Foster parenting can be a life changing experience. Foster parenting is also a necessary process for children. It occurs when a child is left with no place to go, often an emergency situation where they no longer live with a family, and is placed with a foster family. It is different than adoption, but many foster parents end up adopting foster children. It can be a great life lesson for both the parents and the foster child. If you are unsure of how to become a foster parent, what it entails, or what difficulties to expect, this guide can help you.

When It Happens
Foster care is not an adoption, where you literally take the reins of a young child’s life, but it can be just as important. If you are deciding on whether or not to adopt a child, offering your help as a foster parent, if you’re eligible, can be a great experience. You need not worry too much, even if you’ve never been a parent before. Most children are receptive to guidance. Be sure to have family support for any emotional problems you and your spouse may face.

Understanding the Needs of the Child
While foster parents do not take the place of a child’s family, they do act as parents for the child for some time. If a child has been removed from a family, his or her needs may not be great, but the child will need a place to live, to learn, and to grow. The demands of parenting may seem scary, but understand you are sometimes only a stepping stone, and providing a great help for the child.

Giving Hope to the Child
You may get a child who suffered physical abuse. You might get one who had to face drug or alcohol problems. Sometimes you may even have a child who’s been through sexual abuse. You are giving this child a new hope for a better life. While it may seem easy to say, that you will be a great life changer, the fact is may of these children come from troubled homes. You are not expected to work miracles; only to provide stability.

Using Foster Parenting to Adopt
About two third of foster parents end up adopting the child. If you are eligible, which we’ll go over, you may consider it. Are you up to taking on a lifetime project? If you have parenting experience, it may help you understand the scope of raising a child. If you and your spouse are incapable of having children, learning from foster children, and then perhaps using it as a means to adopt, can again be a major life event. Many learn whether they can handle parenting full time by first offering help and hope to children who need foster parents.

Requirements of Foster Care
There are many requirements for foster parenting which you can go over with foster care agency. They do change from state to state. If you decide to adopt, you may consider hiring an experienced adoption attorney. If you want to be a foster parent, you have some basic requirements, such as being at least 21 years old, having a bed for the child, having a home which is safe, and be able to physically and emotionally take care of this child.

Is It Right For You?
Foster parenting, much like adoption, is not for everyone. Sometimes even experienced parents run into trouble. Don’t let that stop you from trying, but don’t expect a perfect situation. There may be some trying times. You might have trouble with the parenting role. It may take you more time than you thought. There is help, such as family support, foster care agency support, and help from other parents.

While adoption can be an exciting, learning experience, raising a foster child is different. It’s for the short term, so you have to be ready to let this child go to his or her birth parents or permanent parents. What does it take to be a foster parent? What help can you get? Let’s find out.

Are you ready?
Fostering is not easy. This may put an immense strain on your family. Yet there are rewards for parents who help a child along in his or her journey.

The important thing is to not go into fostering blind. Be prepared for situations, for stress, and to ask for help when needed. You should always have a strong support system in place to help and protect the foster child. For example, if you or your spouse are gone on a regular basis for a job, how will the foster child handle one parent being gone? Who can watch over the child when both foster parents are incapable – a family member or friend? Plan for these eventualities. An agency can ensure you have a professional support system, but you do need help from loved ones.

Can you support this child?
Instead of support via money, you may consider how you support this child emotionally. In many cases foster children are past their toddler years, have had both good and bad experiences, and will need you to be patient, to show love, to teach, and to listen.

What attitude does the child have?
By emotionally supporting the child, you may have to address previous issues. For example, an older child who’s been in and out of the system may have abandonment issues (which is much more complex than we can go over). The child may treat you, initially, in a mean way, or be the opposite – start out as happy as can be and then turn resentful. There are as many situations as children on the world. How you learn to handle this child’s attitude toward you is crucial.

How do the rest of the family feel?
If you already have children, how do they feel about you bringing in a foster child? Before you even get into this process, you should of course discuss the issue with any others who live in the home. If you have children, you need their opinions and concerns. If your spouse is unsure of fostering a child, you need to sit down and discuss it. As this child needs to be treated fairly, it’s important to remember everyone else in the family too.

Are you considering adopting?
Some foster parents end up wanting to adopt a child instead of fostering them. You can find many children in the foster system open to adoption. You have other means of adoption too. If you are ready for a more permanent addition to the family, consider adopting. But fostering a child is unique in how you help in the short term, remembering you have to eventually say goodbye.

Society’s view of the foster care system, for the most part, is negative. The media is all too quick to report on those foster care families that for one reason or another hurt the children, neglect them and sometimes kill them. There are those foster care families that will take in a large number of children, in order to support themselves. They take the assistance the state provides for the children, and will use it for their own monthly bills and selfish needs. This is likely to leave the children in worse conditions than they came from.

The media reports on these families fail to show the huge number of great foster care families that give well beyond what is asked or required of them. You have to remember, these children come into the foster care system because they have been neglected and abused.

It is no small task to take these children, many of whom have behavioral problems, into their homes. Sometimes bringing these children into their homes puts their own family are risk. They must take care of emotionally and sometimes physically fragile children. They must also deal with the families that these children come from if the child tells them where they are currently residing. These children need all the love, support, guidance and sometimes medical care that they can get. (more…)