Meet Atlas Keith (11), an interesting person that loves animals and making friends smile even though he has experienced the hardship of being a foster kid.
Atlas describes himself as a unique person that loves art and is very creative. Some of his favourite things to draw are dragons, silhouettes, grafiti, and food.
Atlas likes to listen to music. Some of his favourite artists are Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, 21 Pilots, Tate McRae, and Alec Benjamin just to name a few. Atlas loves to play video games. He mainly plays adventure games.
“I love adventure games because they can be very anxious, but exciting,” Atlas said.
Atlas is currently in kinship. He has guardianship of a family, but still needs permission to leave the state from the court.
“I plan on going on a cruise with my foster family to the pink islands, but since I’m in a kinship, we have to pretty much go through a court process to let me go. It’s basically already approved, it just takes a long time to get physical copies of it,” Atlas said. “It sucks because I don’t even have a passport or state ID, and if I had those it would make the process a lot faster.”
While in foster care, Atlas has been in a few different homes since he was 9 years old.
“It was hard moving from home to home,” Atlas said. “I would stay at a home for a few days or years, and I would get used to where I’m living until suddenly, ‘whoops, I’m moving again.’ So then I have to go through the whole cycle of ‘do I trust these people, and am I gonna like this house?’ Then I end up getting used to the house I’m living in and the people I’m living with until suddenly I have to move again.”
While he has been in a few homes, Atlas says that most have been mainly good homes.
“I mean there were some that were just downright awful, but I don’t blame them because at the time when I was 9, I was mad at the world and I was known for having anger issues, which made me move from house to house. It wasn’t until I was around 13 when I was able to control my anger problems due to depression. I started having it at 11, but it wasn’t until I was 13 when it got really bad,” Atlas said. “I went through a lot of therapy and eventually managed it by the time I was 17. I’m feeling a lot happier now.”
Whenever somebody in foster care gets put into a new home, they have to go to therapy for a little.
“I’m kinda annoyed about it, since I just got finished with therapy a year ago, and now I have to do it again since I’m in a new home. I honestly hate procedures, but I understand why they do it since a lot of foster kids get depressed when they are constantly moving into new homes.”
Atlas is currently living happily with his foster mom, Stacie Postol and his foster brother Leyton Postol. Atlas says he loves his current home, and that it’s his most satisfying home out of all the places he’s lived in.
“The ability to actually trust my foster mom and be myself is great because I knew my foster mom for a bit before she took me in so I trust her a lot, and if something was happening I would immediately go to her for my problems. If someone in foster care is moving a lot, they just need to know that they are not the reason why. It is because the foster parents give up when something difficult happens, but it’s never the kid’s fault. Some people have limits, and it’s not the fault of the child.”
