[filswife]

Hi there,

My dh and I are currently in the process of the FFF classes and filling out the application. We have 4 children (bio) and are looking to fost/adopt 2 siblings. Right now, each of our 4 children have their own room. (we have 2 girls, 2 boys). The boys are 8 and 11 and the girls are 13 & 3. WHat are the usual guidelines for kids sharing rooms? SHould we have our bio children room together or depending on what children we are placed with, can a biological/foster room share work? IS that preferred? My children are all willing to share their rooms with any child who comes to live here. ANy feedback anyone has would be great. I continue to work on the application....

Filswife

[SchmennaLeigh]

My parents foster. The program they are in requires them to make sure each foster child has his/her own room. No sharing whatsoever. Now, that isn't the case with our friends who are fostering. They had the baby (2 years) and their oldest bio daughter share a room.

I would actually ask the social worker what he/she thinks would be best, especially once you have specific children coming to your house. The social worker would know whether or not they are equipped to share a room with another child. And be sure to prep your biological kids as well; give them some advice from your training manuals on what to expect.

God bless.

[Peggy]

Different states have different restrictions. Also it will depend on the child, and what his/her history is. In general do not put an older foster child with a younger bio until you feel confident of all the children being safe. I agree that it would be good to get input from the social worker.

[lucyjoy]

Our state allows room sharing but I would not recommend it. Some of these kids have histories that make sharing rooms a poor idea. I have two kids who absolutely cannot sleep at all if anyone else is in their room because of the abuse that was done to them. I also have kids who steal or have other behaviors that prevent them from making good room mates.

If it were me, I would put the bio kids together now and see how they handle sharing rooms before other kids actually show up.

[nursemum]

Are you planning to foster younger than the children already in your home? If so, it's probably fine for your 3 yr old to share a room with a child under 3.

If you're planning to disrupt birth order, which I don't recommend anyway, I would strongly urge you not to have the children share rooms. I can't tell you how many foster families I know of who have had their children hurt by foster children coming into their house and abusing their children. Some of the children were adopted, had begun to heal, and had terrible set-backs when it comes to trust, bc of what the foster children did to them.

[filswife]

Thanks for the feedback,

we are not planning on disrupting the birth order for the older three. We are open to children 8 and under. I do not think my 3 year old will have any problem with one more older sibling or a younger one. SHe should be fine. I am supposing you are all riht. This is probably a bridge I will cross once I actually am aware of what kind of child will be placed here. We actually even have the capability of walling in another area for one more bedroom, if that ends up being necessary. Thanks!

[nursemum]

Originally Posted by filswife

Thanks for the feedback,

we are not planning on disrupting the birth order for the older three. We are open to children 8 and under. I do not think my 3 year old will have any problem with one more older sibling or a younger one. SHe should be fine. I am supposing you are all riht. This is probably a bridge I will cross once I actually am aware of what kind of child will be placed here. We actually even have the capability of walling in another area for one more bedroom, if that ends up being necessary. Thanks!

Staying with younger than the children already in your home isn't so that the youngest doesn't have a problem with an older fosterchild being in the home, it's so that the younger child can protect themselves from a child who is older or stronger than them.

[filswife]

you are right. I imagine this is something our sw will talk with us about once we get to that point.
I am an at-home mom of four so I like to think that I have a clue on what I am doing. I do realize that adopting is a whole new world but I believe we are ready for it. There are so many children out there who need stable families. I do understand, and are concerned about the wellbeing of my biological children. I do not want them to be put in harm's way. I think that is why the application has you fill out the 10 page "considerations" for what kind of child you would consider. I imagine they are quite thourough getting to know the family through homestudy and the autobiographies etc. They wouldn't want to put my family in harm's way either, correct? Their goal would be to have this work out the best that it can, right? I hope I am not sounding naive. I have been reading and researching about this for a couple of years to prepare us for when we thought we'd be ready. I continue to read and take the classes quite seriously. Is there something I am missing?

