Fostering or Foster-to-Adopt

[Mom to 5]

Has anyone been a foster parent or adopted a foster child? I have an interest in helping out in this way, and I would love to hear of your experiences. I am interested in pursuing this for kids younger than my bio kids.

1. What age/stage of life were you in when you did so?
2. What age child/children did you foster?
3. What can you say good/bad about the experience?
4. If you adopted, what was your financial burden regarding raising child once he was yours? I ask because of my husband's "we can't afford to do this" concern.

[MicroRN]

No experience, but I'd love to hear the responses.  I'd like to start fostering when my own two are a little older. 

[Workinghard]

We were foster parents for almost 10 years. You have to go through training classes, but it helps in ascertaining the ages, gender, and type of issues you're able to deal with. To answer your questions....

1.  We were in our 50's. We had one child, a 10 year old, left at home.
2. We fostered 3 and under but occasionally did older children.
3. We loved doing foster care, but there were hardships too. You have to separate the system from the child. We never adopted but considered it a few times. It just didn't work out. One child was a baby that we had from the time he was 2 days old until he was almost 3. Wasn't sure if I was going to make it through that one.
4. I think financial reimbursement varies depending on the state.

Some do and don'ts. I can elaborate on any you're interested in.

Don't get a child the same age or older than your own children
Depending on the age of your children, include them in the process.
Do be prepared for middle of the night arrivals, kids with dirty and smoked filled clothes, and both
    clothes and child needing to be washed.
Do be prepared for questions, if they're verbal, or crying if they're not.
Don't forget about WIC, plus the checks can be used with cereal BOGO sales.
Do join a foster support group.
Find someone that can/will trade off watching the children. Background checks and fingerprints are
   necessary.
Do keep good records.
Do attend court hearings
Do be prepared for an extensive background check and home study.

[AJ]

We fostered a brother-sister duo for a time, hoping to adopt them. I lack the words to describe how hard that was. But we don't have any kids of our own, so I can't separate how much of the difficulty was the foster part and what was just being "new parents". Plus we went in hoping to become adoptive parents, not foster parents, so we got very emotionally attached. I don't recommend that.

The best part was the kids, obviously :) They were hard, especially the older one that had suffered more neglect. But they were so sweet, and it felt good to know we were providing a safe place for them. The worst part was dealing with the system.

I would want to foster again, but not until after I have my own kids, and they are grown a bit.

[Workinghard]

In one of our classes, the coordinator said if we didn't cry when a child left, something was wrong. As difficult as it is, you want to be attached. You want the child to know they're loved, and that you care about them. Disruption from a family or foster family is often equated to going through a divorce. It takes time for the child to trust you especially if they've been bounced from place to place.

[MelodysMustache]

I had a friend who had a horrible, life altering, experience with adopting a foster child.  In short, she was lied to about the background, age, and mental stability of the child.  Which is something that she has now become aware is a fairly common experience as social workers attempt to place children in permanent homes.

To make a long story short, the child had serious issues.  She set fire to a school and her adoptive mother was held liable for the $100k in damages, which was not covered by insurance.  Additionally, after a number of years, the adoptive child (by then a teenager) was so disruptive and violent towards other family members that the adoptive mom had to go through the court system to get the child out of the home.  Since the court system is not setup to handle violent children and the only way to make it work was for the adoptive mom to go on the record as the "abuser" to get the teen out of the house and into an appropriate facility. 

I think fostering is a really positive thing to do, but the risks of adopting a foster child seem to high.

[Workinghard]

What a heartbreaking story, MelodyMustache. There are "broken" children but they weren't born that way. Obviously it's easier to work with younger children and get them the help they need, but some problems don't show up for years.

It can be so rewarding though-loving a child and providing a safe place for them. I remember one child we had. We initially thought he was deaf due to a flat affect. Honking a car horn would not illicit a response. I still remember his first smile and first laugh.....

[meadow lark]

I've talked about my kiddo several times on here.  He is the apple of my eye, and my greatest joy.  He is also my only child.  I would absolutely not choose to do it with small kids at home, though.  The risk of violence and chaos is too high.  However, fostering or adopting a baby if you have older kids seems reasonable.  And fostering or adopting an older kid would be great if your kids were quite a bit older than the foster/adopted kid.
  I would love to do it again, and may.  Probably a young teen.

[homehandymum]

My husband's aunt fostered for many years and his firm opinion is to never foster kids older than, or even the same age as your own.

Thinking of both DH's aunt and another older friend of ours, both of them have ended up grandparent-fostering some of their foster/adopted kids' children.  (by which I mean that they are fostering the children of people they fostered in the past).

My friend is now responsible for her (foster) daughter, who has serious health and drug issues, one of her granddaughters full-time, one of her granddaughters part-time (with custody battles with the other grandparents ongoing and adding to the daughter's instability), and one of her grandsons sometimes.  It's not at all how she envisaged her 'sunshine years', and is a massive drain on her health, energy and finances.  (not that she regrets the adoption at all - she loves her daughter very much - but life is a bugger sometimes).

I'm not wanting to put you off doing something that is desperately needed, but just wanted to reinforce that you may be in it for the very long haul.  On the other hand, I know older people raising their fully biological grandchildren for similar reasons - so it's not like there are any guarantees either way.  And my friend's other adopted child (who was younger when he came to them), has grown up without any of the troubles that his sister struggles with.

