This post may or may not relate to you, but I suspect it probably will on some level, so please keep reading!<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t care how long you\u2019ve been fostering, but I would bet that at some point you have compared yourself and your ability as a foster parent to other foster parents. Maybe you\u2019ve done it in a positive way, such as, \u201cWow, they handled that situation the same way I do and look how well it turned out!\u201d<\/p>\n
But if you\u2019re like me at all, you have compared yourself in a demeaning way and you did not come out feeling so good about yourself. Here\u2019s my example which I gave WAY too much space to in my head: \u201cI feel completely stocked up on crazy and trauma, and life is so hard in my home\u2026and I only have one kiddo from foster care. How do other families manage?!?\u201d<\/p>\n
Is that fair for me to compare myself to others like this? Would I tell someone else who said that to me that they are right to think that, or that they should stop comparing themself to others?<\/p>\n
To answer that, I\u2019m going to give you a little bit of our history with foster care. Our first placement was two girls, and it was way too much. I have long thought about it and definitely feel like if we had only had one of them, we might have been successful. If you\u2019ve read my post in the past, you already know this, but we had to disrupt that placement because it was just too much.<\/p>\n
Fast forward a few years. After our youngest son was adopted, we took another placement of the most relaxed infant ever. He was a cakewalk but our adopted son could not handle having him there. It was too much so we moved that sweet placement on as well. I\u2019m saying all this because, if I\u2019m being totally honest (and that\u2019s what you come here for, right?), it has been 8 years since that happened and I STILL look at large families with foster and adopted kids and I think, \u201cWhy can\u2019t I do that? Why can\u2019t I handle that? How do they have so much more bandwidth than me?\u201d<\/p>\n
But, in an effort to let go of that detrimental comparison, I\u2019ve thought on it and believe what\u2019s really at play is that I don\u2019t know their story. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on in their homes. I don\u2019t know what their childhoods were like and what skills they developed or innately have. I don\u2019t know that everyone is really thriving, I don\u2019t know their kids diagnoses or issues or struggles, and, to be honest, my kid is just a lot. And I know for a fact that not everyone is parenting a similar complex and difficult diagnosis in their home like I am.<\/p>\n
Obviously, I don\u2019t know for sure, but he is honestly like five kids at times; dysregulation comes swift and often, so much so that the whole household would be just regulated if we had other kids from hard places. In fact, we don\u2019t have other kids from hard places but the household sometimes gets dysregulated at times with only him.<\/p>\n
So I say all this to say to you: don\u2019t compare yourself to other foster and adoptive parents. Do what you are able to, and do your best – that\u2019s all you really can do. The comparison does you no good. It can just end up leaving you feeling bitter, broken, discouraged, disgruntled, or discontent (and trust me, I know- I have experienced them all). But none of that is beneficial to anyone. And it\u2019s definitely not going to help you be a better foster parent.<\/p>\n
Though my post is short today, I just wanted to put this out there in case anyone else is struggling with the tendency to compare. Also, this might be a little clich\u00e9, but I\u2019m going to say it anyway: if you\u2019re worried that you\u2019re not doing things well, you\u2019re probably actually doing a great job with the trauma you are taking care of on the daily.<\/p>\n
Sincerely,<\/p>\n
Kris<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This post may or may not relate to you, but I suspect it probably will on some level, so please keep reading! I don\u2019t care how long you\u2019ve been fostering, but I would bet that at some point you have compared yourself and your ability as a foster parent to other foster parents. Maybe you\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kriss-corner"],"yoast_head":"\n