Feeling Sorry For or Having Empathy

It is our responsibility to teach these foster children to be productive and responsible members of society. By constantly making excuses and feeling sorry for these children gives them to feeling that the world owes them something. Yes, as abused foster children they are entitled to a safe home, food, security, love, expectance, be a child and to have parents that put them first. While most of these children have endured horrible family situations and abuse which we all have empathy for does not mean that that they should get a free pass.

While this may not be an issue with the foster children as young children, they become teenagers, and adults, and as they getting older comes the feelings that they are entitled and that everyone owes them is setting them up for failure.

When we moved last year my daughter was having some major problems with a teenage boy that escalated to the point of being physical. When I talked to the school about what was going on, I was given the excuse that he was a foster child (which I already suspected). Needless to say, this did not fly with me and it became a battle of sorts with the school staff. The school had turned the boy into a school bully (that is a whole another post) that was terrorizing all the students and even some staff. All because he had lived a hard life and was a foster child.

When these children are taught this behavior, it will be carried throughout their lives. When they get into adulthood with the attitude that everyone owes them something or that they do not have to play by the rules as others do, they are in for a rude awakening. You cannot move beyond things when you stay there feeling sorry for yourself instead of dealing with it so that you can move on.

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More reading:

Should Foster Parents Bond With Their Foster Children?

How to Help Foster Children