[Bamamom07]

The issue I'd love to hear feedback on, is helping an older child manage when siblings are returned to parent. My fs is med. frag. and has done very well with us for 1 yr., "supposed" to be TPR'd soon. One final reunif. attempt with siblings occuring now. We love this child, and wait anxiously to adopt him- which he also wants, but now of course he's torn. Mom's finally doing somethings right with other kids, & it may actually work this time. But too risky for my fs to try. If it doesn't work, we agreed to take the group & he knows it. It's just SOOO hard on him....the waiting, wondering, missing the others.

[marythemom]

Our situation was a little different. Biomom has 4 (+ one on the way) children, all with different fathers. When our son was 11 she told the police he was out of control and put him in foster care. 6 months later she did the same to our daughter and then terminated parental rights. She kept their 2 younger siblings.

She told my children that it was their fault. The children were not only resentful of their younger siblings, but also very worried about them still being in abusive situations (biomom prefers abusive men). It's been about 4 years and my children are still very angry at her.

Now that the younger children are reaching the age that my children were when she dumped them, my children are asking when they'll come live with us! Biomom only has 2 children, and they are allegedlly calmer and more compliant than my two so there is a strong liklihood that they'll never enter care - or that biofamily will take them.

All we can do is keep supporting ours and let them know that we would attempt to adopt younger sibs. We also try to visit with younger siblings whenever possible. We live in TX and the girls are in NE - but they can talk on the phone sometimes when visiting other family members (we don't allow contact with biomom - she's unable to keep from blaming my kids for her abandonment.

[Bamamom07]

Thanks, Mary. Fostering ain't for wimps, is it...

[marythemom]

I knew too much about child abuse and neglect and knew that I could never take in a child, love him/her, and then allow that child to go back to a situation that could potentially be abusive. My nieces and nephew were removed from their mom's custody many times and kept going back. They all have PTSD and many other issues.

We took the "easy" way out and took in children who were up for adoption with parental rights already terminated. We wanted older kids instead of babies or young children though so that was more likely.

I admire foster parents so much. My kids had fantastic foster parents who helped them make so much progress. Because of our younger children, we could not have taken our kids in when they first entered foster care. They were too dangerous.

[Bamamom07]

Our lives changed again when months ago we took in our fs's siblings after RU with mom didn't last. Months later, siblings are doing so well. What we never anticipated though, is our first fs's mix of happiness/jealousy over having his sibs with us. We are STILL dealing with adjustment issues over that. It caught us so off guard that he would react as though he was master of the kingdom, and his sibs have the nerve to not give in to everything he wants!

[momraine]

My bio son reacted the same way when our second child came along. DD also had issues with our youngest. So some of that is normal, although with your son's background it's probably magnified.