Every foster parent brings unique strengths and experience to their role. Every child has different needs, so it is a great thing that many different types of people become foster parents, but there are still some key things every foster parent needs. 1. Love This is key for any parent so it is also important for foster parents. It may seem obvious, but I am saying it anyway because we’ve encountered some people who seem to think foster parents should or do love foster kids l

Foster parents are used to dealing with the ugly realities of this life, but we may not think about the fact that removing children from unsafe home situations doesn’t prevent them from facing abuse from their peers. The unfortunate truth is that kids who are different in any way are more likely to be bullied and kids in foster care are no exception. Bullying is actually a big problem for many foster kids for a number of reasons. Some may have experienced bullying before ente

Respite care can be a great support for foster parents, especially treatment foster parents, especially when the kids have a good experience. Because foster kids have experienced abrupt removals from their own home and/or other foster homes, going to a new place may cause a lot of anxiety. Advance planning and conversations can help ease the anxiety and help you have more peace of mind so you can take care of yourself while your kids are in respite care. Foster parents know t

Laundry: one of the unending struggles of parenthood. All parents have pondered the mystery of how such small people can produce so much laundry. Much to my surprise, even something as commonplace laundry can be more challenging for foster families. Most recently, I rediscovered this fact when we were doing respite care for two young boys. I expected to have increased laundry with the increased number of children, but figured I would only have to do a few more loads while the

I always say that anything can happen in foster care, and yet I am still surprised in big and small ways. This week was one of those weeks that brought big surprises. I mentioned in a former post that we had court this week and the Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) trial would begin unless our little guy’s father chose to surrender his parental rights. I fully expected a TPR trial because we were told that the father was not going to agree to surrender his parental rights.

Stranger Danger is a basic concept that parents teach their kids in order to keep them safe. Unfortunately, the concept of stranger danger, like many things, is much more complicated for children in foster care. Not only are foster children taken from everyone familiar and placed in a family with total strangers, they also have a large number of people coming in and out of their lives, many of whom are basically strangers. Our little guy is the friendliest child I have ever m

Last week, our little guy came home from a visit and had explosive gastrointestinal distress (I will spare you the horrifying details) because his father fed him excessive amounts of fruit and juice. This is not the first time he drank so much juice during a visit that he had diarrhea, but it was the most intense reaction he’s had. Unfortunately, I can only report to the caseworker what happened (again) and ask her to try and prevent it from happening again. Our little guy’s