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 \u201chabitual foster parents\u201d (meaning you have a revolving door of kids in and out of your home)\u2026or any number of other possible expectations.<\/p>\n
But what I want to talk about in this post is your expectations when a new placement arrives. Of the foster parents I interviewed about things they wish they knew prior to fostering, I personally believe this foster parent hit the nail on the head.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the first 30 days lower your expectations for literally EVERYTHING and then lower them again. The cleanliness of the house, children\u2019s behaviors, your behavior, laundry, meal prep, personal hygiene\u2026anything you can think of.\u201d<\/p>\n
And having taken placements of different ages and medical conditions, I wholeheartedly agree with that. You can\u2019t add someone to your household and expect to continue to go at the pace at which you were running. You need to get to know that person (or people!), and he needs to get to know you\u2026and you might need to let go of things in the meantime.\u00a0 When caring for foster children, the parent must have flexible expectations of the child, but it\u2019s just as important to adjust expectations for yourself.<\/p>\n
Cleanliness of the house. Seriously. For anyone who is in process of getting licensed, you\u2019re more than likely down on your hands and knees scrubbing baseboards with a toothbrush prior to your first home study. Let me tell you: kids don\u2019t generally care about those kinds of things. Or if the house is dusted. Or if the bathrooms are spotless. So that can definitely be something that you let go of for this initial period. By the way, by the third go-around of your home study, you\u2019ll be lucky to pick up toys off the floor before the foster care specialist arrives\u2026and that\u2019s ok. She (nor DCS or CB case worker, or anyone else) will not be there to see if you\u2019re getting that vacuuming and dusting done each week.<\/p>\n
Behaviors (yours and the child\u2019s): Things might seem really terrific at first\u2026but please keep in mind the honeymoon phase; in case you are unaware, that is the first few days or weeks of a placement in which things seem to go smoothly and the child is on their utmost best behavior. Additionally, your patience might be at its highest. After that period of time is often when the child begins to feel safe or secure or attached and he begins to let his true feelings, behaviors and personality out. He knows the foster home is a safe space for him to do that.<\/p>\n
As a result, foster parents are often caught off guard because they thought the placement was going well and they were doing a really great job. And honestly, it\u2019s probably because it\u2019s going well and they are doing a great job that the behavior of the child shifts. To understand this, you have to understand trauma and how it can affect kids and their behavior.\u00a0 But all that to say\u2026I would encourage you to relax the things that you can initially so that the child can figure out that it IS a safe space. For instance, is it a huge deal if the child wants to sleep with 5 nightlights? It might be the \u201cthing\u201d the child needs to start to feel safe.<\/p>\n
One more thing about behavior: your own. Give yourself some grace and some space (as best you can). It is a lot to bring in one or more kids from hard places, so you\u2019re going to have increased stress, responsibilities, everything. So don\u2019t expect that you\u2019re going to do it perfectly\u2026and don\u2019t hesitate to give yourself a time out if you need a minute to cool off, deep breathe or re-regulate yourself.<\/p>\n
Laundry: If it makes it into the washer and not the dryer, don\u2019t worry about it and rewash the load. If it makes it into the washer AND dryer, you are totally winning. And I don\u2019t even know what to say about anyone who gets it out of the dryer *and* puts it away. We generally live out of the clean laundry baskets anyway so I\u2019d be miles ahead if things were put away. Point being: no one will die if you have a pile of dirty laundry waiting to be washed.<\/p>\n
Meal prep: If you have frozen pizza or macaroni and chicken nuggets every night for dinner for a week (or a month), try not to sweat that. Honestly, it may be more like the food that the foster child is used to and will gladly eat.\u00a0 I don\u2019t say that disparagingly\u2026just truthfully. Then the good news is that you don\u2019t have food battles, no one is starving, everyone has been fed, and you can worry about other things. You can worry about that well-rounded meal later on; it is not a battle you have to fight up front.<\/p>\n
Hygiene: maybe you, as the foster parent, don\u2019t get a shower until the kids are off to school in the morning. Or when they\u2019re taking a nap. That\u2019s OK. As long as you\u2019re still able to get a shower each day, it\u2019s all good. Also, you might want a child to bathe every night, but you might need to let that go for a bit (even if he\u2019s a teen and stinks\u2026sometimes the battle isn\u2019t worth it).\u00a0 Hygiene challenges for kids in care can be rooted from trauma. It can be emotionally driven as a layer of protection against abuse, so it takes time and patience to see improvement.<\/p>\n
Last thoughts on this: you might need to taper your evening schedule and let evenings be filled with dinner and homework and bedtime routines. Establishing routines are going to be critical and if you lower the bar and adjust your expectations for the initial month or so, this will be easier to achieve. You can\u2019t expect the incoming child to do all the \u201cbending\u201d in the relationship \u2026you\u2019ll have so doing some \u201cbending\u201d yourself which might look a lot like the above suggestions.<\/p>\n
Hope this helps you understand that this process of bringing in a child can be exciting, messy, and hard and perfection is not expected of you\u2026so being flexible, adjusting your expectations, and allowing yourself some grace will help lower your overall stress.<\/p>\n
Sincerely.<\/p>\n
Kris<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 \u201chabitual foster parents\u201d (meaning you have a revolving door of kids in and out of your home)\u2026or any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","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-9380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kriss-corner"],"yoast_head":"\n