Tell me about your foster placements...

zarapipe

1st post here. I have had fostering on my mind a lot lately. I would love to add more children into our family, and fostering and/or fostering to adopt keeps on coming up. We would like a girl, no older than 6. I don't even know if you can specify these things, but that would be best for our family, as we only have two bedrooms. What kinds of kids can I expect, can I specify ages/sex/disabilities? How long did it take for your fist placement, what are their ages, disabilities, challenges, how much time did you take off work? I am just starting to study the process...

zarapipe

Thanks Fredalina. Interesting about the birth order... I did read that I think on the nckids website. Would it be a problem if the kids are near the same age?

mamatojts

Everything fred said - especially the birth order.

Lucky507

I would agree about the birth order thing.  We have had our foster child for almost a year and he is very needy of attention and not very independent at all.  It would just add one more element of craziness. A foster child is a lot of work.  There are a ton of appointments, visits, paperwork, and meetings which can be a challenge and then many foster children need a lot of extra TLC, rules, setting clear boundaries, and constant monitoring. I am a primary teacher and I thought that it wouldn't be that hard but having someone constantly pushing the limits day in and day out can be hard.  The second I give in a little it completely backfires on me.  I am in no way saying don't do it because it has been the most wonderful thing I have ever done in my life but it is hard and you need to make sure that you are ready for it especially with a young child of your own.  

Just really make sure that you can commit to these challenges because the worst thing to do would be to take in a child and then decide that it is too hard and have them replaced.  Many of these kids have been placed in many homes which is so hard for them.  My little guy has been in 7 homes and he is 5.  There were times when I didn't know if I could handle it anymore but I was not going to give up on giving him a loving, stable home.  Good luck with the decision.