How to respond?

missmolly511

So after a lot of thought and talk, my husband and I have decided to adopt a slightly older child (2-6 years old) from foster care. We've only mentioned it to a few people, mainly close friends and family (many of whom knew we were interested in adoption already) but I was surprised at how many responded with some variation of "What if he/she hurts your own child? I could never risk that." What do you say to people who tell you this?

lizlemon2

Congrats on your decision. Best decision we ever made.

I would say something to the tune of , thank you for your concern . Like all parents, we will deal with things as they come up. Not all foster children hurt other children.

LIQueen

lizlemon2:

Congrats on your decision. Best decision we ever made. I would say something to the tune of , thank you for your concern . Like all parents, we will deal with things as they come up. Not all foster children hurt other children.

 

If I was in that specific situations I would respond with, "when my BIOLOGICAL sister and I were younger, we used to hit each other, pull each other's hair and say really bad things to each other....is that what you mean....you mean what siblings do anyways?"

Why do people think these children will all act like murders or something? 

elissaann26

I would be honest and give them a glimpse into your plan of how you are going to prevent this.  I don't mean to sound snarky by this next comment, but it is a valid concern that you need to make sure you are prepared for.  However despite the validity of the concern, it isn't really the business for random people to be asking you.  But if you choose to share your plan, I think it will show them that not only have you thought about this concern, you have discussed it and will address the situation in order to prevent this.

Some examples could be not accepting children with extreme anger issues or those who have been sexually abused.  Or you may have a plan in place so that there are two adults around for the first few months so that if your daughter needs ot be removed by an adult that can happen while another adult is able to deal with the newly adopted child.  Or you may simple not allow the children together unsupervised until you have built trust.  

When we were telling people that we were becoming foster parents, we had TONS of concerns (valid and not) thrown at us.  What about this?  Have you thought about that?  I feel that most people meant well, so I took it as an opportunity to educate them on how we were planning on dealing with this, that and this other thing they probably hadn't thought about.  Soon they realized that we were going into this prepared and stopped trying to figure it out for us. 

GL! 

Dr.Loretta

"We are undergoing training about this, and feel confident in our decision. I hope you can be happy for us,"