Foster Care Book: Chapter 20
Chapter 20 - When The Placement Ends
Future Contact
People frequently ask us if we stay in touch with our foster children. The answer is "Yes and No." We make no attempt to intrude into their life after leaving our home. If they contact us by phone, in writing or in person, we always (and this is a must) respond in a positive way. We do the same thing with our birth children.
There also have been times when we were able to assist the children and their birth parents or foster parents to see things more clearly. We do not recommend this latter approach unless a rapport has also previously been established with the other party. Injecting yourself between the child and the other parties can many times be not only unwise but can lead to devastating results for any of the players. It is important to remember that when a previous foster child asks to be heard that you listen. If he/she asks for advice, give it, but preface with - - "Remember, the suggestions or comments I am about to make are my thoughts and may not be right since I am hearing only your side of the story." The second placement we had was a runaway from Wisconsin. She stayed with LIS three nights and two days until her parents could drive out to pick her up. That was over seven years ago. We have stayed in constant contact with her, since. She has had some rather rough times since leaving us but has managed to weather the storms and is doing really well. Even though she is living near her parents, she looks to us for advice. She never asks her parents because they are accusatory.
Instead of assisting her with whatever problem she has, they spend days telling her how bad she is, how she cannot make good decisions, etc. We find that she generally makes fairly good decisions. She has had a problem selecting men who will treat her right but apart from that she has been making excellent decisions the last three or four years. She received her GED and CNA and is planning to attend school to become an RN. We recently returned from attending her wedding. She has married a wonderful guy. The day after we arrived back home, they knocked on our door stating, "What better place to spend our honeymoon than at your house?" They spent the first week of their honeymoon at our home.
Some of the other children will call us infrequently. For the most part, however, we seldom hear from the children after they leave us. We hear about how they are doing from Social Services or some of the other children but direct contact is extremely limited. As I said earlier, we make it a point not to intrude into their new life. They know where we are and how to contact us, if they wish. By the way, birth children should be given the same consideration.
Tearing Your Heart Out
If you do not become attached to almost every foster child, you probably should not be in foster care! Being attached is a vital part of the process. Becoming foster parents obviously means you have several meaningful traits, such as liking children, wanting to assist children, needing a feeling of ’giving back’ (everyone has their own meaning of this term), a desire to teach these children what it is like to be a member of a real family, etc. You can add your own list. The essential ingredient is to care and if possible love. What does that do to you as a foster parent? It puts you in a vulnerable emotional position. You know that eventually the foster child is probably going to leave your care. You have worked very hard at whatever you needed to do to provide a loving home, advice and counsel, discipline and whatever else was necessary. You have fallen in love with another kid! No matter how hard you try to convince yourself that we expect them to leave, it is an extremely hard day when you have to let them go. There is a great deal of crying, hugging and consoling. It does not get any easier with each child. What does happen is that you are better able to handle the emotional tearing. It becomes easier to handle with the understanding that you have helped one more child to understand a productive, happy life and family. You have taught them how to better cope with life’s ups and downs. There is also the added distress that comes later if you find out that one of your charges did not make it and is in jail, or worse! It is no different from the trauma we go through with our birth kids. Its part of being a family!
Foster Family Stress
How do your friends and birth children see your folly? It probably makes some of your children and your friends think you have lost your sanity. Your family will undoubtedly think you should have involved them more in your decision. We have four birth children of our own, one daughter and three boys (including twins). All of our children have left home and are out on their own. We bring the foster children to visit and they, of course, spend time with the foster children when they come to visit us. It is difficult for some of them to understand why we, at our age, (I am seventy and Marilyn is sixty-six) constantly have new people that they have to meet and consider as an extension of our family.
CONDITION YOUR FAMILY TO KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT!
My eldest son once told me, "Dad, you bring home these strange people who we have never met before and some of them are calling me brother I’m not these kids brother and my sister is not their sister."
We only had one foster child do that but I think it will stay with my children the rest of their lives. I was at least partially responsible for that. I encouraged the foster child to act as if she was a member of the family on the assumption that it would help her to better understand a family. Also, to help her understand bonding with siblings. It backfired! I neglected to consider the possible feelings and emotions of my birth children. One cannot ’ASSUME’ how ones family will react. They must be consulted and informed in advance.
Your birth children must be conditioned ahead of time to understand that foster children (at least early in the placement) are children in crisis and will not act as the birth children would like. I think it did not help the foster child and it certainly upset some of our birth children. We made a mistake assuming that our children would understand without conditioning and we even believed that they would welcome our wanting to help these children. They do think we are doing a great thing but they need to know what is about to happen in advance to prepare themselves emotionally.
Of course there are many other areas of stress for foster parents. Dealing with kids who are not yours and who have not been raised with your particular code of ethics and priority definition place you and your whole family tinder stress. You as a foster parent have to do everything possible to keep yourself physically and mentally fit. Get as much rest as you can. Take a 20-30 minute break sometime in the afternoon each day and get at least an hour of exercise each day whether it’s working in your garden, walking or working out in a gym. It gets difficult to find time to do anything except take care of kids, but surely, especially when school is in session you should be able to make time for exercise. One has to remember that the foster children are generally several years behind where they should be in preparing for life. It takes them a great deal of time to ’catch up.’
Playing mind games with teenagers can be extremely stressful unless you enjoy the mind games that the kids put you through. Teenagers, in particular, seem to enjoy the mind games. It seems that children are born with an inherent wish to and ability to lie about everything. I once said that I thought the main reason for a teenager to be alive was to see how many lies could be told in the shortest amount of time. We have had children who not only lied but created lies that had absolutely no basis in fact what-so-ever. Sometimes kids will fantasize trying to put themselves in a better frame of mind, I guess. I think fantasizing, especially for girls is not only natural but probably good. There are times, however, when the fantasizing can be absolutely destructive not only to themselves but the foster parents. Inventing stories that cause the foster parents to be put in a position of trying to decide whether action should be taken based upon this kid’s story For instance suppose your fifteen year old foster daughter tells you she has been raped. Is she prone to invent untruths? If so, you now are in an untenable position. Should the authorities be notified only to spend time investigating a false story or should you forget it and pass it off as another of those ’stories?’ We have yet to discover the rationale for that kind of behavior. The professional psychologists are less than helpful. They are just as stumped as we are. Their response almost always is: "That’s a result of the way they were brought up and the things that happened to them." As the kids say, "Well Duh!" It does not take a genius to figure that out. What I want to know is why are they doing it and what is the solution?
Abusive Foster Parents
As shocking as it may seem to all of us who are dedicated to taking care of someone else’s kids, abusive foster parents do exist! We have all kinds of safeguards in place to try to be sure that abusive foster parents do not exist. Unfortunately, some do slip through the cracks or become abusive when they never have been before. We must do our best to be on the lookout for abusive foster parents and take the appropriate steps with the authorities when we can prove it. As mentioned earlier, the very children whom we are trying our best to help, people who are uneducated about foster care, and people who have heard horror stories about foster care in the 1930s will at times castigate fostering. That’s just another bump in the road of being a foster parent. There are several pitfalls but the kids make it all worth the effort!
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