Foster Parenting - Hammonton,NJ

Hi, S.:
I have had experience with both a 9 year old and a 14 y.o.
My experience has been challenging.
1) The state can come into your home anytime.
2) There are appointments to be kept for the child.
3) Discipline with an undiscipline child is challenging
unless you know conflict resolution in the parenting area.

Think about getting a stray animal from off the streets that have been abused. There will be no affection received or given from the animal.

There will be trust, self-esteem, inadequacy, self-confidence and compliance issues.

You will be spending all your time focused on the child. If you didn't have 2 young children, I would say, go for it.

It wouldn't be fair to the child to get it and then be unable to hang in there and keep the child until the age of majority.

The other thing, you won't know when the child will be yanked from your care and then the grief response you go through when the child is removed.
Thanks for asking.
This has been my experience.
Good luck.
D.

why are you interested?

There are good and bad outcomes from foster parenting. Being able to bridge the gap between the parent and child, to mentor the parent on parenting and helping educate them, seeing a family reunited and knowing that you played a huge part in it is a wonderful reward.

Three of my grandkids are currently in foster care/being adopted by them. One grandson is being adopted by my ex and his wife, the other 2 are soon being adopted by their foster family. They are so wonderful and they worked very hard with my daughter to help her learn the skills she needed to have to get her kids back.

Foster families can be a wonderful tool.

On the other hand. You will find in the classes that they don't lie. They tell you about some of the pitfalls that can happen. The child that comes in and has been abused...they act out, maybe by acting out things with your children, maybe by having serious mental issues that will require a great deal of time from you sitting at a therapist offices waiting for them to finish their session. You are their "fixer", it is up to you to figure out they might need glasses and that is why they are flunking school, they may have never been to the dentist and have a mouth full of rotten teeth and you have to find the dentist and make time to go to all those appointments. It may be they have issues where they are depressed and suicidal, many more scenarios.

It is a balance between the good service you are doing for them and having the ability to call it quits when it becomes too much.

My bff took my grandson is when he was taken from his dad. She had him for months before they ever got a check, you know how red tape is, he wet the bed every night. He was in elementary school. He had to shower to get ready for school every morning. She had to do 3 extra loads of laundry every day to clean his bed linens. It was too much for her. She had to have him moved even after they had discussed with him that they would like to adopt him if things didn't work out with his mom or his dad. It broke his heart but she could not deal with it. She would sit in the laundry room and just be worn out. She has livestock and sells items from them. She also works 2 part time jobs. It ended up being a good things because he is now with my ex and is getting adopted and is very very very happy.

SO, there are so many issues that can happen and that can make a foster child so needy. But if you go into this with your eyes open, with expectations of it being a positive experience you will have a much better chance of it succeeding and being a wonderful experience.

My husband and I had grand ideas of having 4 bio children + adopting 4 children (in any order), then fostering when they were teens. Life happened differently, and we didn't have our first son until 39+ and have reinstated our adoption profile just a few months ago when our son was 30mos. While going thru the homestudy process 5yrs ago, we took classes and met with families who'd fostered and realized why fostering wouldn't work for us (on top of our age)(we are in PA):
- fostering is always meant as temporary, its never intended for future adoption, the hope is for the parent(s) to get their act together
- even though you're homestudy approved, the state can still enter your home at any time to check on things
- other family members and I have had temporary custody of neices/nephews at various points over the last 13yrs, all of whom are very unstable; we learned from those experiences that having mentally/socially/emotionally unstable children (for whom we have little control on how they are disciplined/counseled/aided) living/cohabitating with our minor age children isn't a risk we're willing to take
- there are no limits for the parent(s) to get their act together, so you could foster for a small period or a long period; until laws are changed where deadlines are given to the parent(s) and they must comply within a timeframe or their child(ren) are placed for adoption, we know fostering is not for us

My parents fostered my little sister from 5wks old until 7-1/2yrs (when her mother died, father was always unknown), when they adopted her. She had to visit her mother (and husband #4, or #5 or #6, etc) every month. There was constant trauma/drama in our house, and the younger siblings suffered because this situation needed 100% of my parents 24/7.

I would sign up for classes and talk to social workers. It can be a hugely positive impact on other childrens' lives, but now that I'm a mom, I can't imagine choosing that over my own child's safety. Since we'll be in our late 50's when our child(ren) graduate, we'll have to revisit options at that time.

Good luck!

I have thought about it mostly because I know the need for it, but my kids are just too young right now. They are 3 and almost 6. I thought about taking babies since that might be easier for young kids but it still would be difficult and really infants are the minority of those in need of care. There are so many older kids who really need good foster parents, but as others have said it can be both difficult and wonderful. Foster kids can be in your care for a short time or they might be there until they turn 18. This not knowing can be difficult on all of the family. Just make sure that your kids are ready for the experience and that you are all comfortable with all the possible outcomes. And if it is really something you are meant to do, then you will all be fine.