Abuse is a major component of the foster care system. The abuse that some of these suffer will be carried with them throughout their lives. While other foster children manage to work through the trauma of their abuse, some children have been so severely damaged by the abuse they endured. They may never recover, or spend their lives struggling with major issues.
When I first became a foster parent, I could not understand how or even why caseworkers, therapist, etc. did not know what abuse the child suffered or to the extent of the abuse. It is common after accepting a foster placement to believe that the child has suffered more abuse than originally thought when first taken into care. Once the child has been placed into foster care you can start seeing things that may make you question if the child has been sexually abused.
In time the foster child may start feeling somewhat safe and start talking about his life. I have learned snippets of the child’s life and the abuse he suffered as things come up that make him think of things. I believe because that most of these children have lived through their abuse and the life they did not have, it makes it very difficult and sometimes impossible for the children to talk about everything they have endured.
Other times something will trigger the child to remember something and the flood gates open up. While they may tell you parts of their abuse and lives, mostly it is about the intense feelings that it brings up in them.
They tell you small parts of their past because that is what they can deal with at that time in their lives. With my older foster children, I always felt that they struggled with telling me or anyone else because it would cause me or others to think less of them or that they would be seen as unlovable.
More reading:
Understanding Foster Children’s Need for Survival Skills
Survival Skills with Your Foster Children – Food
Survival Skills with Your Foster Children – Stealing
Survival Skills with Your Foster Children – Dealing with Stealing
Great post Lanette!!!
Good post!!
Children who have been abused often feel responsible for the abuse and/or are ashamed of what has happened to them. They worry that revealing their truths will make you reject them.
Also, sometimes children who lived in an abusive home do not identify some things as abusive because that was just their “norm.” I was in my mid-thirties before I knew that some things that happened to me were actually abusive. I knew I did not like them and would not do them to someone else, but it was just the way it was in our household, so it would not occur to me to tell another person about it and label it as abuse.
- Faith
Its difficult for children to open up about any abuse he or she may suffer due to the fact they believe this would affect any chancy he or she may have of returning home or totally by shunned by the biological parents, (family). Many children do not have to stabilize in order to open up because of the negative behavior that was displaced may have gotten them removed. I believe that those who never suffered any type of abuse will truly never understand what these children have undergone. HOPEffa.org
is an agency dedicated to finding foster parents who are knowledgeable. Many of these parents are products of the foster care system.