Foster Parenting, Foster Child, Foster Care Blog - Major Life Events with Foster Children

02/15/08

Major Life Events with Foster Children

Posted by : Lanette in Foster Care Blog at 09:08 pm , 433 words, 513 views
Categories: Daily Life, Your Family

This week has been a crazy and stressful week for me and my entire family. My mother had a massive heart attack leaving her too weak to endure open heart surgery. After a few days of building her lungs up she underwent a five bypass surgery to her heart (four were successful and one was not). This long ordeal and stressful time has reminded me how important it is for a foster parent to somewhat prepare for these life happenings.

It is easier for foster parents to adjust to daily life with foster children becoming part of the family than when major happenings in life occur. We tend to wait for the major things to happen leaving us stressing that much more because we are unprepared as how we will handle our foster children. I have faced this several times as a foster parent and have learned to have a couple of different plans of how to handle major life happenings with your foster children. It is easier and wiser to have a couple of different options when something happens than trying to figure at what to do when you are already faced with a major life happening.

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As the foster children change in your home so may your plans in how you handle major happenings in your family. If you have a full house of 6 or more children, a person may not feel comfortable watching that many. Foster children with more challenging behaviors also can add to the difficulty of finding someone willing or able to care for them. So, you may need to have a couple of people willing to help out with these foster children.

I had one friend that was a parent of a difficult mentally challenged child so, she was able to handle a difficult foster child. I also found a registered home daycare that was available 24 hours a day that was able to care for the more difficult foster child. My daycare lady took me a while to find but was worth it. I have been able to find a person willing to provide respite care for me only once. This left me scrambling to come up with my own idea of respite care so to speak. Remember, anyone caring for your foster children needs a criminal background check in most cases.

Think about making a plan for your foster children before you are faced with a major event. Causing added stress to the already stressful situation.

Photo Credit

More reading:

Foster Parents Need a Support System

Seeking a Support System and Helping with Your Foster Children

3 comments

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: mdunn [Member]

I'm soo sooo sorry to hear about your mother. My mother had a car accident a few years back which left her needing a major surgery, so I know what you must be going through. My whole family will pray for you and we hope everything goes by just fine as I'm sure it will :)

http://trying-to-have-a-baby-help.blogspot.com/

Permalink 02/15/08 @ 22:14

Comment from: xxsurroundedbyxy [Member]

I am concerned about this as well. We were told that anyone we trust to keep our own children can keep our foster child(ren)---for a day trip but no overnight. So if we were talking DAYS like your major event, we would have to have an emergency caregiver or respite.

There are no respite homes in our county or the surrounding counties. And there are only 1st shift (7-5) and 2nd shift (3-midnight) daycares locally.

No family member or friend is willing to do the paperwork to become an emergency caregiver. Our trainer had told us background check, but the DCFS office now says background check, TB tests, AND home visit to be a caregiver in overnight situations or more than day trip. That is almost as much as we did to become foster parents!!... and while my family and friends support OUR decision....they do not want to become foster parents just to "babysit" for us.

So we would be left calling DCFS in a true emergency OR calling on our foster friends from our classes to see if they would do it. Kind of scary.

I am so glad you had some preparations in order. I know it did help with the stress but not with the worry. I know it will be a long recovery and you will be stretched thin. I pray for your mom's healing and for you as you help with that.

Kim

Permalink 02/15/08 @ 22:40

Comment from: Lanette [Member]