There will be some major adjusting for your children as you start your family journey of foster care. Your children need to feel part of the process and part of the decision making. Your children are the ones that are really giving up and losing the most. They are giving up space of their home, sharing parents, family, time, finances and possessions. In reality they are giving up a lot of control to a child they know nothing about.

Now after saying all that, I do believe it can be a positive experience for your child or children. I will talk about our personal experience with this.

Our daughter, Allie, was seven years old when we started this process. We talked with her from the beginning and always wanted her input with the decisions. We talked about the ages of children we wanted and gender. In the beginning she did not want to share her room but in time she decided that she wanted to. In the beginning we all talked as a family before taking a placement. This was difficult at times, since they want to make the placement pretty quickly. The main reason we did it that way in the beginning was, I wanted a clear idea of what everyone was comfortable with. After a few months everyone was comfortable with Mom accepting or declining the placement. After each placement ends we all talk to see if we are
still on the same page about placements. We always talked with Allie when taking any child close to her age because this can be really hard on her. I think maybe she said no to two placements.

You can not expect your child to accept every child with open arms, at times tolerating may be as much as you can expect. They will have the occasional day that they wish they were not on this journey.

Continued.............


Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away.