Best of luck with it.  I understand it to be very rewarding, and by no means are the 'bad' stories the only ones - they just tend to be the ones that people remember. 

[MelodysMustache]

To follow up on my earlier post, my friend who had to give up her adopted daughter for treatment shared this article.  http://illinoistimes.com/article-13706-illinois-may-end-%E2%80%98planned-abandonment%E2%80%99.html

Thank goodness some action is being taken to help adoptive parents in really bad situations.  It really is a shame that people who set out to grow their families and do good are punished by the system.  Adopting or fostering is a great thing to do, but people need to have their eyes open to both best and worst cases.

[lady brett ashley]

We've been foster parents for about two years and have had 2 placements (5 kids total).

1.  We started in our late 20's - this is just our way of having kids; we're not planning to adopt (but also open to the possibility).
2. We're officially listed for 3-5, but the oldest kid we've been placed with was 3 years and 3 weeks - the youngest was 7 months (they actually got his age *wrong* when they called us about him, so we thought we were getting a toddler...just some info on how the system really works ;)  We're hoping to get out of the toddler game next time!
3.  It's amazing!  It's also hard.  And there are really frustrating parts.

The "amazing" part mostly falls under that hard-to-explain joy of parenting where whenever new parents talk about it they make it sound awful and then tell you it's the best thing they've ever done.  Although i think there are some joys that are specific to fostering.  The community aspect - fostering, to me, is true application of the "it takes a village" approach where we are sheltering these kids while really pushing for their families to fix whatever was the problem and get the kids back home, and that whole process is really joyous when it works.  I also think there's a particular joy to seeing your kids flourish when that wasn't always the case (i mean, seeing kids do well is always fun, but it's a bit different when you were completely unsure if they would recover from XYZ).

And XYZ is really the hard part.  I know for most people the kids going home is the heart-breaking part, but for us that part was pretty joyous - it was the culmination of a year's hard work on everyone's part to get them home, they were overjoyed (which makes it hard to be too sad), and we know they're safe and happy - if not parented exactly how we would ;) (i know that's not always the case, so that's a big variable).  For me the hardest part has been when they show up, because that first sight and first few weeks are when you really see what they've been through - as well as dealing with the trauma of being in care.

And frustrating.  That's where my biggest advice comes in: you have to be flexible, and you have to have compassion (and sometimes you just have to roll your eyes or vent or laugh a little).  Obviously for the kids, but also for their parents and for the system as a whole.  Because all three of those things are going to cause major or minor frustration on a regular basis.

4.  We haven't adopted, but my understanding is that you can continue to get some sort of stipend after adopting if your case qualifies as special needs (which can mean health-related, but also often includes older kids, minorities, or siblings).  I believe many states also allow adopted kids to continue on Medicaid, which would be a substantial savings.

As for fostering, from a mustachian point of view, the stipend you get for that is absurd.  Everything i've read about fostering includes some variation of "Don't do it for the money!  You get a stipend, but it is a measly check that will barely feed a child!  You will spend your life savings as well as the stipend each month!"  Which, well of course don't do it for the money!  But, um, i would at best consider myself something like "mustachian light", and i'm worried about the ethical dilemma of not being able to spend the whole damn thing on the kids.  That is only true over time, of course, - the kids need a lot of stuff ASAP when they show up and you don't have the luxury of shopping around for good deals or used items, so it's easy to drop a *lot* of money in the first week.  But in the long run, even the infant we weren't expecting (and therefore spent something like $1500 on in one weekend...) costs less than his "meager" stipend covers over time.  I would also imagine the money aspect is a great deal more complicated with older kids and teens!

[jfer_rose]

following this thread.

[mm1970]

I have not, but my friend and neighbor up the street has.

She has four grown daughters, foster-adopted a 2 year old (now almost eight), and is foster-adopting a 4 year old.

She enjoys it, but it does come with challenges, especially if the mother was on some type of drug while pregnant.

A blog I enjoy reading is a single parent who adopted: Notes from the Frugal Trenches.   She has adoption challenges also, from the treatment the children suffered before she adopted them.

Most adoption sites I've read suggest that adoptive children be the only children in the home or be the youngest by many years.

[chubbybunny]

I know this thread is a few weeks old at this point, but I wanted to throw my opinion in there.  If you are interested in adopting a child, then you should look into a private adoption.  There are domestic adoptions that don't cost a lot of money, but it may take a long time and a lot of research to find the right situation.

We went through the classes and homestudy to be foster parents, but in the end we decided to do a domestic/private adoption. I believe the prevailing wisdom is you should only consider becoming a foster parent if you want to foster (always understand that the children can be taken from you).  In theory that seems okay because you're helping that child at least for a time, but for me, I realized that I fell in love the moment I held a baby in my arms. The idea of that child going back to a difficult home environment after I cared for them for a long time was just too much for me.

Foster-to-adopt situations are actually less common.  More often the child's status is up in the air, with family visits and other issues you'll have to deal with in the meantime.

So to summarize, my vote is either make the choice to foster or make a choice to adopt.  You will likely be disappointed if you go through all the work to be a foster parent as a means to adoption. If you are doing it truly to help children in a temporary capacity, then I wish you all the best! 

On a side note, if you have freecycle in your area, you can usually find most everything you need for free if you tell folks you have a foster child and need clothes, high chair, etc.