[nursemum]

When children first come into foster care, they are placed in a family when not a lot is known about them. The ff is taking a "risk" that the child is sexually abused, aggressive, or has any other type of behavior that could put the children already in their home in harm's way.

There are also times when the sw is desperate to place a child and may leave out some very important information in order to place the child. I've seen newly licensed foster parents become so excited to have a child and say yes, without considering all the ramifications. Lets face it, we become foster parents bc we want to help children. It's hard for us sometimes to say no to a child in need. We think we have what it takes to keep our children safe in the process. Until we become knee-deep in a bad situation, we sometimes haven't thought that we'd ever be in that situation. I know it's happened to me and to most of my foster parent friends.

Get involved with your local foster parent association. Talk to the experienced foster parents and find out as much as you can. In my area, there are certain sw's that we all know to stay away from bc they lie and give no support. There are other sw's that we all fight over, just kidding , to get their fc, bc we know they give us the most support and are upfront with us. Not all sw's have been created equal. Not all departments have the ff's best interests as priorty. Once you've been doing this for a few years you'll get the inside scoop and will be able to see things differently.

We have all been where you are now. Some people say that we should all just trust our own instincts. Some people say that we should never take a child older than the youngest already in the home. Each of us has to make our own choice about how we proceed in our foster care path. My only concern is not to hurt more children in the process of trying to help others.

[DianeS]

filswife, yes, the workers you use will know your family, and what you will and will not be able to accept in a foster/adopt child.

But it is THE CHILD that the worker will not know. The experiences the child has been through, what the child chooses to do behind closed doors. Because, after all, shouldn't the parents be in jail if it could be proved that they sexually molested their child? Well, if the parents aren't in jail, then it wasn't proved. So suddenly, that child doesn't fall in the category of "was sexually molested", he/she falls in the category of "possibly sexually molested", and if you ask straight out if the child was a victim, the worker may legally have to answer "no" - because there is no court-accepted evidence that any adult ever touched the child. So legally, it never happened, and such a child could end up in a home that said "no sexually abused children". See how that can happen? It can happen with other behaviors, too.

And that is where the danger comes in. Don't forget: workers do not live with the foster children. They do not place their own children with them. They have a clinical view of the child, from how the child has behaved around them. Not necessarially how the child behaves around other children, or in a home enviornment. And those two behaviors can be quite different!

As a mother of four, who seems to indeed have a clue about what you are doing, would you EVER pick a babysitter from the name list in a high school yearbook? Just pick a name, call him/her up, meet the babysitter for a few minutes and then have him/her watch your children while you leave for an evening?

Of course not. You talk to your friends, you find a babysitter who is responsible, who other friends have trusted, who maybe even comes with references from other families. Etc. Right?

But what you are considering doing with accepting foster children you have never met before is accepting a child with a great deal of unknown history. That's going to be a fact no matter how good your social worker is.

You'll then introduce that child to your children as their new sibling. Then you'll put them in pajamas and you are currently considering putting one of them to bed across the room from your 3 year old. For eight hours. With the lights off. With your innocent 3 year old asleep. With you asleep down the hall. Noone watching, noone standing by to intervene.

Could you live with yourself if something did happen?

If you wouldn't go to a playground and pick a random 8 year old, put him in a bedroom with either your 8 year old or your 3 year old, turn out the lights, and not check on their playing for eight hours... then why would you do it just because the 8 year old was placed with you as a foster child?

Because honestly, there are caseworkers who are terriffic and caseworkers who are terrible. Most fall in the middle somewhere. But almost all are rather new at their jobs - working in the state foster care system tends to burn caseworkers out rather quickly. There's no time to build up experience in what works and what doesn't - they're hired, make placements, and are gone before the placement has existed long enough to know if it was a good march or not. They don't stay around long enough to gain experience necessary to know what works and what doesn't.

