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.

Becoming a foster parent can be an exciting adventure. The majority of potential foster parents have glamorized the role, that is, up until they begin going through the training required.

The first role of foster parents is to protect and nurture any child placed within their home. They will become part of a professional team that’s one goal is protecting the child until his or her future is determined.

The training that is required helps the parents to understand and be aware of the mandate, structure, and relevant regulations of Child Protective Services (CPS). Training teaches about the state laws that influence the process of child placement, permanency of placing and the laws that define child abuse and neglect. Foster parents should have the ability and willingness to work with the birth parents while the child is in their home. The ability to be objective and professional at all times is a huge asset to any foster parent. Instead of being judgmental, the foster parents are there to provide support and comfort for the child above all else. Foster parents have a critical role in helping to achieve permanence and stability for children.

The second goal of foster parents is to meet the child’s developmental needs. Foster parents can meet the child’s developmental needs by building self-esteem, providing positive guidance, supporting cultural and spiritual identity, and using appropriate discipline. Supporting educational/intellectual growth and encouraging positive social relationships also helps the child’s developmental needs.

Foster parents can help children develop attachments by constantly understanding and meeting the child’s needs. Also, by helping the child express their feelings and demonstrating that they understand. Helping the child feel good about themselves and helping the child to relax and have fun aids in the development of attachments.

Foster parents need to understand some of the factors that delay or impede child growth and development. Some of the factors are:

• Physical neglect and/or abuse
• Emotional abuse and neglect
• Prenatal factors
• Sexual abuse
• Accidents and trauma

It is very important for the foster parents to understand how to address emotional and developmental delays. This is where training to become a foster parent plays a big role.

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…)