*This is part of a series of posts on common concerns of potential foster parents.*
Becoming a foster family will definitely have an impact on the children already in your home. Whether those kids are biological or adopted, toddlers or teens, this experience requires the participation of every member of the family and there are sacrifices for everybody. Potential foster parents are wise to consider the ramifications making this decision will have on their kids.
Photo by Rebecca Tredway Photography
It’s important to acknowledge the very real difficulties that can come with adding a foster child to your family. These kids aren’t in foster care because things were rosy and happy at home. We can’t expect them to seamlessly transition into our homes and our structure. We need to be fully prepared for the realities this will bring into our home and how it will uniquely impact our kids. Look through this list. Talk about it with your spouse. Think through the personalities, strengths, struggles and gifts of each of your kids and imagine how these issues will manifest themselves. (But don’t get depressed! Future posts will talk about the positive impacts of foster care on your kids and ways to minimize the difficulties listed here along with some great interviews with adults who grew up with foster siblings.)
The Difficulties
Loss of parental attention. Whatever way you choose to add another child to your family (birth, adoption, fostering), parental attention gets divided. This is especially true with foster kids who may come with their own baggage and struggles that require extra attention from foster parents. Even foster babies may come with unforeseen medical problems or developmental delays that mean more appointments or time spent researching what will best meet their needs.
Loss of privacy. Depending on the age of your kids, they may feel this more acutely. There is a home study process involved in becoming a foster family which requires information and potentially interviews with each member of the family. Caseworkers and attorneys may now be coming to your house on a regular basis. If a child shares a room with a foster kid, caseworkers may need to look into that bedroom occasionally. This loss of privacy is an obstacle many adults have a tough time overcoming to become foster parents, so we can imagine it’s also a struggle for kids who may not even have words to express how uncomfortable or even violating that can feel.
Becoming a public spectacle. Foster kids may come with behavioral issues or medical needs that mean you get extra unwanted attention when you’re out in public. Maybe this foster child doesn’t racial “match” your family and people ask questions. Sometimes foster parents are really passionate about this new cause and it becomes the focus of their conversations everywhere they go. These problems won’t exist for every foster family, but for those families who choose to take kids who raise questions, you lose your ability to go anywhere without becoming a source of looks and whispers. As a multiracial family we are used to this and our kids have only known that reality so they are pretty comfortable with it. For families who are making a major change to take on this identity, their kids may be highly sensitive to the new attention and it can make them feel uncomfortable.
Demands on parent schedules. Foster care can sometimes feel like a part time job. Depending on your case you may have frequent meetings with the team involved, medical appointments, therapy appointments, visitation issues to deal with, and time spent in paperwork/emails to document it all. It may become difficult to find the free time you used to have to run out for ice-cream or to the library. Some of the spontaneity of your former life disappears as your priorities shift to making sure this new child gets their needs met. It’s important to know that foster care isn’t always this demanding. You may go months at a time where things are calm and you slip into a new normal that works. But it’s good to prepare for the days/weeks/months when your time is far less flexible than it was prior to fostering.
The drama of foster care. Foster care is emotionally draining. Maybe your kids will ride that emotional roller coaster and maybe they won’t. Depending on their age, you may need to prioritize sparing them from that as much as possible. But even if they aren’t experiencing the emotions, they know their parents are. It’s tough to watch your mom and dad struggle with sadness or anger about how a case is going. It’s hard not to want your peaceful life back.
The unsheltering of sheltered kids. Children don’t generally end up in foster care because they made poor choices, but the poor choices the adults in their lives have made have impacted these kids. They know things children shouldn’t have to know. They have seen and experienced things we work hard to keep our kids from experiencing. And all those disturbing events somehow seem normal to them because it’s the way they’ve grown up. Even in our family where we have chosen to take babies, we have had to talk about drug use, unplanned pregnancy, and jail with our kids at very young ages. You can’t be afraid of those conversations if you’re going to bring foster kids into your home.
Fear. Foster kids can have really troubling behaviors (although not all do!). They have been separated from all they knew and everything that felt normal to them. They may have learned unhealthy ways to cope with the difficulties in their lives. They may be violent or angry or depressed or run away. They may act out. This is obviously going to be scary for the kids in your home who have never seen or experienced such things before. Your children shouldn’t have to live in fear and their emotional wellbeing shouldn’t be sacrificed. Get the help you need. Don’t wait too long to let your caseworker know that a situation isn’t working if your children are living in fear.
In the next post I will address how we can minimize these impacts on our kids. We aren’t helpless as parents in these situations, but we need to be proactive.
Foster parents, any other difficulties your kids have experienced?
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