Do you have to be a 'kid person'?

Parenting is about meeting the needs of a child. If you have kids and think you love them, but are not open to caring about their friends and having them around a lot, or going to all of their activities and enjoying (or at least tolerating) everything from birthday parties to soccer matches to sleepovers, for their sake, you are not meeting their needs. If you are worried about being annoyed by kids, rather than worrying about whether you can handle their problems, you are not going to be able to meet their needs, regardless of what their legal status is. This is true whether your children are bio, foster, or adopted, or just the kids down the street whom your kids like. So, yes, I think that you DO have to be a kid person to adopt. No, you don't have to tolerate gross misbehavior or rudeness; even with someone else's children, it's OK to say, "No, you can't eat from the sugar bowl or lick the top of the grated cheese dispenser" And it's fine to say, "We sleep late on weekends, so don't ring our doorbell at 6 a.m. unless it's an emergency." And, yes, it's OK to feel annoyed about a specific thing, once in a while -- the kid who sulks because you don't let him/her text at the dinner table, or who plays loud music, knowing that you have the flu and a high fever. And indeed, it's perfectly reasonable to be ripping mad when your teen comes home way after curfew, without having called with a good excuse; after all, you were just about ready to call the police and were scared that he/she might have been in an accident. But if you find yourself annoyed a lot when kids are just being kids, no, you probably shouldn't adopt or foster.Remember that foster and adopted kids often come with difficult histories. These are not the kids down the street, who annoy you simply because they occasionally forget to say thank you, or put their shoes on the furniture. These are children who may have had abusive or alcoholic parents, who may have been in a succession of foster homes, who may never have been encouraged to do well in school, who may have stolen food to survive, and who may have frequent nightmares and bedwetting episodes related to their emotional distress. These are kids who may run away, swear at you, or hoard food under the bed till it grows rotten and stinky. They may not be very lovable, at least at first, but the process of building attachment means that you sometimes have to "fake it till you make it". Yes, you may feel like a babysitter at times, but you always have to act like a Mom, no matter whether the kids are bio, adopted, or foster.Sharon