Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Adoption Myth IV: You Must Foster First

By: Elizabeth Redhead Kriston, MS/CCC-SLP

My friend who fosters children told me that it upsets her when people say that they cannot understand how she can foster. These people say their hearts would be broken if they had to return a child after loving him or her. They claim that could not withstand the pain. My friend confided that when she hears that, it makes her feel like people think her heart is unbreakable.

In fact, my friend has a big, kind, and loving heart; a heart that breaks a little each time a child she has fostered moves on. However, her heart also grows each time she meets and loves a child. She has the honor of getting to know, getting to love, and getting to nurture a great many children. While it does hurt her heart each time they leave, she is consoled and strengthened to know they are leaving to be reunited or matched with a forever family. My friend finds fostering to be rewarding not an exercise in torture.

Her heart is not stronger than any other heart. Instead of a heart of steel, she has the gift of perspective. She understands the true purpose of fostering. She cherishes each child. She feels honored to care for them. These children grow her heart more than they break it.

I understand this now. I did not understand this then. When my husband and I decided to adopt from the foster care system we were quite certain that we did not want to be foster parents. I knew from my work experiences with foster families that the adoption judges and social workers work diligently to help biological families reunify with their biological children. Biological parents are given many opportunities to improve their lives so that they can raise their children.

Some Steps to Reunification:
1.    Drug and alcohol rehabilitation
2.    Parenting classes
3.    Steady or permanent employment
4.    Basic home care skills like cooking and cleaning
5.    Pursuit of a GED
6.    Supervised visitation

Changing a child’s goal from reunification to adoption is the very last resort. I knew that when fostering, you could foster a child for years and believe, hope, and pray that that child would be deemed your forever child only to watch that child leave your home for reunification.

The uncertainty was more than my husband and I could handle. We had just suffered through infertility and all the heartache that provided. The thought of falling in love with a foster child only to give him or her back was more than my mind and heart could bear at that time. It does not mean that foster families have hearts of stone; it just means that they have a healthy perspective and purpose. I knew my already fragile psyche could not withstand more disappointment.

Fortunately, we learned that we could adopt through foster care without actually fostering.  Because children are often fostered by people who just want to foster and not adopt, many children can be placed with want-to-be parents after termination of parental rights. These foster children, after much work by the social workers and judges, are legally emancipated from their biological parents once it has been determined that the birth parents cannot raise their children in safe and stable home environments.

Once parental rights are terminated, the child is free to be adopted. That was the situation that my husband and I sought and found, twice. We went through the same process as foster parents meeting all the requirements from clearances to CPR/First Aid certification to parenting classes, but we never truly fostered. Instead, we were chosen by the social workers and then an adoption placement board to adopt a legally free child. This child was place in our care for the standard of a minimum of six months before the actual adoption took place.

Before we accepted the child into our home we were able to see a photograph and read a comprehensive report about the child. The report included information about her birth parents and her medical history. Since both of our children were infants, the information was somewhat limited.

The purpose of the sharing of background information
1.    To help make an informed decision of whether or not adoptive parents want to become that child’s parents.
2.    Provide insights and information on developmental delays
3.    Provide insights and information on mental health issues
4.    Provide medical information
5.    Provide information about the birth parents for insight and information on genetic components that might play a role in the child’s future health and educational development.

Of course, no one can ever truly predict how a child will grow and develop. Every child has a unique personality. Some children are stronger than others and will overcome even the most challenging experiences or work through the most debilitating illness while others will submit and succumb. We must consider the roles of nature and nurture. The nature of a child may lie the groundwork, but a child’s life experiences can supersede what seemed to be written in the cards.

Saying that all children need is love is a bit simplistic and very hopeful. Yes children need love but they also need attention, patience, room to grow, a chance to make mistakes, a chance to take risks, a chance to succeed, a chance to lose. Children need opportunities big or small. They need guidance and boundaries. They need rules and schedules. They need encouragement to be creative and unique. Being a parent is so very hard and it is fraught with doubts, guilt, judgements, and second guessing. Love is the most important element because it makes all those other things possible, but it cannot stand alone.




Many want-to-be parents shy away from the foster-adopt system because they are afraid of either a broken heart or adopting a child with complex needs. My hope is that if you want to adopt you will seriously consider this as a viable option. Read more books, talk to more people, and ask more questions. There are over 1000,000 children who are legally freed and waiting to be adopted. Your future child might be one of those waiting children.

Helpful Resources for Foster-Adoption


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