I’m going to hit you with a quote from a foster parent parent right out of the gate this time: “Accepting help doesn’t mean that you can’t do this.” You guys…I’ve said this before and I will say it again. You cannot be a foster parent in a silo. Well to be fair…you...
It will surely come as no surprise that when you become a foster parent, your time ends up being split even more than ever. And so, you have to be careful in guarding your own time and the time of your family; to assist with that, you’ll need to set (or learn to set)...
For Part 3 of “What I Wish I’d Known” is one foster parent’s statement: Don’t have high expectations in the areas of DCS parental standards, biological parents’ behaviors, visit supervisors/transporters communication…ever! Keeping low expectations in these areas...
Every single person who has been a licensed foster parent has expectations of some sort. It might be the expectation of a placement being adopted, or the expectation of fostering teens, or taking sibling groups, or being “habitual foster parents” (meaning you have a...
I wanted to take the next few weeks and do a short little series of posts called “From the Trenches: What I Wish I’d Known”. To garner my information, I surveyed a pool of foster parents and asked them what things they wish they would have known prior to fostering....
In honor of National Foster Care Month and a year when vacations can actually happen, I thought revisiting “Vacations with Your Foster Child” was appropriate. One thing I want to clarify before I launch in: when you have a kiddo from foster care, they will have...
Mother’s Day. It gets me every year … since our son came to live with us. I wish I could say it gets easier; but, honestly the opposite is true. I think about his birth mom more on Mother’s Day than any other time. I try to put myself in her shoes and imagine what...
So, some of you may still be reeling at the thought of giving the biological family your contact information once the child has been reunified. And if that’s you, you may want to sit down for this post. For part two of my blog about exceeding expectations with...
Last time we talked about possessions/gifts going with the children when they go home to the biological family or to another foster home. Today I’m going to talk about additional things you might want to consider sending when a child is reunified with their family of...
Some of you may be wondering what happens to all the things the child you are fostering accumulates? Now, some of this might be obvious. But, just in case there’s any doubt. I’d like to briefly touch on it. As I mentioned previously, when a child enters the foster...
