please help if you were in foster care

Not a former foster child, but have two whom we will be adopting. Just wanted to say, what you wrote is wonderful. I would like to believe all foster parents feel the way you do, but know, not all do. Good luck in the future. It sounds like any child placed with you, will be very lucky.

Thank you for your kind words, I wish they all did too! I hear some fp say and do some pretty mean things... :-( I can't wait to get more... a few more weeks!!

I'm a former foster. Lots of things really make it awkward going into a home. My thing was that I couldn't understand that if my parents didn't care then why would this person. I think just showing you care is the biggest thing. You may not get the reaction you would think but they may not be getting the reaction they thought either.

Big Momma, I was a CPS worker for 10 years and I can say we would have climbed the highest mountain to find foster parents like you! I think what you do and are willing to do (go that extra mile) and take what you can from it -- not looking for it to satisfy your needs but the child and the bioparents is the best thing that you can do AND you already DO IT! Keep up the good work. Any kids placed in your home will be lucky to have you.

Thank you.... that means a lot to hear that... just yesterday one of my kids ive had for a couple months got to talk to her mom for the first time (just got out of jail) she was sooooooo excited and i felt so happy for her, shes been wanting to talk to her for so long....it was awesome...they will be reunited very soon and i think it will be a good thing....

Thats wonderful! I was a foster child and Hated it! My foster mother was the worst, I went into foster care not really understanding the whole thing but being pulled out of school in the middle of class and thrown into a new home ( and life) I was scared didnt know what to do or think. I understand now why i was taken away but when i was younger i didnt get it! Having someone who would have stood beside me and held my hand, someone to say its going to be ok. Cry if you need to would have been nice. anything to make me feel safe would have been nice. But what i got was a list of rules, shown to my room handed a box of used clothing told to unpack it put it in my dresser and come out for dinner. I complied with tears rolling down my face came out sat and the table and was told " stop crying or you'll need to wash your face" After a month of being there ( and running away 3 times) my brother killed himself. I wasnt allowed to see my mother though after finding this out i didnt care and went to see her ( i mean my bother just died i wanted my mom) when i was placed back into my foster home. she looked at me and told me to get over it. I ran away agian was sent to a phycistist where he told my worker that my problem was my foster home. I would have LOVED to have a foster home like yours and i would have LOVED and would have been willing to call you my F.mom ( foster mom) i called her an evil ( we will leave it there lol) This is why Im becoming a foster parent. Because i want to be that "mother" that i didnt get, i want to do whatever it takes to make a child happy, to help through the childs ups and downs and watch the child grow. all those things!!!

You sound like a truly great foster parent! I was also a foster kid at the age of 13. I was also openly gay and not exactly the most affectionate person on Earth. I think the best thing you can do is to be non-judemental and give as much affection as you can, while still being respectful of space. Focus on the important stuff like being safe and healthy and forget the rest. I remember being asked my favorite food, which was nice but only works for one meal, when what they should have asked was what do I absolutely hate (onions!) that made me feel bad for not eating what I was served. Kids it that situation have so little control, it's those tiny little things we as adults don't think about that mean the world.

The most important thing is do whatever you can to keep siblings together if it is safe to do so. My brother and I were split up because of his disabilities and then he died in care so I'm very big on keeping siblings together. Another thing is, don't have expectations about the children no matter how many children you've fostered or had. Praise them for every little step they take higher than what they were and punish as little as can be effectively done because punishment just might not feel the same to them as it does to another child regardless of the form. My foster mother provided the best experience for me that she could because she always treated me like I was her child even though reunification was always the goal. It was definitely a shock being taken out of class to go live with a complete stranger though. I really didn't know what I was there for and that made it a lot worse. I had ideas, but no one could ever really confirm anything in a way that was believable and unbiased. No matter what you do, foster care is going to be hard on the child even if they see it as a good thing because everything they have ever known is completely changed. Supporting and advocating for them is absolutely the best thing you can do. Seems to me you're doing a wonderful job and your foster children are very lucky.

From your post, you sound like you are really trying, and that's great. but as a former foster kid i can tell you this, some times, there is nothing you can do. I was placed in a wonderful foster home, they had animals, the parents were so nice, we ate every night, they even bought me a horse after i was there a month. but you know what? it was too normal. there was no drinking, no random men in the house, no one coming in from the bar at 3am, no fighting. there are some kids, like myself that just don't know how to cope with normal. we don't even want it, because we can't trust it. it took me 3 months to blow out of the home.all you can do is be yourself, and maybe like me, one of your kids will look back and see what marriage, and a good family is supposed to look like, and believe me, I owe them a great deal.

That is so absolutely right, FKnowFM. It's hard to trust "normal" when all you've ever known was anything but. I still have trouble with that sometimes.

