Foster Parents - Privacy Issue Question

FosterMomExtraordinaire

What do you do when you have a child that is extremely talkative about their reason for removal?

We do not share our childrens background information, however, we have a 6 year old who is extremely talkative (due to some special needs, etc).  Everyone in our family knows exactly what his reason for removal is, because he has told them.

In one way, it makes me feel like we aren't doing our job of protecting his privacy, but what can I do?  We've talked with his therapist about all of this...

Cissi64

About the only thing you can do is try to talk to the child and tell them not to share everything and/ or change the subject when they child starts spewing.  It may not work, though. Our oldest three who were adopted from foster care wnet through a phase where they told everyone.  The problem was, they were infants and toddlers  when they were removed so didn't really know the whole story.  Sometimes they made things up ( birth parent fantasies).  I spent a lot of time correcting their stories because I felt like since they had already spilled the beans, the least I could do was make sure the story was accurate.

ctbride08

Its such a fine line to walk - because on the one hand, they need to have their privacy respected and should learn to respect it for themselves, but also you dont want to add shame or guilt or awkwardness by not allowing them to talk about things.  I dont have any good answers since we are still learning to walk the line ourselves but i do think its important not to make them feel like they cant talk about it but instead teaching healthy boundaries and appropriate context.