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We are parents to a 2 year old and are in the process of becoming licensed for foster to adopt.
Does anyone have any experience or tips they can share about explaining this process to a toddler? We've discussed explaining caring for the new baby as similar to babysitting while he/she is a foster placement, but then if it ends up as a permanent placement, how do you make the transition to sibling?
How do you help a child deal with their own grief upon reunification, if it occurs? Any advice or experience would be greatly appreciated.
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So long as you keep the conversation open, kids figure things out as they are able to understand them.
We have several books about foster care and adoption. Just go to Amazon and do a search under children's books for "Foster care". Zachary's New Home, Maybe Days, A Mother for Choco. There are a bunch. I do find that books are a way of both introducing and normalizing the foster care experience - for the kids in care and for the kids who are permanantly yours.
Our son came to us as a foster child when he was an infant and we finalized his adoption when he was two. From the time he was about 20 months we have been taking in emergency/short term placements (typically one night, maybe a weekend). He thinks of them as sleepovers - and has consistently been very welcoming and accomodating.
When he was three we had a foster son for about 10 months (5 months to just after he turned 1). The FS remained in daycare with our son so the transition wasn't so bad when FS was reunified with his parents. But we also signed our son up for horseback riding lessons the summer that FS reunified to fill the weekend time that would have been spent playing with FS.
Then we took in another baby about six weeks after FS left.
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