My siblings and I were in foster care. I was only in for a short time and we have different dads, so I went with my dads relatives but they couldnҒt (wouldnt?) take my half-siblings. It sounds like you would be a really good foster parent and alot of the problems we had would be fixed just by having foster parents that were caring and would put forth some effort. I think part of the issue is that after years and years, foster parents just get sick of it. Every week is another kid with another problem and they wonҒt go out of their way to help. Like when my sister was a sophomore in high school. She was staying with rather new foster parents and going to a really good school but the foster parents marriage fell apart and without any warning, all the kids in their home were sent elsewhere. It was a week before finals, and my sister was placed in a home in a small town across the county with a very small rural high school that had already had finals. No one - not the new foster parent, the old foster parents, the social worker, her law guardian would drive her back to her old school for finals. The new foster mom enrolled her in the new high school. She received incompletes for all of her classes at the old school and the new school didnt offer most of them. The counselor was pissed she didnҒt go to the county vocational high school because she could live anywhere in the county and go there. All she took 3rd and 4th quarter was a bunch of stupid electives because she couldnt take chemistry and geometry without passing the first two quarters and they treated it like she had failed. New foster parents are good at going out of their way to do stuff like driving 40 miles a day for two weeks, but after awhile, foster parents stop caring. And alot of people who have good intentions but no money become foster parents. Its a way for stay at home moms to pick up extra cash to make ends meet, but that leaves no extra money. My brother once had a new foster mom go ape**** at him for making a local call to a friend that he didnҒt know wasnt free. It cost $2.80 and she acted as if he had charged thousands of dollars because she didnҒt know where she would find an extra 3 bucks. She spanked him with a big plastic pipe because of that. All of that was when they were teens and foster homes for teen are pretty crappy. The foster family I remember the most was the one we called the mean old peopleӔ. They probably werent trying to be mean and werenҒt all that old, but thats what we called them. They probably meant well, but all I remember was being very confused, bored and hungry. It was awkward and uncomfortable and they really creeped me out. My sister and I were placed there right after we got taken. I was 6 and my sister was 14. Our brother went to a group home and we didnҒt know where he was. He was 11. I remember they had a room in the front of the house with a bookcase full of games, toys and books but it was mainly for little kids. We were in shock and didnt feel like doing anything. All we did was sit on the sofa staring out the window bored out of our minds. There wasnҒt a tv in there. We watched a few Disney movies but they didnt let us watch tv on our own. They had stuff for dinner like really dry chicken and pork chops for dinner and we never ate much meat at home, and I told them I wasnҒt hungry. I was absolutely starving but never ate much of anything there. They made us go to bed at 8pm and it was still light outside and really hot and humid so we couldnt sleep and would just stay up all night. I get now that they were probably following some sort of perfect parenting manual and that all foster kids are suppose to have these rigid structured lives but that was the absolute worst possible thing to do. Everything normal in our lives was gone and we were being treated like we were being punished. We hated those people. What would have been so wrong with letting us watch tv and eat pizza or have balongie sandwiches? Alot of foster homes have no flexibility. With a huge number of kids they have to have a schedule but that really makes kids feel worse. Now everything they know is gone and they have to follow someone elseҒs rules. They feel completely out of control and like no one gives a **** about how they feel or what they want or what is important to them. To me, the most important things that a foster family can have is unconditional acceptance. I dont buy ғunconditional love since that comes off as being incredibly phoney if someone "loves" you immediately. A big problem me and my siblings had was very judgmental foster families that made sure we knew everything about us was wrong - our clothes, our family, what we like, what we did. Everything was wrong, wrong, wrong. Just because we were removed from our home doesnԒt make everything there bad. And just because our family is different than yours doesnt make you better. Every foster family we were in and the relatives I lived with were all very much YOU HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING OUR WAY OR ELSE. EVERYTHING YOU LIKE IS WRONG! and that made everything a big conflict. So what if we want to watch certain tv shows or eat certain food.Those are the traditions in our family and thatҒs what is important to us. We didnt chose to leave our home and we didnҒt ask to live in a foster home. Finally now that my siblings and I are finally reunited and living together we do everything like it was back before we were taken. We eat the same stuff, we do the same stuff. Its like we have to continue living our childhoods because they were disrupted by being taken away. The other thing I'll add is that siblings shouldn't be separated no matter what. If there isn't a big enough foster home then they should go to a group home together. At least they are together and none of us saw any value in being in a family over a group home. The foster home were worst and more abusive than anything that regularly happened in our home. The only reason we were put into foster care was my mom's boyfriend raped my sister and my mom wouldn't leave him.

[QUOTE=shiloh13]My siblings and I were in foster care. I was only in for a short time and we have different dads, so I went with my dads relatives but they couldnҒt (wouldnt?) take my half-siblings. It sounds like you went through close to what I did. except I was alone, all my siblings were either older or stayed with my mother. It's funny how awkward I felt going in to a new home...and now as a foster mom...I realize they must have felt just as awkward and unsure as we did. Sometimes there are no words you can say to a hurting confused scared kid. you WANT to say, "I'm sorry your mom and dad suck and can't get their crap together" but you can't. all you can do is live your life and take them along with you, and hope they will eat...and sleep at night...and maybe someday if they are with you long enough, come to you for comfort, laugh with you, reach for your hand on their own. sometimes they leave before they ever get to that point, and you hope you are a good memory for them. my hope for you is that your life is going well now. and thats the best thing we can do for ourselves. be awesome people despite the past.

I realize this is an old thread but I'm going to respond anyway. I was 12, about to be 13, when I went into foster care and by the time I turned 18 I had been in 15 placements. The OP sounds like the perfect foster parent, someone who's doing it for the kids and understand their perspective (that mom is mom when you're hurt in the hospital even if you think she's a low-life). I think it's sad when I se foster parents refer to getting a newborn placed with them as "striking gold" and a healthy, white baby girl as a "dream placement". It shouldn't be about meeting the wants and needs of the foster parents. Foster care is not about supplying children to people, it's about helping children. As others have mentioned one thing I remember is how awkward it was going into someone else's home. You don't know how to act, what to say and the whole thing is just uncomfortable. It would help if the foster parents are reassuring and make an effort to help the child feel included and feel at home. One thing I really resented when coming to a new place, whether a foster home or institution, was the list of rules I was always presented with as one of the first things. It's extremely unwelcoming and makes you feel like a problem that needs to be dealt with. Of course the kid needs to be aware of the rules but it doesn't have to be presented the first thing and doesn't have to be so formal.