This is something that you may end up seeing a lot through out your time fostering. If you suspect that one of your foster children is abusing another foster child, biological children, pets or others, you need to step in, find out what is happening and deal with it quickly.

It is not uncommon to see young children initiating sexual acts towards another young child. They are acting out what has been done to them. They may not even realize it is wrong or that there is something wrong with this behavior. Most abused children have lived most of their lives in bad situations and abuse in most cases is all the children know. They do not know how to react when faced with disappointment, anger, sadness, sharing, and others things they face in an appropriate manner. They react to things the way they have been raised which is violence, aggression and abuse.

A lot of the situations and foster children just need to learn that these behaviors are not acceptable. You may have to sit down and explain this to them in detail and tell them why it is not acceptable. You must give them other options instead of just telling them not to do the abusive behaviors. They have not had someone to show them that when they get mad at someone you tell that person he or she hurt your feelings, or if someone hits them, to tell the adult so they can take care of the hitting. Remember, in these children’s lives the parents or adults in their lives may have been the ones abusing them, so it may be a hard concept for them to understand that an adult now is there to protect them.

This is something that you will be repeatedly teaching the child that is abusing. Problems such as this, that have been learned over a period of time will not clear up overnight. In most cases if you continue working with the foster child and staying on top of the situation, you can deal with it and teach the foster child not to abuse.

I will be sharing a family's struggle with an abusive foster child in the next few postings.

Related article at Adoption.com:
Abusive Child