Reply to Fostering as a single parent

Forum Index » Parenting -- Special Concerns

Reply to "Fostering as a single parent"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]This is something I've considered as well, as a single parent who also has some specialized experience with kids who have experienced trauma.

Here is what is holding me back - talking to adults whose parents did this when they were kids. It might be different because you are thinking of infants, but people I know whose parents have taken in older kids and teens often really struggled with sharing their parents' attention, and they maybe didn't have the "life experience" to deal with the foster kids' backgrounds.

I don't know - I don't want to warn you off because what you are doing is needed, but also just think very hard about the impact on your bio kids.[/quote]

This.  A 1000x this.  Along with the comments about an au pair being completely unequipped to deal with the traumas that a foster child will have experienced.  We adopted older children---one with significant needs.  Knowing what I know now I would never recommend doing it with bio-kids at home.  It just isn't fair to them.  Nor is it fair to take in a foster placement whose significant behavioral needs cause so much upheaval in your family that you wind up unwinding the placement, which just adds more trauma and rejection onto the plate of the foster child.

[b]Best suggestion above is to provide respite care for foster parents.  That will give you (and your kids) a really good idea of what you would be taking on.   Given the financial resources that you have, you have the budget to provide at-risk kids with just some "fun" that resource-constrained foster homes may not be able to provide, e.g. trips to the movie theater with full-on concessions  (whenever we get to do that again) or to the beach, or an amusement park,  or a river-rafting adventure---or even just the opportunity to be held and read to quietly in a calm environment or do a cookie-baking day where they are the center of attention and helping---while not completely unwinding your day to day family dynamic and over-burdening your teens.  Then, if you feel like doing longer term foster care, you could investigate doing it after your bio-kids have gone to college.  Another option---which I don't know whether is even available---is to to offer to be the "responsible respite" foster parent who helps an athletically talented kid in foster care participate in a travel sport---where you are paying for the team costs and committing to getting the kid to his/her games.   There are lots of ways to support kids in foster care.  Knowing from the experience of my own children---when a child is adrift in the system of state care, having just one adult demonstrate constant, if even relatively infrequent, nurturing---can go a long way towards helping them manage a traumatic situation.[/b]
[/quote]

This is a great suggestion, thank you. I had never thought of such a thing! I will look into this[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics