Conflicts between Bio child and Foster child. Help!

I do not want to sound negative but, our family has now been in a similar situation for 9 months. Our fs is not usually physically aggressive. He is very passive aggressive and there is daily conflict between him and our oldest son. They are both 10. FS is 1 week older. Even though you may really want to help your fd you may want to consider letting someone else take over. We fear we have threatened our relationship with our own son for the sake of the fs. Our fs is meeting adoptive parents and will be leavin no later than June. We pray we can hang on til than. He has been our 1st placement and we will be more cautious to everyones feelings if we continue to foster.

Thank you for your honest reply. I've realized that I didn't post this topic in the correct topic and have moved it to the support section.

We found that going younger than our youngest was the best way to avoid the kinds of conflict you describe. We did have one older FC that did well, but when we tried to do other kids in amongst the ages of our kids already at home we ran into problems. We found that a conflict with the oldest child was usually a big issue. That whole first born thing is very strong in some children and having their position in the family 'threatened' is sometimes something that is beyond their ability to tolerate.With our younger kids it was not a position issue, but a safety issue. We had kiddos come to us who'd been abused in various ways (neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse) and sometimes these things are NOT KNOWN up front. While the kids were not aggressive, they did, and taught, our younger kids things that we did not want them to do. This can take years to work through.One sib set we had was close in age to our (then) youngest. This didn't go so well because they all (foster kids and my kids) had needs that competed for my attention - BIG time. I mean extraordinary needs; attachment problems, developmental delays, speech delays, cognitive delays...with all the attending in home therapies. I had speech therapists and Early Intervention therapists and all kinds of caseworkers for 4 kids all coming in and out. That was pretty wild for awhile.All this to say that sometimes a foster placement just is NOT working out. You could try some family counseling, and talking with your cw. Some cw's are good about helping foster families work through things; others not so much. Find out what resources you have and use them. If things are not resolving, though, you might need to consider having your foster child moved.

I would say too, that it's not a good idea to go older than your oldest child. Your oldest can feel that someone else has usurped their rightful position in the family and cause some serious damage.We've taken kids younger than our youngest, but made the mistake one time of taking a boy only 6 months younger than our youngest (also a boy). Those 16 months were the longest, hardest, most unpleasant, horrible months we've gone through. Both boys harassed each other so bitterly every single day. Very exhausting.Now we have a sib set who are 2 years, 3 years and 5 years younger than our youngest bio child and are girls, except for the baby. They don't get along the greatest, but it's certainly a lot better than our other placement was.I guess what I'm saying is... to your son, it probably appears that you've replaced him with someone else and to add insult to injury (in his mind) that "someone" is a girl!I would recommend having a long chat with him--- To reassure him of his place in the family and to ask him if he can cope just a few more months. Perhaps, you or your dh can take him out by himself once a week on a set day and time (so he can look forward to it) and spend some one on one time with just him.Just some thoughts and ideas from our experience.