ON BEING A FOSTER FAMILY

I'd like to share, briefly, something that I haven´t written about, but is very dear to my heart. Our experience as a foster family. I´d like to use this space to share my thoughts and personal experiences with the children who have been in our care. We currently take children who are age seven and under to share our home.

Foster families are ordinary people doing something that is difficult. To the amazement of many we chose to do this simply because we can. Fostering definitely changes the family dynamic, so it can't be done for the wrong reasons. It was important for me to know my children were on board.

In most cases the children that come into our care are carrying a lot of baggage. They have lots of problems. Many are scarred emotionally and physically. We know as a foster family it is going to be hard, but often we can't even imagine how hard. Knowing we are the hope for these children we are ready to get to work and face the challenges ahead of us.

Many of these children say and do hateful things. When one is screaming that they hate you, calls you filthy names, spits at you, throws YOUR valuable things across the room and keeps at it for an hour at a time it can hurt, it can make you angry, it can drain you emotionally. However, among the bad moments there are good ones where you are slowly able to see improvement.

There is a honeymoon period where the children are on their best behavior and when we start to fall in love with them. Knowing part of their story brings sympathy for them even though we know there are difficulties ahead. We weather the storms as attachments form. Will we get tired? Yes! Will we question our sanity? Probably. Is it worth it? Most definitely.

It is so important to take these children in as our own, to the degree that they will allow, and I often find that they are very willing. Children need to feel stable, loved and accepted. They need to know structure, routine and boundaries. Generally, they have never experienced this, having come from very chaotic backgrounds.

In my experience, within a few months I begin to see change in these children. The behaviors from their chaotic past begin to fade away and a new model of them begins to emerge. This is such a wonderful experience and I´ve realized that the hard work that we do as a family investing in these young lives truly makes a difference.

We never really know, in the end, how long they will be with us or where life may take them down the road, but the hope is that this period of time in their lives will come to be a reference point in the difficult issues they may face in their lives in the future. Some will return to their bio-families or relative homes, others into adoptive homes and the older ones will generally transition out of the system to begin a life of independence.

Regardless of what the future holds for them, we consider them our own, we love them, make memories with them and one day we are hopeful that they will remember this time in their lives, and with the grace of God make wise decisions for themselves because of how the course of their lives were changed by knowing our family.