TAPLINK

Support for
Pennsylvania
Adoptive & Foster Families

Taproot issue 45 - September 2003

Foster Parents - Adoptive Parents - A Team That Helps Adoption Work  

When foster parents and adoptive parents find away to work together, they can create a smoother transition for the child they both care about. These two sets of families can do more to increase the chance for a child’s successful adoption than any of the other people involved in the process (included the social workers!). Unfortunately, this kind of teamwork isn’t always easy.

Foster parents are asked to do an extremely difficult job for no pay and meager reimbursement. They take children into their homes at a time of extreme crisis. This is the time when the child is first separated from his or her parents, usually due to abuse. Foster parents must cope with the child’s physical injuries, metal pain, emotional upset, and wide variety of behaviors. With little available information and no help, they learn how to comfort a particular child, to prepare enjoyable foods to avoid situations which may cause fear distress, and to generally create an environment where a child can heal and begin to trust again. When the child shows the benefit of their care and is no longer in legal “limbo,” we ask foster parents to let the child go. After months or years of loving a child and treating him or her like a family member, we ask foster parents say “goodbye” when the child is returned to biological parents or moves to an adoptive home.

As if foster parenting was not difficult enough, these families may be stereotyped by the media. The image of cold money hungry foster who only take children to work on the farm is still around. Child abuse in foster homes makes headline news. There are some problems in the foster care system, but the majority of foster parents are doing what they do for one reason: they hope to make positive difference in the life a child. This is the same reason families choose to adopt. Both sets of parents share a common goal and play critical role in the child’s continuum of care.

When adoptive parents visit their child in the foster home, it is a difficult time for all the people involved. Most adoptive families are anxious to start parting “their” child and may feel threatened by the foster family to whom the child is currently attached. The child is fearful and confused by the introduction fearful and confused by the introduced (Even babies notice and react to changes in touch, voice tone, smell, ect.) Older children may choose this time to disobedient and rejecting toward foster parents as a way of punishing them for “abandoning” them. To the child, it may seem easier to leave someone if they are mad at you. Foster parents are dealing with their pain around losing a child that they have grown to love. They also ma feel frustrated by the child’s unruly and rejecting behavior. The most common (and ultimately harmful) way of coping with all these feeling is to speed up by the visiting process

The child and the foster parent may hope to avoid experiencing the grief and by “getting it over with” quickly. Adoptive parent’s needs feed into this process because they are so anxious to have the child (for whom they have been waiting so long) home at last.

A child, if he or she is to move successfully into an adoptive home, must have time to grieve for the family he has lives with. He or she also needs time a build a new relationship with adoptive parents before he or she moves. It is a scary time for the child who feels extremely confused and vulnerable. The child needs support and caring from both families. It is critical the families unite with one goal in mind – the successful transition and adoption of the child. If the child does not perceive both set of parents as a team or sense competition between the families, it can cause serious problems in the future.

No two families are the same. Each has its own values, resource and expectations. Adoptive and foster families must start out with a framework of mutual respect and acceptance. Your lifestyles may be very different, but you share a common goal.

The visiting phase of a placement is an ideal time for sharing. Foster parents can share day-to-day routine that social workers know very little about. What kind of shampoo works best on Janie’s hair? Does she sleep with a night-light? Is she afraid of the doctors? Does she have any food preferences? Allergies? Taking time to talk together alone and in the presence of the child, say to the child, “ we like each other and we care about you.”

Ideally, Parents should be able to work together to slowly transfer the parenting responsibilities. Years ago, I watched an unexpected case of chicken pox create an ideal situation for an adoption transition. When a two year old’s chicken pox made visitation outside the foster home impossible for two children, the adoptive family located a motel near the foster home. The capable foster mother helped the children and the new (and inexperienced) parents grow together. After the initial afternoon meeting, the family arrived the next morning to help with everything from cutting up the french toast to bathing and story time. The families worked side by side with the foster mother slowly transferring more and more responsibilities to the new parents. The children’s move to their new home was one of the smoothest I have ever witnessed.

Children who have been hurt by adults need time to learn to trust new people. Proceed at the child’s pace. Watch for verbal and non-verbal cluse as to the child’s readiness. Don’t be fooled by the child who says, “Can I go home and live with you to day?” at the first meeting. Such statements should be translated, “ I’m scared, lets get this over with.” If there is a general rule about moving children, it is better to go slowly than to hurry the process. All parties must be patient.

Foster families, who have a long-term relationship with a youngster, appreciate knowing how the children are adjusting after the move. They often make themselves available by phone to the new parents who may have questions in the month ahead. It means a great deal to foster families to get an occasional picture or note from the adoptive family saying how the child is doing. Foster parents and adoptive parents are both important. Each has a unique role to play in the lives of children who have been separated from birth parents without skilled foster parents to nurture and comfort them, children would not recover form early traumas and separations. Without patient adoptive parents, children would never experience the love and security that comes from having a permanent home.

We appreciate you!!