Help! I'm getting nervous!

I've had 2 toddlers and an one infant - all were perfectly wonderful children. None of them had any problems that were not "normal" problems. I'm sure the ages of my fks had much to do with this. Every case is different....but it is true that these children could have been exposed to things you would not want any child exposed to.. Good luck.

I guess it really depends on the age you're looking to adopt. I worry about that, too, in my own family! Although all of my six kids are adopted, I got most very young and they weren't exposed to much. Now that I'm looking at older child adoptions, I worry what kind of behaviors or even words and attitudes, they may be exposed to now. I think there is always the possibility, but like you said, each child is unique so it is definately not a "rule"! ;~) Kelly

Thanks for the information. We are still taking our classes and hoping for the best.

I was worried about the exact same thing. We have our first fosterchild...now 3 yrs old. I feel bad for saying this, but she is much more behaved than my husband's bio kids that live with us. I think in our classes, they almost overtalked about problems, issues, etc.... that we were expecting big issues and when we got our first fosterchild, it's like we are amazed how good she is and we keep 'waiting' for their to be some type of big problems. good luck to you!

fostering 4 years,17 childern, all childern are good you may find sometime they need to be redirected in their young lifestyles but all we have had were and are wonderful childern. have just adoted twin girls 8 years old. they wer foster, no other foster families inthis area wanted because of their behavior 3 years ago. they are star honor students and the light of my life.

We've been foster parents for a few years. We've had very well behaved children, and we've had children who very much exhibited the behaviors you hear about in your pre-certification training. We've had children who were neglected, abused, and all were emotionally traumatized. We have fostered children older than, the same age as, and younger than our kids. If I had to generalize, I'd suggest that you foster children who are younger than your own children. There ARE safety reasons for this suggestion. If you do foster children close to the ages of your children, or older than your children, you have to have different boundaries than the 'typical' home. You must maintain line-of-sight supervision. The children may not play alone together in any of the bedrooms. We don't have toys in our kids' rooms. We have an area for them to play in the main area of the house. Bedrooms are strictly for sleeping. Additionally we were usually careful to maintain the 'Rule of Three'; that is, a minimum of three people in a room together, thus limiting problems that can arise when two people are alone together, and somewhat limiting the possibility for false allegations. There are foster children who are more seriously emotionally traumatized than others and they do have behaviors beyond your wildest imaginings, even at young ages. People don't believe this until they live it. YOUNG children CAN have very serious emotional issues. Since emotions are only visible through behavior you can have one hectic lifestyle change when one of these children enters your home. You will get to experience all the ridicule and be labelled as a 'poor parent' for 'not controlling your misbehaving child'. You will get to experience first hand the results of neglect, or multiple moves and lack of attachment to a primary caregiver. I had a foster child who at 3 years old was able to manipulate adults, was self-injurious soley to get attention, and who was savvy about reading adult behavior patterns beyond most pre-teens. All this before this child was able to talk in full sentences.I had another foster child (6 years old) who was able to have a detailed discussion with the cw's about meth production. This foster child had also been exposed to adult sexual behavior and felt this was normal and acceptable and so incorporated this into play time with my children. That child didn't know what a 'husband' was, never before having encountered anyone who had one. (I think that foster experience brought about culture shock for the child AND for me!)We've had kids who were a breeze; we've had kids who we thought would drive us crazy. I mean around the bend, as in, needing psychiatric help.Young children can have problems that are very difficult to work through. Older children can have surprisingly few problems even after years of living in chaos. Sadly, the overwhelming majority of children in the foster system have been seriously impacted in a negative way. While it is good to have hope that the children who come to your home will be some of the children who aren't seriously traumatized, it would be naive to PLAN on that.We've adopted four children from foster care. All of our children came to us at two years of age or under when placed with us. All were prenatally exposed to substance abuse. Three of them probably have fetal alcohol effect (FAE). One of them has other issues as well. All of them are wonderful children whom we love dearly. If we went back in time I'd adopt the children we have all over. No question. BUT it was not a simple process, and there were times when I thought we'd taken on WAY more than we could chew. (And we've 'only' adopted toddlers!)I didn't even go into the difficulties of working within the system. THAT'S for another post! LOL

