, the relationships will be strong and satisfying. They might even be able to earn her trust after a while.

For what it's worth, the most interesting scenario for Phoebe is if she encounters a mixture of adults who fit different roles for her.

How do you generally get along with younger residents? Phoebe honestly doesn't have a lot of use for younger residents. It's not personal, except that it is. Like most kids who reach early adolescence while in foster care, she's watched dozens of little kids get adopted while she waits for anyone to give her the time of day. What's the point in getting to know someone who's going to move right back out of the house when they get adopted? Yes, to a certain degree she's resentful, but mostly she understands the math: She's more likely to be here for longer, and she's going to be hurt when someone she likes moves out of the house and she never sees them again. In that respect, what's the point?

How do you generally get along with your peers? Except in specific cases, Phoebe gets along pretty well with people her own age because she is empathetic and understanding. Most of them haven't been through quite what she has, but she knows that they are in a tough situation and she has the experience with foster care to do her best to help them adjust to their situation. Her kindness matters in these situations, and most of the time it helps her to make friends with people in her own age group. The trouble comes in when jealousy arises -- either she will be adopted before some or they will be adopted before her and this can be highly disruptive to her emotional wellbeing. Another factor with her peers is that Phoebe isn't the smartest kid, and this sometimes results in teasing and bullying.

Do you prefer to be adopted or remain in the Orphan Village? Phoebe's dream is to be adopted

Describe your ideal adoptive family. I'm restarting Phoebe but intend for her to go with the same family she's been with before, since it is a damn-near perfect fit

Is there anything else we should know about how you get along in the Orphan Village? Oh yes.

First, Phoebe sometimes knowingly does stupid things that could hurt her. It's not that she's trying to hurt herself, but she gets so tired of being left out of things that once in a while she'll eat something that spikes her blood sugar. While this doesn't usually cause her blood sugar to go dangerously high, it can result in a significant drop in blood sugar later, which is very dangerous for her. She's not exactly doing these things intentionally, but she sometimes does them, knowing the potential outcome, just so that she can fit in with the other kids. It is, therefore, important to ensure that at all times there is a way to keep her involved and include her in things that other kids are doing, without requiring them to meet her at her level. It's not even about meeting one another "halfway." There's no excuse not to provide options for Phoebe alongside regular options for the kids who aren't dealing with her disease.

Second, Phoebe has been waiting to be adopted since she was an infant. Notably, infants in any system tend to get adopted fast, unless there is something wrong with them. While her diabetes wasn't diagnosed until she was two years old, she had health problems as a baby that prevented her from being adoptable. Everyone wants healthy infants, not infants with heart problems or high medical needs, so she went into foster care, where she waited. And waited. There's no reason for her to be a priority placement, especially considering that behind the scenes we know 100% where she's going to go when the time is right, but this reality impacts her behavior, and adults need to be aware that she is going to need a lot more reassurance and work than some other children in the village might.

Background

Describe your history in 150-1000 words: Phoebe entered foster care when she was six months old. Her mother, who she has no memory of at all, left her at the hospital when she was emotionally exhausted from having a child in the NICU for so long. Because Phoebe was medically-complicated, she spent a lot of the next two years in and out of the hospital. At two years old, she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. While her heart had been repaired and she was in better shape, the diagnosis made her complicated for a new reason, and regular foster parents struggled to figure out how to best care for her. She was shuffled around a lot.

Early on, there were two failed adoptions that nearly broke Phoebe. Each time, she went back into foster care feeling worse about herself. Meanwhile, she watched younger children be adopted while she continued to struggle to find anyone who liked her enough to so much as give her a chance. The longer and the more she waited, the more she acted out. The more she acted out, the more she got shuffled from place to place. She might not be the smartest kid, but she was able to put two and two together. Acting out meant that she got shuffled. So she tried even harder. In the end, it made no difference.

After twelve years of struggle, a new social worker finally decided that maybe a change of venue was the best thing for Phoebe, and so she brought her to Birchwood Isle and set her up in the Orphan Village in the hopes that the right parents could be found. If not, at least the Village provided a family atmosphere where Phoebe could potentially thrive.

Other

Is there anything else we need to know about you? Yes. Phoebe is not familiar with corporal punishment and it is going to hit her hard when the first few times do come. Just something worth noting!