As a foster parent you may never know if a foster child has medical issues when they are placed in your home. The foster parent can see a wide range of different medical issues. At times it can be up to the foster parent to try and find what is happening with the foster child medical issues. This could mean calling a foster child’s last school and speaking with the school nurse. A newly placed foster child states they have asthma, but the caseworker does not know a thing about it. The school nurse at his or her last school should have a record of this and can tell if the foster child received medication at school.

The foster child in care may not realize that they have a problem,... more

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A was placed in a group foster setting where he seem to find himself with more problems. He was fighting with other foster children. There were anger outburst,and he was unable to control his emotions.

C learned that her son A would not be allowed back to the home while the other children lived there. So, she had to choose between her children. The most unimaginable thing a mother could face. She was told if her son did return home to her that they would remove her other children, or her husband could move out with the other children. She knew that if A returned home, she could not be sure that she could prevent him from abusing his siblings.

This... more

A mother named C was married with four children. She was working two jobs, to help care for her family. During her time at work her husband started to sexually abuse their young children. The abuse continued for a number of years. C was unaware of the sexual abuse of her daughter and three sons. One day she found out what her children had been enduring. She divorced him and went to the police. Her husband was convicted of the sexual abuse of his own young children and was sent to prison. The children did receive some counseling and went on with their lives.

C found a man that loved her four children, she married him, and they had two little girls of their own. He adopted her four... more

It is not uncommon to see foster children later becoming parents that end up losing their children to foster care. When children come into foster care after surviving years of abuse and continue surviving in foster care for the rest of childhood can start the cycle of abuse.

A young boy 8 years old was placed into foster care after he was admitted in a psychiatric hospital. He had placed a noose around his neck to end his own life after suffering ongoing sexual abuse which started at the age of 3 months old and continued until he was admitted into the hospital. This little boy’s only way out of the agonizing pain that he had endured his entire life was to end his life.

He... more

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Four times as many girls as boys self-harm up to age 16. A study conducted in 2002 found that one out of every 200 teen girls regularly self-harm themselves.

These children are dealing with pain that they feel that they are unable to deal with and by self-harming releases some of the pain. The pain never goes away, so they feel the need to self–harm when the pain feels overwhelming to them. These children feel like they are unable to express or verbalize the inner turmoil that they are feeling. These children are feeling... more

A child causing deliberate self-harm may be not what you thought of when you started your journey of being a foster parent. These are the behaviors that are easier for you as the parent to identify as self –harming such as head banging or banging other body parts against walls, pinching self, biting self, and pulling hair and even eyelashes. You can see these behaviors in any age child. I dealt with these behaviors with a foster child as young as a ten months old. These behaviors can be identified quickly for a foster parent and addressed. If you foster children nine years or older, you may find yourself facing more extreme behaviors. In the beginning you may not realize... more

If your family has a big all day celebration of Easter, take into account that your foster child may not have experienced Easter like this before. This can be very overwhelming to a foster child and cause a lot of stress that could lead to negative behaviors.

Most foster children that I have parented have not experienced Easter as most of us have with church, visiting family, cook outs, dressing up in pretty clothes, pictures, Easter bunny, and the biggie, hunting Easter eggs. Holidays in the past, for foster children could have bad memories since a most foster children come from dysfunctional families. This can bring so many different emotions up for a foster child to deal with. Guilt... more

Can you be a foster parent and work fulltime? This seems to be a common question of people. The answer would depend on the individual person and how they cope with things. I personally did work fulltime when we started foster care for about a year. It is not easy but it can be done. Yes, you have to juggle things a lot and realize that things can be done maybe not always perfect. There will be days that you may feel totally overwhelmed but it will past as fast as it came. The important thing is that you are committed for the right reasons and becoming a foster parent to you is important. There will be hurdles that you will have to overcome because you are working, taking off work, coming... more

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With the older child, I always kept a change of linens with a blanket in the closet, so they could have access during the night if they did not want to wake me up. They had to take their wet bedding off and place it into the washer. They learned that the next morning they needed to take a shower. With older children, they do not want the rest of the house to know that is going on, so trying to help them with this will so allow them to learn to trust you.

With my younger ones I always had clean linens with a blanket in their room, so I would not have to wake the rest of the house gathering stuff up. Most of the time, I did not know until the next morning.... more

This seems to be a common problem that foster parents deal with. It can affect any age child. All most every foster child I have had wet the bed at some point. It is not uncommon to even see older foster children facing this problem. I even had a 13 year old that wet the bed when he first came to us. With some of the children it can be an ongoing problem that they struggle with. There are others that it is short term. With these children after they get settled in your home and realize that they are safe, the bedwetting will just fade away. Remember it can easily return for a number of different reasons it could be that they start to remember more of the abuse they have suffered, could... more