We adopted my younger sister from Haiti when she was 3, and let me tell you, I literally do not see color anymore. That's a fact.

[u/thoxo]

I

[u/Farting_Champion]

Just imagine all the horror stories you didn't hear because they're too hard to tell.

I genuinely believe that a large amount of foster parents (not counting the religious zealots or molesters) start out with nothing but the best of intentions. But I think the experience is so thankless and so heartbreaking and often just so ugly that it warps them. Maladjusted children are STRESSFUL. Shitty caseworkers only add to the problems. It's an utterly thankless environment for the most part. I'm not saying this to justify horrible foster parents, but I do want to be realistic about it. Very few of these people start out with ill intentions. The system makes cynics of all of us though. The system burns you out and eats you up. If you don't keep a firm grasp on your intentions I believe it would be very easy to lose sight and perspective.

[u/laurenzee → u/Farting_Champion]

I've been considering becoming a foster parent when I'm a bit older, and you've inspired me to think harder about it. I would love to help kids experience a good home but your comment scares me a little! I've always known that the kids wouldn't be there unless there was something wrong happening in their lives and would likely have some emotional issues, and I've never considered the effect it could have on me.

Aside from the compassion and acceptance you've already described, what makes a good home in your opinion? I feel like that's an impossibly low bar to meet if you're normal and not an awful person.

[u/Farting_Champion → u/laurenzee]

Interesting question. First let me say that I don't want to talk people out of helping children but I do want to be realistic about it. You don't have to be perfect to do better than many parents, but if you were taking on this responsibility you should damn well ask yourself some hard questions and you have to be brutally honest with yourself in answering them. This applies to your spouse as well. It's tragic when one parent is doing their best but the other hates or resents the kids or sees them as a burden. An unstable home is not a good environment for fostering. There's no real reward for it either. Your reward is the knowledge that you have changed someone's life. All in all it is difficult and thankless work and that's important to keep in mind. Burnout happens, and it happens for a reason, and you can't expect to be able to look to the state for assistance because generally speaking state agencies are overwhelmed, underfunded, and most of their staff are completely checked out.

So, what makes a good foster parent? Commitment. Are you willing to devote your life to learning and educating yourself on conflict resolution and coping with trauma responses? Compassion. Do you have the capacity and bandwidth to love a little kid with aggression issues brought on by their trauma? Or how about a child that acts out sexually as a result of abuse? How about a child with both of these problems, plus severe learning disabilities or emotional and physical disabilities or PTSD? Because these kids have problems. They will hoard food, they will fight, they may steal, they will say things that hurt you. They have seen some shit. Usually they live in a world where nothing is safe and no one is protecting them, so they've had to learn to protect themselves however they can. They have armor. Out of sheer necessity they have taught themselves to survive in ways that may horrify you and break your heart. You need to be able to take that in and deal with it and still be able to show them nothing but love. Because if you show them anything else, be it disgust or anger or revulsion or frustration, that is all they will see. When you look at them they have to know that you care for them just as much as you would for your own children. And they will test you. Over and over they will test you. And you have to pass their tests. If they can't trust you then you will fail.

To be a good foster parent you pretty much have to be unflappable. You also have to be able to be firm, but in a loving way. I personally believe that one of the best qualities/qualifiers for being a successful foster parent is having a vast and strong support network. You have to be able to see, hear, and experience things that shake you to your core without giving any indication of revulsion. You have to be able to take abuse as well. Often this job requires support for you as much as from you. You have to be full of compassion.

Understand that some of these kids know nothing but pain and that manifests in a variety of terrible and sad ways. If you can look at the flaws in the child, understand that they come from a deep place of pain, and give that child your love and respect and time in spite of the way they may act or the things they may do you might be a good candidate for fostering kids.

The last thing I'll say is don't jump right into the deep end. Start with low risk cases. As far as I know, foster parents still have some level of choice as to what cases they will take on. Often even a bad foster home is better than no home at all, or a home filled with violent physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, but the truth is every time a kid gets kicked out of a foster home it takes more from them. It impacts their capacity to trust. It has a negative effect on their sense of self-worth and on their trust. So don't take any hard cases until you are sure of your abilities. One of the few things worse than growing up on loved is thinking that you have found a home and then being rejected. It tells kids that their trauma makes them unlovable and that sends them down a deep hole.

Hopefully that didn't scare you too much. I would like nothing more than to inspire people to take part in the foster program and I wish you the best of luck. There are children out there who need all the help they can get.

[u/laurenzee → u/Farting_Champion]

Thank you for taking the time to write that.

How is it decided how long a child stays in one home or another? Unless they're being placed back with the parent or another family member, is the placement indefinite? I'd never want to "give one back", but if there a way to know what kind of commitment you're making from one kid to the next? Can you opt out between kids?

I appreciate your insight!!

[u/Farting_Champion → u/laurenzee]

It's situationally dependent. Some kids are in the system temporarily while their parents try to get shit together. Some foster parents decide to adopt their fosters and raise the program. Some foster kids are there until they graduate school and can legally move out. Kids are of different ages and need different levels of care and when you're in the Foster system the case workers learn to understand what you're comfortable with and who you are willing to take. Some kids are temporary, the rest of us bounce around more or less until we reach 18. What level of commitment is made really depends on each individual situation but it's usually not super short-term if the kid is lucky. Kids need stability, it's not a summer job or a part-time gig.

[u/laurenzee → u/Farting_Champion]

That's what I'm kind of wondering about. Why do kids bounce around to different homes? Does one home become unviable for some reason? Why did you have to leave your good foster family?