I have no children, bio, foster or adopted... I am beginning my Homestudy to adopt infant/toddler boys, so, my opinions are not based on ACTUAL experience with ACTUAL children. I think you have to look at this with your eyes WIDE open, but also with your heart. My Adoption Application asked what types of children I would consider, before making those decisions I did some research about all of the issues I did not understand. The application is multiple choice, so I knew what I had to research. I'm not talking about in-depth research, but a Google search so that I at least had an idea of what types of problems may arise with each issue. I then thought very carefully about what issues I could handle. Not only what issues I could handle in a toddler, but how I would handle those same issues in a 16 year old (since the child will grow older). For example; I think I can handle Spina-Bifida in an infant or toddler, but in a 16 year old it would be much more difficult. I'm afraid I cannot picture myself at over 50 lifting a 150-200 pound teenager in and out of the bath, bed, etc... Obviously this would be a worse case scenario of the child never being able to walk and the child being unable to lift himself. I went through each issue the same way, looking at the worst outcome. Reading these Forums is also a great place to learn more about many uncommonly known issues and more day-to-day realities of living with them (the issues). Another example; before joining this site, I though Attachment Issues were something easy to deal with. I now realize just how much it takes to just “live” with a RAD child, let alone having success with their attachment issues. I’ve learned that you really do not know which children will get over these issues and which children will always be RAD. To sum it all up, be sure to let the Social/Case Worker know what issues you are willing to accept. And, as is mentioned by many members on this site, ASK about the child(ren) BEFORE bringing the child(ren) into your home. After saying all of that… I have to add that in my HEART, I know that if I had a bio child with ANY issue, I would still love and accept that child. We are in a unique position to be able to ‘choose’ which issues we can and cannot accept, therefore, it is our responsibility to be VERY sure about what those issues are before we take a child(ren) into our hearts and more importantly, before they take us into theirs. Of course, none of this helps when the issues aren’t known…

Since most people have posted about "good" expereinces, I thought I'd post. We are first time foster-adoptive parents and our children are very challenging to parent. Very. That said, we love them very much and would keep them and adopt them if we were given the chance. Its amazing what you can handle when you choose to do so, even when you never thought you would want to parent "difficult" children.

Fostering parenting has a very poor image in the media and in our communities unfortunately. When you hear about foster parenting (for the most part) it is when something has gone wrong. Unfortunately, this means that some of your family, friends and coworkers are going to wonder why you would subject yourself to this (whatever negative impressions they have inserted here). This negativity will also transfer to the children that you have in your care and sometimes you will receive some horrible comments or at the least insensitive comments that surprise you. There are whole discussions just on what we can't believe people have said! Every child is different and there are challenges with every child (biological, foster or adopted). My sister and brother (biological) both had ADHD and learning disabilities. They were incredibly challenging as children and teenagers. Fortunately they are doing wonderfully as adults. It always makes me cringe though when people judge my children based on whether they were born to me or not. They use that as criteria for determining if they will turn out "good" or if I will have problems. I foster babies and toddlers and they have overall been normal in their development and mental health. If not, we address each challenge as it comes along just as you would with a child born to you biologically. As some people have suggested it might be helpful for you to discuss what things you think you might be able to handle and what you won't (disabilities, sexual abuse, etc.) but I would even caution against being so caught up in that that you miss an opportunity. Sometimes life throws you an unexpected challenge that makes you grow outside of your preconceived notions. I know I have!

I don't blame you for being nervous!! Sometimes, I read posts on this site and question my sanity for considering foster/adopt. BUT - I also belong to a forum for folks with the same disease I have, and one thing I learned is that you tend to most often see extremes....these are 'support' boards, so you frequently see/hear from people needing support. So, long winded reply, I try to keep in mind that for every ecstatic or depressing story I see there are probably tens of stories right in the middle!

This is excellent and very real advice!

We have the opposite of what was taught to us in class. They did an excellent job prepared us for the worst. We have 2 fs age 5. They are good. We do have some behavior problems but nothing we couldn't handle. We just had to come up with a reward system that worked for them. I don't think it is so much the children's it is the bio parents.

The kids that come into care are most likely going to come from a very different environment than the one we provide the kids in our home. There will be conflict as they adjust, my four year old is saying words that I don't think I have ever uttered, of course he learned in from our 3 year old FS who talks like a sailer. On the flip side my 4-year old showed my 3-year old FS exactly where I hide the cookies and how much fun it is to run around the house naked. I have had kids who had 'extreme' behaviors and I found the more 'extreme' the behavior, the more likely the other children in my house (adopted or foster) are going to stay away and try their best to act the opposite. On the flip side, bringing these children into our home has opened my son and daughters minds and hearts. As they grow, they understand and get to see first hand how love, attention, and caring can make a child blossom while understand how abuse and neglect can change a person. I agree, that you need to ALWAYS monitor the children at play for at least the first year. Not that foster children are 'bad' but it is most likely that their lives prior to coming to your home they didn't have many boundaries. They may not understand what is appropriate play, language, boundaries. Also I completely disagree that adopting/fostering older children isn't a good idea when you have younger children. The most inspiring loving child I have fostered and adopted was 13. The most difficult child, who's negativity rubbed off on the family the most was only 2.

I have a good friend who adopted two children from foster care. They are both manipulative and have anger issues. But they are good kids. They can be overwhelming. But even in their short lives, they went through so much. And two of my direct neighbors were in the "foster" life. They both have had kids that totally disrupted their lives...but they still loved them. I am still scared for the "what if's"...but I know it will work out the way it should.