I would recommend to anyone who has thought of doing foster care to research what is available in your area.  You can usually go through the state or through a private agency.  Sometimes the private agencies get the children who are more difficult to place.  Some people are paranoid about working with the "state," but we never had any difficulties at all, we had a terrific case worker, and we would work with the state again if so called.

 

The main caution I would give about doing foster care is to be very selective about the ages of the children you agree to take in.  Most people want to take babies or toddlers, but if you already have very small children, you might consider taking teens instead.  This worked well for us and since there was such a huge age gap, our little ones didn't pick up the bad behaviors of the teens.  However, if you get a toddler with horrible behavior and you already have a toddler, your child is likely to pick up bad behaviors from someone his or her own age.  (For example, your two-year-old is likely to copy a tantrum that a foster toddler is throwing, but he is not likely to go out back to sneak a cigarette like your foster teen.)

 

The biggest piece of advice I can give is to set your rules and stick by them.  We didn't allow dating, smoking, or cell phones.  We were very strict about these rules until one case worker told us we should allow a particular teen to have a cell phone.  Sure enough, she was the first kid we ever had to run away - she set up a meeting with someone on her cell phone, went out for a walk and we never saw her again.  There are also case workers who will tell you that teens are going to smoke anyway so just let them.  This is not only AGAINST THE LAW (they aren't old enough to buy cigarettes), but if you truly care about the young person's health, you cannot and should not let them smoke!!  We searched the bags of each teen as he/she came in and frequently found things they shouldn't have, such as cigarettes, inappropriate CDs or videos, knives, etc.  This is an important step you should take with each foster child.  When you put the items in a safe place until they leave your home, explain why you must take away the items so that it doesn't look like you are just punishing them.  Explain how certain things are not healthy for them to have. 

 

When our oldest child was about four years old, we decided to bring pregnant teenage girls or teens with babies into our home.  Most of these young women want to keep their children and we figured that if they were going to be young parents, someone should help them learn how to do it.  It has not been uncommon for teenagers to have babies - in our society or others - for thousands of years.  However, for about the past 100 or so years (ironically, soon after compulsory attendance laws came into effect in the United States), teen pregnancy has come to be viewed as a horror in society.  It is true that the large majority of pregnant teens today are unwed so that is obviously bad on a moral level, but as far as people who marry when they are 17 or 18 and start having children, this has been the norm for thousands of years.  We have crippled the teenagers in our society by creating the "teen" category, first of all, and also by basically designing a society that expects young people to be "children" (according to the standard of responsibility) until they graduate from high school or, sometimes, college.  Once they achieve these goals, THEN and only then can they truly be adults.  The problem is that when you train a child to be a child until they are 20 or so years old, you've already missed a golden opportunity of transition from childhood to adulthood.  People who don't make this transition when they are around 14 frequently never make it.

 

Anyway, I digress...  These young women frequently want to keep their babies, but society usually offers three alternatives:

- have an abortion so you don't have to deal with the "problem"

- give the child up for adoption so that you can bless another family and you are not burdened with a child at such a young age

- live on welfare, government housing, finish school and get your diploma while the baby is in in-school daycare, etc.

 

What we usually do not do is tell young women that they got pregnant, they can keep the baby, BUT they will need to learn how to take care of that child themselves, even if means achieving their goals later, getting a GED, going to night school (college), and living with a relative or in a run-down apartment or trailer.  Now I am NOT advocating teen pregnancy here.  Please don't misunderstand.  Obviously the FIRST thing we should do is take Planned Parenthood OUT of our schools and stop spreading lies to our nation's children.  Sex outside of marriage IS a sin.  If you get pregnant as a result of this sin, the answer is not to sin again by killing your unborn child, but to accept responsibility for your actions and make a MATURE choice.  We told the girls who came into our home that we would support them if they chose to put their baby up for adoption and we would support them if they wanted to raise their child, but we would never support abortion - for any reason.  That child is not the problem and an abortion would not solve their problems. 

 

So, what we did was offer a safe place where these girls were treated as adults as much as we could.  We did have to give them a crash course in behaving like adults.  They were expected to take care of themselves and their children (born or unborn).  They were expected to attend school and prepare to live independently.  We told them that if they were old enough to get pregnant, then they were old enough to finish school, get a job and make adult choices.  This may sound unconventional to some, but it was very impowering to these young ladies.  Many of them got pregnant because they WANTED control in their lives.  With the exception of one young woman who came to our home, every single one of these pregnant teens had been taken to the health department and put on birth control by their parents - usually the mom!  Now tell me there is not a problem there!  The moms gave them permission to have sex and actually encouraged it by allowing boyfriends to sleep over, etc., but when these teenagers ended up pregnant, they acted completely shocked.

 

We had foster teens in our home (pregnant, with young children, and occasionally teens who weren't pregnant) for about 7 1/2 years.  Finally, a little over a year ago, we decided that the age gap between our children was getting too small.  We started doing foster care when our oldest child, a daughter, was four.  We stopped last year when she was 11.  When she was four, there was such a huge age gap between her and these pregnant teens that she saw them as "adults" and it was not an option to imitate their behavior (cursing, smoking, etc.).  Of course we didn't allow those sorts of behaviors, but they sometimes did them anyway and had to suffer the consequences (grounding, revoking of television privileges, etc.). 

 

There is a general "rule" about foster care that you shouldn't take in a child older than your oldest child.  Again, this rule doesn't apply if your children are toddlers or early school age AND as long as you have an age gap by several years.  If your children are school age, you probably want to foster younger children.

 

The main thing to remember, though, is to PRAY before making any decision of this magnitude.  The Bible tells us to care for "orphans and widows."  I believe this does apply to children in the foster system.

 

There are many things I will not disclose on the website just because I know that sometimes kids wander in here and read my posts.  If you are considering foster care or adoption through foster care, please feel free to e-mail me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I will try to answer any questions you may have. 

 

Sonya