Families are challenging today. When you have a traditional number of kids it is difficult, when you have additional kids, more than the average home, and challenging kids such as in foster care, the world you live in is a different place. Thinking about the fact that foster parents open up their homes to strangers and immediately make family members of them is something that the average family doesn't do. Your world is very unlike that of your non-fostering neighbors.
Large families are familiar with some of the problems involved with caring for a whole mob of kids. Everything you do is on a large scale- cooking, shopping, laundry, school events, doctors, illnesses and meetings. I think they have some idea of what life as a foster parent is like. But, foster parents have all this and then add the stress of a variety of behavioral problems, learning disabilities and kids just trying to push the envelope - and lots of these kids. Family dinners look like Roman feasts with all the dishes.
A parent in a melded family resulting from several marriages and each spouse bringing their own children to the family have some idea of what the family dynamics are for a foster family. But as foster parents you have a whole array of personalities that you are trying to make into a unit to function as a family. The numbers and look of the family change constantly as kids come and go. That is what makes your situation so unusual.
Most families have problems and crisis occasionally; a foster family lives it 24/7. There is usually at least one child among your brood who thinks it is his job to keep you in a constant state of anxiety. You wonder if the oldest one is doing drugs. You may worry the middle one has a very strong crush on an older girl. The next two are both experiencing school problems and one has been thrown off the bus for 'acting out'. The smallest one is not responding well to love and attention. You believe she isn't bonding with you and your husband. And those are just the beginning since problems can change hourly and new kids can arrive with their own set of problems. Older kids can move out on their own, or get put into another facility. The face of the family constantly changes.
In many regular homes, where kids are doing fine, rules established, and life somewhat normal, parent's day ends at a reasonable bedtime and begins at breakfast. Not so for the foster parent who needs to do a bed check, or wait up for kids with later curfews, or do all those things the too-short day didn't include. Maybe a new crisis breaks out or you have a suicidal teen or one that is simply too upset to sleep, your day lengthens. Maybe someone just needs to bear their soul or have finally become ready to make an important revelation. Whatever the reason, your job is not a 9-5 one.
Foster parents must know so many things to get through one day, that your world barely resembles that of most parents. You need to have more than a working knowledge of drugs. A foster parent needs to know the signs of abuse. There is a need to understand reverse psychology and the concepts of reinforcement and re-direction. You need to be great at logistics since you must be everywhere at once and also learning how to stretch a dollar or a day will add to your value.
As foster parents we must display more patience and control than other parents, because kids coming into our homes are not well-behaved usually, they are not in-control themselves, and they do not want to be there sometimes. Raising kids requires patience no matter what kind of parent you are, but a foster parent cannot lose it without fear of repercussions and possibly losing that child. They are and must always be the professionals.
The chaos and craziness that is the norm for a foster parent is hard to understand for most people. The question of why you do this along with the usual statement, "I could never do what you do" lets foster parents know they are not exactly like average people. The fact that you like it and won' t do anything else convinces the world you are different. This fact means that friends must come from the ranks of other 'crazy' people just like you- namely foster parents.
So when your world seems like it is from another planet and you feel like you live on the fringe of society, when your day resembles nothing like your parents and you look in the mirror and do not recognize that wild eyed parent, you know, it is true. You live in a different world. But most times it is a wonderful world- rewarding and interesting and you do make a difference.
Congratulations for being you and able to handle those outer limits.
Jo Ann Wentzel is Senior Editor of: Parenting Today's Teen
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Biography of Jo Ann Wentzel
Between the years of 1966 and 1993, I brought children into life, into my foster home, into court, and into their own apartments. Mother of three, two natural children born to me and one foster kid who never left our family, grandmother to five, foster mom to over 75 kids, and mother, friend, guardian angel, or their worse nightmare, depending on which of the other hundreds of kids you ask.
A quarter of a century devoted to raising children, learning what issues concerned them, volunteering to help groups serving kids, and teaching others what little I know. Life Ready was our own business where we installed kids, who had no other choice, into their own apartment. My husband and I, as para-professionals, also were contracted by counties in Minnesota to supervise kids and work with families to help get foster kids back home.
Before foster care, I was a licensed daycare provider and cared for all ages of children. During foster care, our specialty was teenaged boys and we had a group home where we served up to eight youth at a time. Street kids and gang members were among those we worked with and families ranged from traditional to what in the world. Our kids came from all over Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and North Dakota. Volunteer positions were held in Pennsylvania, Texas, and Minnesota.
I have held the position of Guardian-ad-Litem in Goodhue County, a paid not volunteer position. I trained to be a surrogate parent which enables you to sign I.E.Ps for children whose parents can't or won't. I have taken Mediator training for Minnesota court system. With my husband, I presented a seminar at the Minnesota Social Worker's Convention in Minneapolis, spoke at the Federal Medical Center( a prison), and gave several talks to school classrooms.
My book is about the experiences and adventures of a foster parent. It encourages creative parenting and offers useful methods and ideas for everyone raising kids. It features just a few of the many wonderful kids that lived with us.It tells how we ran our home of as many as eight teenaged foster kids at a time. It is written from the viewpoint of the expert, the one who does the job, the hands on provider- the foster parent.This book is currently looking for a publisher and will be available just as soon as we find one.