Just make your list of acceptable/unacceptable behaviors/traits/etc as best you can. Then, before you assign bedrooms, think to yourself: "But what if the child does that and the caseworker just doesn't KNOW about it???" Then assign the child to a bedroom based on what might happen, not based on what you hope happens.

Or better yet, move the younger bio children into bedrooms with the older bio children before new kids arrive. That automatically provides another person in the room to discourage inappropriate visiting. It provides someone in the room to witness and stop activity before it progresses. It's by far the safer option.

[nursemum]

Great post Diane! Excellent analogies!

Don't forget that not all abuse happens at night. I have a friend disrupting right now bc of abuse that happened to her child during the day by another child. The abuser was only a few months older than the younger child, but the younger child has some developmental delays that make her seem much younger. These are 8 yr old girls. I have another friend whose child was caught abusing children in the Chuck E Cheese maze. Who would have even thought?

[filswife]

Are you a foster parent at all? I am going to assume that you are since you are on this thread. I am wondering, with all of that information floating around with the "what ifs" and the potential problems this could create in anyones home, why would anyone sign up to do this? I know why my dh and I are signing up for this and of course we would never want any harm of any kind to come to our children, biological or adopted. Just the contrary, we want all of our children to feel safe and loved. I know that there are no guarantees in life and taking on another child, bio or adopted means you are taking on a whole new world. There is no telling what they will be like regardless if they came from your womb or not.
How do you keep tabs on all of your children? You cant possibly lock them away at night. I understand you have to be mindful and watchful of the children but that is with ALL children, not just foster kids.
I hate to say that your post gave me a negative saddened feeling, even though it is definitely all possible scenarios, but everything in life is a gamble. You cant be sure of anything, ever.
I do believe what we will do is give the foster/adopt child/children their own room and have our biological kids become roomies again. That seems to sound the best anyway.

[filswife]

p.s. i hope i dont sound like i'm attacking anyone. i am just up to my eyeballs in negative stories and "what ifs" and have heard very few positive foster stories. Support is what i'mlooking for. thanks... sorry if it sounded bad.

[nursemum]

I am a foster parent. I never take children older or stronger than the children already in my home. I waited to foster until my biological children were older and then I only took children younger than them.

We never left our foster daughters alone with my sons or my husband. I have a friend whose husband was falsely accused. It left them with a $20,000 lawyer bill. He lost his job and couldn't pay their bills any more. They eventually lost their house.

Sometimes I do wonder why there are any foster parents. There's a saying in the foster community that it's not a matter of IF an allegation is made against you, it's a matter of WHEN. I have another friend whose foster daughter made a false allegation against her son. The girl was 8, the son was 12. She lost her fc license, even though the allegation was "unsubstantiated", bc the department said they couldn't prove it did happen, but they couldn't prove it didn't happen either.

I'm not telling this to scare you out of fostering. I believe in fostering, but I believe prospective foster parents should be given all the facts. Some departments are so hard up for good homes that they don't disclose everything before the licensing. I know I had to learn things the hard way. I just want you to know things to protect your children. It would be horrible if they were abused bc no one told you what to look out for.

[Lorraine123]

filswife -

This isn't to discourage you, in fact the opposite. I commend you for wanted to foster. However, Diane's post was very accurate.

You keep comparing the foster children to your own. There is little comparison. Foster children are there for a reason. They don't have the background that your children have. They don't have the values. They don't know how to live in a "normal" family. I'm not putting them down, just stating the facts. Most of them have seen things we could only dream about.

I would never put my adopted daughter in a room with my biological children. I also never let her play out of my sight with any child younger than her. Safety is essential.

Diane is correct in that SW don't know all. They can't. We were told only a smidgeon about my daughter's issues. The rest were revealed once she was in our home.

Read some of the posts on the special needs forums. Its quite eye opening.

Again, I commend you for wanting to foster. I think its great. I wish more people did. You may get a child who comes in and fits fine, but you just never know.....

Good luck to you. This is the most rewarding thing I've done. But also, the hardest.

Lorraine