The Litz Family Profile
We would like to adopt children less than 6 years old.
We are open to boys or girls and feel we can accommodate a sibling group of up to 4 kids because we have experience fostering this many kiddos and love having a large family to share our large home and have tons of free time.
Almost any ethnic background will blend in with our family.
We are open to children with many special needs.
We do not mind having contact with the child's biological parents (by email or by phone or by mail or in person ) provided the parent was/is not abusive to the child.
We do not mind having continuing contact with the child's former foster parents, by email or by phone or by mail or in person . In general, we would like to adopt children that want a family and would benefit from our openness to their love and ties to people in their past. We have serious reservations about committing to an older child with RAD with dangerous behaviors.Introduction
Our names are James & Paige Litz ages 40 and 41 years old.
We have 2 teenagers.
Our children's names are Mason who is 14 and Chazz is 18.
Like us, our children have caucasian and other ethnic backgrounds.
The guys love fishing, or hunting, and we all enjoy camping, biking, hiking, taking walks, snow boarding, skiing, reading, sports, and games. We do a lot of things together so if our 13 year old wants to play a board game we all will join in. We love to cook and bake and spend a lot of time together in the kitchen. Our teens enjoys going out for activities and often invite friends over to visit.
We work together full-time for our family publishing company Spizzirri Press Inc. but have a VERY flexible work schedule. Since it is our business our kids are always welcome to be with us during the day if needed, and we are free to leave work at any time.
We were both raised Catholic but would describe ourselves as more relaxed, open minded and accepting than some of the specific Catholic beliefs. We celebrate Christian holidays. Favorite teams will get you a list of different opinions in our home. Overall as a group we would have to be described as liking almost all music. We may never agree on the best teams but almost any music can be heard in our home and we will give most movies a chance.
James is classically trained chef so we do a lot of cooking! We are also always gardening, going to kids sports, playing games with the kids, watching movies or relaxing. |
Home and Community
We live in the State of South Dakota.
Our home is a single family home with 7bedrooms and 4baths.
We live in a Suburban neighborhood with wooded areas and large yards.
We have two Golden Retrievers that are mostly outside. We enjoy the things listed previously but we also do chores and projects together as well as go have fun. We have bike paths and parks throughout the entire town that we enjoy.
A large variety of activities in our community are available from yoga, youth sports, and karate, art, pottery, music and dance classes. We have a piano, drum set, guitars and violins if a kiddo wants music lessons. A local University holds local youth competitions in robotics and engineering (Legos). There are even Chess tournaments, scouts, and math leagues.
There is a variety of school options in the area with a public school for k thru 8 two miles from our house, private Christian schools, special needs facilities for art and dance and fun classes and a Christian school with home schooling options. There are also 4 colleges that offer advanced credit and camps for gifted students.
Parenting Experience
Currently we are licensed for therapeutic foster care and adoption and have been long term foster parents to children 17 with PTSD, RAD, ODD,ADD,ADHD, asthma, allergies, drug exposure, FAS, cognitive delays, and traumas based behaviors like food hoarding and acting out.
We are patient and always try to see the humor in things.
We read a lot, have good support and will seek help with local experts and therapists if there is a problem we feel we need help with.
We have been trained in Attachment and trauma, read countless books, sexual abuse prevention and behaviors, CPR, first aid, safety trainings, medication distribution, deescalation, helping children feel safe, 5 years of training to upkeep our license since 2009 at 30 to 12 hours a year. Plus college child psychology and development courses ...but feel there is always learning more. |
Support
We have family, friends, church and school that are very supportive of us and our children. They are always lending a hand and including our foster children as if they had always lived with us. Adoption will be an exciting change from foster care for all of us! We want to have a forever home. If struggles arrive we have a large "tool box" Locally we have evaluation services and therapy for mental, physical, occupational, and sensory issues and a trauma center. There is a behavior management facility that offers trauma based therapies and counseling and family therapy and support along with the Lutheran Social Services staff.
Motivation to Adopt
We love kids and feel called to provide a home for children from foster care because after being foster parents for a few years we felt we wanted to stop seeing all of our kids leave. Our sons also thought saying goodbye was the hardest part of opening our home and we hope to finally adopt so we get to say forever instead. Our sons are an involved part of our commitment to adopt and they will welcome children as siblings whole heartedly. |
