The main job of foster
parents is to support the child’s recovery from the family disruption and
whatever caused it, to support the foster care goal (reunification with parents
or other placement) and, most importantly, to try to help the child to have as
many “normal kid things” in his life as possible. So your weeks may be filled with lots of
appointments, including taking them to supervised visits with the birth parents
(many agencies will help with the driving if there’s a lot), along with more normal
things like helping with homework and negotiating sibling rivalry. You facilitate play dates, though the kids
always have to be with an adult with a current background check (basically that
means you stay with them or have kids over to your house), teach them to ride a
bike, plant a garden, rake leaves, and cook.
You take them to the zoo and to church (some states have restrictions on
the latter, but here in Virginia there’s nothing like that).
Our kids (now 2, 4,
and 7) came to us last December in an unusual situation which created waves throughout
the social work world and caused us to unwittingly stumble into a mess. We had CPS workers visiting our home unannounced several times per week,
detectives, court-appointed advocates, and their lawyer coming over, visits to
the police station, and multiple medical appointments to go to, in addition to the
more usual visits with therapists and social workers. All of this made, at first, at least 30 hours
per week spent exclusively on the foster kids, answering the same questions
over and over etc., in addition to actually taking care of them and the rest of
the family. If I had not had a 22 year
old daughter at home to care for our then-2 year old, I would not have lasted
very long. I think this was way more
than the norm for foster care, but that’s what we were confronted with. Gradually things slowed down and we resolved
a lot of the troublesome issues, got through two surgeries, and were down to
one mom visit and one therapy visit per week.
At first the kids were
pretty shell-shocked, and seemed much younger than their ages. It is very common for traumatized children to
function emotionally and intellectually several years behind where they ought
to be. What amazed me is how quickly
they advanced, especially as the medical issues were cleared up. The little guy was 19 months when he came,
and couldn’t stand on his feet or talk.
But it seemed like every week he advanced several months in his
development—agility and speech—till I was putting locks on cupboards and
bathrooms, pulling him off tables and counter-tops, and giving him directions
that he would actually follow. So then
it became a toddler-management scenario.
Going places was always
hard and continued to be till the end. I
remember telling them, a couple months in, that “if you would mind me and not
run away from me, we could go fun places together.” We did eventually do fun things but always
avoided crowds—no amusement parks, etc.—as they were so unpredictable and
impulsive. I felt like a lion tamer at
times, only instead of a chair I used food.
They were always hungry so I tied good behavior to when the next snack
would be. It was definitely functioning
on a low level, but it was what they understood. Sacrament meeting was the most dreaded hour
of the week, as Paul was in the bishopric.
I had lots of wonderful people helping me, but, as Dickens says in A
Christmas Carol “every child was conducting himself like forty” so a 1:1 ratio
would barely cut it on a good day. The times we went to Chuck-E-Cheese will
ever live in my memory.
But after a few months
we did pretty well when we were at home.
When good weather hit, Paul and I built a play set and put in a raised
bed garden so there was lots to do outside, and that’s where they wanted to
spend their time. We got them bikes and
a Little Tikes car and a Plasmacar and they lived happily ever after. We live at the end of a long lane surrounded
by woods, and the 2 and our 3 year old (and the dog) always kept trying to
wander off, but we’d round them up and bring them back. The girls love to have play dates, and we are
grateful for all the church friends and cousins who came over to play.
