[hubbyswife]

I'm new to this... fostering that is... we've have had a 4yr boy for a month now and a 10 yr old girl (she's leaving with in the week). They both call us by our first names. fs calls us his parents to other ppl.....
I was just curious of what your foster kids call you. Do u ever ask them to call u mom/dad, wait til they just do or tell them when they r ready they can?? Or maybe another nickname???

[KelleyF]

I have 2 fc. They are brothers so we got them both at the same time. The 3 year old started calling me mom right away (on his own). The 4 year old waited about a week and then said to me "why is D calling you mom?" and I said "because I'm the mom in this house" and then he just started calling me mom. I did start off introducing myself as Kelley, but then I let them take it from there. Of course, I have 4 other kids in house calling me mom so it made it comfortable for them.
If he refers to you as his parents, I would probably tell him he can call you mom if he wants, but it's up to him.
Maybe he's waiting for an invite.

[sgtmax]

Hi We have four foster kids that are on the road to
re-unification. Knowing this was the plan for them from the beginnig, on the day they arrived we told them they could call us either mom and dad or Miss....first name and Mr..........fill in first name. Thye chose to call us mom and dad. When one of the kids said that they thought it would hurt their "real" moms (their words) if they heard then callin gus mom and dad, I told them that they could tell her that we are only their temporary mom and dad and that she is there forever mom. It seems to have made everybody happy.

[momofmykids]

Let them decide what to call you. If it's your first name, fine, if it's mom and dad, that's fine, too. Our oldest son (at age 4) came in calling us by our first names, and within a few weeks he would say, "I'm gonna call you mom!" and then laugh like it was a joke. He was really testing the waters and I told him that he could call me either one, it was his decision. Wasn't long before it was mom and dad all the time.

Good luck!

[Dmommab]

Most of our foster children have called us mom & dad on their own - probably because our bio children call us mom & dad. The only exception was a set of brothers (ages 5 & 8) who we met when they were in foster care with my next door neighbor so they called us by our first names because we had known them for several years. Their grandparents were raising them & due to some behavioral issues asked children's services to step in & they personally asked that the children be placed with us (we also had their bio sister in foster care at the time). I think sometimes when they hear the other kids in the home call you mom & dad it just seems natural to call you that themselves. I have had bio parents become upset that the children were calling us mom & dad and one caseworker even asked me to have them stop calling us mom & dad. I told her absolutely not!!! IF the children feel comfortable calling us mom & dad like everyone else in the house they absolutely can do so & if bio mom can't accept that they needed to move to children to another home - well, needless to say that didn't happen & we are now in the process of adopting these children with a wonderful open relationship with bio mom. I explained to her that in the beginning they were doing it simply because everyone else does & she seemed to accept that.

[garry970]

Hi, I'm Garry, a single foster dad with a 13yo bio son, my foster son is an 11yo I've had since Jan 10. I had 7yo and 9yo brothers last year.

I tell them on the first day to call me "pop". The first 2 boys, the older one called me "pop", but the younger one never called me anything. My current foster son called me "pop" for only 2 days, and then started calling me "dad". He has never had a "father figure" in his life.

I also don't believe in calling an adult by their first name. I am also a teacher, so I'm usally addressed as Mr. ******, but I don't want the kids calling that either. So I chose "pop".

Good luck!!!

Garry

[hubbyswife]

Thanks for replying. I wasn't sure how to bring this up and it was never brought up in our training classes. We never got the chance to discuss names w fs. Our placement sw right away said that this is me n dh by our first names. But it looks like he'll b w us for a long time... I know he calls us his parents so I wasn't sure if he knew he could call us mom/dad, we don't have kids (unable to) so he doesn't hear other kids, he hears us call our parents mom/dad but that's it. So, I asked DH if we should ask him , well let fs know that it's okay w us if he wanted to call us mom/dad. So, this morning I talked w fs. I basically let him know that if he wanted to call us mom/dad that we were cool with that or if wanted to continue to call us our names that was cool too. He said that he wanted to call us mom/dad. We just want to make him as comfy as possible.

