[rmyoung]

Does anyone have experience with respite care?

My husband and I are considering doing this for Christmas- possibly 2 school-age kids to try to give them an awesome holiday.

Or would that be in bad taste? Like, "here ya go- this could be your life -but ooops, it's not! Bye now."

[ALI143]

Sharing Christmas with kids is absolutely wonderful. I've liked doing respite care for a 100 reasons.They could have a lot of funa nd so could you. I had my last respite a few weeks ago, I'm getting close to adoption so my worker probably won't let anyone else be babysat here for a year, but I've loved it.

[AmyAnne]

Make it as "normal" as possible. Don't do "Disneyland weekend" or the foster/adoptive parents will have a week of tantrums when the kids get home!!

[Gryph]

Sometimes residential placements have kids that have no place to go. Sometimes they go to a staff person's home for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

[Mishagreen]

My only experience with respite is doing it for my friends who are foster parents and don't want to leave their children with people who are strangers to them.
We don't do anything out of the norm from our regular routine when they are here. We want to keep our friends!Lol
I think it would be great to do it at Christmas, especially for the kids whose foster parents don't include them during the holiday,(which makes me sad to think of..hopefully that doesn't happen very often) or those who are in residential care and don't have a place to go. You could turn an otherwise sad time into a memorable, special time.