Young Foster Child as Care Giver - Comprise

I have talked in detail about foster children struggling with being the mother figure or care giver role before coming into care. Older foster children struggling with being the responsible care giver and how to find a comprise that would be a benefit to the foster child and the foster parents. I have also talked about younger foster children also struggling with this issue and shared an experience with one of my foster sibling sets.

The bother sister sibling group that I fostered had major issues. They felt like they could not be separated for any reason including sleeping, bathing, therapies, doctor appointments, etc. When they had to be separated, then the screaming, kicking, hitting, throwing things fits would begin for both children. With any separation it would take me and my husband both to deal with them, which was unfair for the other children. This left us having to come up with a way for both children to learn and understand that everything would be okay for both of them when they needed to be separated.

My gut feeling is that the little girl was reacting to her brother and that she needed to be shown that someone else could care for her while being away from her brother. Finally, I decided to go with my gut and take her on an errand with just me. Granted, I had to carry her to the van kicking and screaming which I am sure had my neighbors thinking once again that we were crazy. I took her to a drive up errand were the people know that I do foster care (since I did not want a lot of questions). We were only gone from the house for about 20 minutes, most of the time she continued screaming and kicking towards the end she was just screaming. Her brother screamed the entire time until we walked through the door.

The next outing with her she started with the screaming with no kicking great progress. We were gone around 45 minutes do drive errands. On the way home, we stopped at a store where I new everyone and at this point she was only crying. The next couple of outings we would go out in public more and she would cry when leaving the house, then in a period of time, there would be more whining. Her brother was not adjusting like she was, but in time I felt that he would see that she was okay allowing him to adjust to the change.

The next outing my baby daughter went, by the time that her (my foster daughter) was buckled into her care seat, she had stopped crying. Within a few more outings she wanted to go without her brother and was fine. He was never was content with her leaving but in a few weeks he would stop crying once she left the house but would sit waiting for her to return.

The little girl accepted that she would be okay without her brother, and that we could also care for her. This was not only about learning to be away from her brother but also that she could play with other children, be independent herself, learn to trust others, and mostly learn that adults could or allow adults to care for her without fearing being hurt. She is the one that allowed someone else besides her 4 year old brother to care for her, someone just had to show her that it was possible.


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