Foster Families – How will your kids handle it?

The other day I received this comment from Jane, whose parents opened their home to foster children. She has recently started a blog about what it was like to grow up in a home with foster children.

I have recently,(yesterday) started my blog about growing up a “natural” child in a family that took in foster children. As I became an older teenager, my mom had become a Foster Parent Trainer and would take me to the trainings so potential Foster Parents could ask me questions about how their children might feel throughout the experience. I know that was one of the most helpful times for many new families and I wish it would be a requirement in the foster parent training program. Just a thought.

Thanks, Jane for being willing to share your experience with us.

I’ve often heard the idea expressed in adoption and foster care circles about not introducing a child into one’s home who is older than the youngest child of the original family.  Especially in the case of foster children, there can be very real safety issues involved for younger children, who can become targets of all kinds of abuse.

Another issue to consider is the fact that children introduced to a new family require a level of one-on-one attention and bonding that could be very difficult to give with younger children in the house.  The natural dynamic of “birth order” becomes disrupted, with younger children (and even older ones) responding negatively to the usurper of the parents’ attentions.

Of course, there are exceptions to every “rule.”  Perhaps yours is one of them. What has been your experience?