[kforkids]

We've done a lot of different things. I usually try to find out what the child calls his bio parents, and try to avoid that. (we do Mamma/Papa if bios do Mom/ Dad)
We've been lucky and most of our fkids have called us Mommy/Daddy, because thats what our bios call us. We had some older ones who called us "Mr and Mrs C' or "Mommy/Daddy C" to distinguish from their bios. Our current fson who we are adopting, went through all those variations and now calls us Mom and Dad.

[TexasJingles]

Our oldest (10) used our 1st names for about 2 week. The middle (8) used our 1st names for about 3 days and then asked if she could call us mom and dad. The youngest (just 7), didn't call us anything for a day and then used mom and dad right away... well, dad, I still don't think he called me anything for a while. When he gets in a rage I'm "lady"!

All of them have called other foster parents mom and dad, so they're used to it. We just redirect the "real" mom to birth mom and go from there.

It doesn't bother me. I've been "miss C" at school (I'm a teacher too), "miss jeri" at scouts, and my own step-daughter calls me "jeri (pause)... uh... mom"! She worries that her bmom will get upset if she hears her calling me 'Mom'.

[Kate1129]

We have a 4 year old and 1 year old.

J our 4 yr old calls us Mommy Kate and Daddy Matt. We did this thinking that their case would go to adoption and it would not be an easy transition for him to go from our first names to mom and dad. In that same converstation we explain that we are a mommy and daddy because of our "job". A mommy gives you baths and takes care of you and you know the rest. He accepted it just fine and it's never been an issue. As for our little one, she just learned to follow the lead of her brother. She calls us that cause it's what she hears.

[Fostering2Adopt]

I am glad i found this thread! We have 4 (almost 5 kids). 2 are bio, 2 are fc we have had from infancy and we are getting a 13 yr old fs fri! All of the kids in our house call us momma & daddy. But this child has been with a family for a year who suddenly cant keep him and he still calls them by their names, I am curious what he's gonna call us. Should I let him approach us on the subject or let him know anything he wants to call us (well almost anything lol )is fine. He spent about 5 days with us last week and was shocked after the first 2 days he still couldnt tell which kids were bio and which were foster. I told him who was foster and who was bio but that we were all a family and everyone is treated the same, loved the same and respected the same. He called us by our first names during the visit.

[momofmykids]

"Mom" and "Dad" are BIG words for children who have never had permanency. Please don't force that on this boy, God only knows what he's been through! We had a foster-to-adopt placement of a 16 year old boy a couple years ago. It fell through (He decided he didn't want to be adopted. ) and even after several months of thinking we were going to be his foever family, he was still calling us by our first names. It was okay because we knew he had been to h*ll and back in his 16 years.

Good luck!
Jill

[allabouthorses]

I have known a few foster kids. One I work with now, calls his foster parents by their first names AND calls them "mom and dad" or "my parents" sometimes, as well. He is 10, and has been with them for just over a year and a half. I was quite surprised that he referred to them as "his parents", but I think that it's great that he feels so comfortable and secure with them, especially at his age!

I think letting the kids decide is the most important thing. I think this should go for adopted children as well!

[Terry Ann65]

Originally Posted by hubbyswife

I'm new to this... fostering that is... we've have had a 4yr boy for a month now and a 10 yr old girl (she's leaving with in the week). They both call us by our first names. fs calls us his parents to other ppl.....
I was just curious of what your foster kids call you. Do u ever ask them to call u mom/dad, wait til they just do or tell them when they r ready they can?? Or maybe another nickname???

I don't know if this will help..........growing up in a foster home over 20 years ago all 3 of us called our foster parents "Nana & Poppy". Our mom was still in the picture (see my post under "my story") thread.

We were taken in at ages 6-11.

Nana and Poppy are good strong names and may make some children more comfortable while settling in. As far as first names go - it depends on how an individual feels about a child calling them by their name.

Terry

[2SentbyGod]

My foster children where very young when placed w/us. My ds was 2 years and my dd was 1 month. So they called us mommy and daddy from the first day they talked. They didn't no any other parents. My ds had visits w/birth mom but he had a speech problem so by the time he could talk. We had already adopted him. My dd was placed w/us at 1 month she also visits w/birth mom. But not too many of them because of the birth mom's history. So dh and I are all they knew. KellyF where did you get your avater hope I spelled it right. I love the New england Patriots and I was just wondering.