Is anyone involved in foster care?

Question

Would you please share your experiences? I'm considering getting certified to be a foster parent. Just want to know if anyone can tell me what its like. Difficulties, challenges. I just want to get a general idea of what I will be dealing with if I become a foster parent.

Answer 1

Children in foster care are coming to you from a confusing and painful place in most situations. They are scared and sometimes extremely mad. They do not trust you from the start as you are one of the people that took them away from their home. (Or at least they see it that way.) Some will just sit in corner and not react. Others will fight back. These kids are in shock. The flight or fright mechanism is working full tilt. And you have to be prepared to deal with it.

IF YOU HAVE KIDS, THESE OTHER CHILDREN WILL HAVE AN EFFECT ON YOUR KIDS. Remember that.

You will have to be ready for almost anything. The younger children are easier to deal with. You will find that some of them will take hold of your heart and not let go. Others will leave you contemplating murder.

If you do this you are a special person. And if you try it and can not handle it, do not beat yourself up. It is not an easy thing to do.

Answer 2

First thing to do is to find out if there are "foster care training" programs in your area, as I would not go into this blindly simply out of compassion.

Second, in general there is no such thing as an "undamaged" foster child in terms of emotional stuff. Better states have programs that will get a child stabilized before placement, but even then be prepared for that child to be on an emotional roller coaster because they are automatically expecting to be rejected again and again and again, so they will act out to provoke it earlier than later.

Third, often the child is taken right out of your home when a case worker determines that a biolgical parent has made "sufficient" progress. Most of the time I think the case workers are naive in this area.

Finally, consider your own family dynamic. Foster kids older than your own may physically or otherwise abuse younger siblings, younger foster kids may sort of turn into "break-a-colics" and little thieves where your older kids if any are concerned.

Make sure you have plenty of effective family / friend/ babysitter emotional support and the opportunity to spend time on your own, because even biological parents can't be 24x7.

With those consierations in mind, keep researching on the web and I am sure you will be able to make a good determination of whether or not to be a foster parent or not.

Answer 3

All i can say is get as much training as you can. I was a foster kid.
I came from an isnane abusive environment, all that you can imagine. Heres an example, if you havent read a child called it by david peltzer, read it. My life was very very similar to his. It kinda gives you an idea of the mentality at the time of a child thats gone through insane abuse, the fears, behaviors etc. that and he also has a book called a man named dave

I sincerly LOVE all foster parents, even those who weren't mine. Just because they give us kids (well now Im 21, lol) a second chance. And its hard. You come from such craziness and to be in a stable environmemt when you are used to chaos constantly is a HARD adjustment.
All you can do is follow your training. and your heart. Love them no matter what, don t single them out and make them feel to blame for what they went through, help them, become healthy and whole to the best that you can.
All I know is I would not be here today if it werent for my foster families.

Answer 4

frustrating,case workers may never show up. Hard to get action from childrens seervices to problems related to child.
Many severally damaged kids may be received. expect run aways, theft of personal items, yes one time even my car.
I would not wish to state too much in an open forum like this. If I knew you on a personal basis I would tell you a lot to watch out for.
Oh and by the way, you could even expect a foster kids when he gets mad at you and your mate, expect hard paybacks
some even charge foster parents with sexual abuse. THis is true,, know perosnally several families this happened to.
Tottaly destroyed the families.. only to find out was never true,
sorry that is all I want to say. think , watch and hope you dont end up sorry.

Answer 5

I was involved in foster care for five years, before my son was born. She was four yrs old when we became weekend/holiday parents. Soon we took her into foster care. To make a long story short, we were informed that she was sexually molested at age 2 and that her IQ was below average. With that in mind I started prepairing her for school, physically and mentally. This beautiful little blonde girl and I eventually became so close that she also told me things she could remember about her brother and little sister being molested. She never told this to the social workers. She started school and soon I could see that she wasn't coping academically or socially. Academically it was easier than I thought. I sat with her in the afternoons and read and read and read...to and with her. When her next report came, she had an A for reading! But as she went to grade 2 things slowly changed. She began pushing crayons and pencils into her vagina. I only realised this when later on I washed her underwear and there were strange markings. I took her to a gynaecologist and he had to perform a small operation to remove these. When all was finally removed the doctor found approx. 6 small pieces of crayon and two small pieces of pencil! We spoke to her, loved her, explained everything to her, but about 3 months later she was back in hospital - same problem. Next we were contacted by the principal of the school, and she had apparantly become destructive. She had broken toilets, chairs and had become uncontrollable. We took her to a child psychologist, who prescribed Ritalin and saw her a few times. Well, things never really settled. She began lying, stealing and although we still had great "family times" she just never became her old self again. Well, five years down the line I decided to fall pregnant. During this period she became completely uncontollable. No amount of loving, theraphy or understanding could make her trust us or my mother, whom she had become very fond of. I was in constant communication with social workers and one day after school she told me that she was going to hurt the baby when he was born. This triggered something in me, but I left it. Shestarted telling me daily what she would do to the baby and I became panicky as the end of my pregnancy drew near. To end this sad story, the child psychologist suggested that she be returned to the orphanage and undergo special theraphy for a substantial amount of time. I'll never forget the day she left. We both cried and my husband took her to the airport. I just went to my knees and prayed for grace. When my beautiful son was born, we took him with us when we went to visit her. I have tried to keep contact with her, but she has been moved to another place of safety. I'll never ever forget her and her photographs still hang in my home, but we all had to realise that moving on was the only way to go. I want to believe that we made some difference in her life, but let no one say it was an easy task. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to put this "on paper." Good luck to you!