June 28, 2021

Before You Foster: Ways to Prepare Your Children and Family

Often, I hear couples talk about how they would like to foster ‘someday’. I was the same way, always wanting to adopt or foster one day. Helping children in hard places is something that is close to the hearts of many, but it feels like such a big life altering step that less end up taking those steps towards actually doing it, than those that think about that ‘someday’. There is so much to learn and do before that child or sibling set comes into your home, but as a foster mom myself, I can tell you that each step is worth it! If you are thinking about fostering in the next few years, here are some important starter points that will help you thrive once ‘someday’ becomes a reality.

Pour into your marriage, because you can’t pour love out of an empty cup. Children that have experienced trauma will need a lot of focused love and care that will stretch both you and your partner. The relationship struggles that were manageable before, often become significantly more challenging while couples are fostering. Pour into this relationship, date each other, and have those hard conversations you’ve both been putting off before you decide to bring a child into your home. This is not a situation where “we will deal with that later” will benefit either of you. The strong relationship between you two will be the foundation that these children can stand on to begin their healing.

Dive deep into your own healing journey before you take in those that need healing. Foster care goes beyond traditional parenting. Parents have to constantly adapt to changes in the case, in the child, and in what works to help their child heal and thrive. You may be surprised at how the difficulties in your past find their way back up to the surface. Spend some focused time looking at the difficulties you have already walked through and the coping skills that worked well, along with those that didn’t. We highly recommend that parents have a therapist that they connect with at least monthly while they are fostering.

Assure you have a supportive community. You cannot thrive in foster care and loving vulnerable youth while remaining in the walls of your home. That community becomes necessary really fast, when you need to get away from the house, or have someone give you even an hour or two of a break from the important work you are doing. Many foster parents think that they will be able to shoulder the weight all on their own, but later find how much they needed others to hold them up. A larger community just means that there are more people to love the children in your life, and provide things that even you can’t.

Pray for discernment and love as you begin your journey. Emotions tend to be very difficult to control when you are fostering. You may think you immediately will fall in love with the child or siblings coming into your home, only to find that bonding is a struggle. It is important to pray together for discernment as you hear about children needing a foster home, this commitment will be incredibly important to them, and damaging if it falls apart. Know that your life will be very different for at least a year from the point of saying yes, and pray to love the child(ren) that enter your home just a little bit more each day they are with you. Those prayers matter and will help strengthen you when things are difficult.

If you have children in your home already, bring them along in the learning process. Nightlight has training videos available for your kids to learn more about foster care, including coloring books that talk about what foster care is! Foster care is a very grown up topic, but children can be surprisingly adept in understanding what is going on when taught in a child friendly way. A lot of parents have reservations about fostering to protect the children currently in their home. Experienced foster parents often comment on how great it has been for their biological children, and a great way to grow empathy. We recommend reaching out to your Foster Care Advocate for training resources to help you bring your children along on this journey, because they can help children in foster care heal too!

 

written by Deb Uber

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