Foster Care Book: Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - Raising Children Clinically or in Reality

The next question is: How do we go about turning kids around? There are many ’clinical’ books on the shelves. Many of these books apply to the ’average’ foster child. The "AVERAGE FOSTER CHILD" DOES NOT EXIST in real life! Its sort of like the ’average’ family who has 2.2 children (what does .2 of a child look like)?

Even more absurd; passing a law that makes English the official language in an English speaking society. What planet are the people from who come up with these insane suggestions? A clinical approach to child care cannot, in any way, be ’real.’ Common sense (which is the way children were raised before clinical psychology became the vogue) still works today.

This book is not intended to be clinical in any sense. It is intended to relate foster care from the viewpoint of the foster parents and the children in a real way; drawing from the experience of actually taking care of foster children. My spouse Marilyn and I have had fifty foster care placements in about seven years. All but two of them have been teenagers from the ages of thirteen to seventeen (most of them have been fifteen and sixteen). Early in our foster care career, we took two girls ages two and four at the same time. I decided, after that placement was over, I was much too old to be able to expend as much energy as necessary to take care of children who are not old enough to take care of their own daily needs. They virtually wore me out. I could not wait to get into the sack at the end of the day and they got us up at the crack of dawn the next day. Not a good environment for retired folks!

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