Foster Parents Dealing With Children Living in Limbo

These children are not concerned about therapy, counseling, or dealing with what is happening because in their mind foster care is just a short stay until they go back home. When children spend weeks then months believing any day they are going to walk out the foster home door to return home this does not benefit them to move forward in their life. The caseworkers make it sound like all the parents have to do is work their plan and the children return but the truth is most parents do not want to work the plan. At every visit, some parents make it seem like the child will be returned home any day and they have completed everything when in fact they have not even taken the first step.

You cannot force a foster child to start addressing their needs and stop living in the hope that the knock at the door is for them to return home. I have seen and dealt with older foster children that were able to understand to some point what was happening but that does not change the damage that is done with all this waiting for something that never happens. With the younger kiddos it is so very confusing.

Flourishing while living a life of uncertainty and in a stay of limbo is difficult for anyone but then add all the issues foster children are trying to deal with. A foster home should only be a short term placement, but instead, the courts plan on making this the foster children’s home. Children need to grow up in a home, not a foster home which is two very different things. A child living years in the foster care system does major damage that can last a lifetime, at least that is my personal belief.

I will share a personal experience with one of my most difficult foster children in the hope that some may understand that what you may see may not be the entire picture.

Continued.....

More reading:

A Mother for 8 Years and Then…….

What is the Priority Children or Drugs?

Is Parenting a Right or a Privilege?