These are true funny or inspirational stories submitted by houseparents about children they have worked with. Any reference to a particular facility or child's name have been removed to protect the privacy of the child.

If you would like to submit a story, please us the feedback form, or if you prefer just type it out in an E-mail and send it to me at: houseparentnetwork@gmail.com. The story will become the property of The Houseparent Network. At this time The Houseparent Network is unable to compensate you for your submission other than to give you credit for the submission. The Houseparent Network reserves the right to edit the story for format and style.

Submitted by B. Goins,  North Carolina
  At the time, my husband and I worked in a younger boys cottage. We were having a difficult time with one of our boys one afternoon. He was disrupting everyone in the cottage trying to fight the other boys. We told him to go to his room. When we need a child to stay in their room we put a piece of tape on the door so we can know if he left the room. Well this little boy reminded us how little he really was when he started hollering, "I can't get out! I can't get out!" I don't know, maybe we should have let him in on the secret that tape is not that strong. But hey, if it works, don't fix it. Right?

Submitted by L. Culbreath, Arkansas
  We have the senior high school boys, & one of my husband's responsibilities is teaching them to take care of our facility's small herd of registered Longhorn cattle. They were attempting to gentle a calf enough to lead, but the 400-pound heifer didn't like the idea at all. One afternoon, she broke loose from him & my husband had to chase her down. With all of our boys watching, plus most of the junior high boys & even one senior high girl, he took off running across the pasture after the calf. Imagine the scene when his pants fell down around his ankles during mid-stride, & he fell flat on his face! It's been several weeks now, & it's still a favorite topic of discussion on campus.

Submitted by K. and S. Irby, Pennsylvania
  In our student home a six year old boy named "Bobby" had some yellow stains that couldn't be removed from his teeth. Another student, "Robert", who was five, had great skill at mechanical devices. He possessed the entire line of plastic tools that are made for children. These two boys spent hours playing together.
  Unfortunately, some of our boys teased Bobby one weekend about the stains on his teeth. As a result of that situation Robert had something he needed to tell us.
  "Do you know my drill?" - "Mr. Irby, Mrs. Irby you won't believe it!" Robert threw his arms into the air and expelled his breath loudly. He lifted his arms toward heaven for help with his difficulties. "Well, Bobby has my drill and he's trying to get that yellow stuff off his teeth!"
The indignation of it all!

  "Robert" had only been in our home a few days and we needed to teach him the chore program. At five years of age "Robert" couldn't run the full sized vacuum cleaner. We purchased a non motorized floor sweeper so that he could learn to keep his room neat.
  After helping "Robert" to make his bed and dust around his room he was told to go and get his little vacuum. He must have forgotten his introduction to the little device, because he said in a most serious way, "Bacuum? Bacuum? I ain't got no Bacuum!"

Submitted by Ric P, Texas
My wife and I work with girls ages 11-17. One of the 11 year olds came to me with a serious health concern one evening while I was dispensing medication. note: this young lady has a slight stutter. She said to me, "Sir, m-m-m-m-y ch-ch-ch-chest is hurting r-r-real bad." Using my houseparent sarcasm I replied, "Do you need me to call the 'bambulance'" to which she replied, " N-n-n-no I just think my boobies are growing." At this time I referred her to my wife!

Here's one of my stories
My wife(Marjie) and I were working in the girl's house. There were two girls that had planned to run away. All the other girls in the house didn't really like these girls much so they gave us all the details of the escape plan. We lived in a two story house. We lived downstairs and all the girls lived upstairs. We had an alarm system on the windows and the stairs to deter the girls from leaving during the night while we slept, but the sensor on one window was broken and the girls knew it.

After all the girls were upstairs for bed, we turned on the alarm and pretended to go to bed. The girls must have thought we fell instantly asleep, because not five minutes after we turned off the lights we could hear alot of activity upstairs. We sat in the living room in the dark just giggling at what must be going on upstairs. Every couple of minutes, someone would go into the bathroom and flush the toilet. I guess they figured the running toilet would cover all the noise they were making. It must have flushed 30 times in about 20 minutes. We were watching the window we knew they would be coming out and sure enough, down drops some sheets tied together, just like in the movies. Marj sneaked outside and hid around the corner from the window, waiting for one of the girls to come down the make-shift rope. Jannie started down the sheet and when she was about 3 feet off the ground, Marjie came out from around the corner and said, "going somewhere?" That girl was so shocked to see Marjie standing there she turned white, as if she had seen a ghost. The girl holding the sheet, let go when she heard Marjie and Jannie fell the last three feet to the ground. I grabbed her and marjie ran upstairs to check on the other girls. She found the other girl that was planning to run away laying in her bed, under the covers, pretending to sleep. Marj told her to get out of bed, and when she did she was fully dressed to include her shoes and school backpack. When Marjie asked her what she was doing, she said, "Just trying to sleep." Marjie's reply, "I would have trouble sleeping like that too." Both girls received consequences for their actions, and they never found out the other girls tipped us off, they just thought we were really good at our job.