Foster parenting has become more popular among families in the United States than ever before as people become more aware of the pressing needs for kind, generous, and responsible parents willing to take in children who have had more than their shares of suffering. A foster parent, also known as an adoptive parent, is a parent who takes in a child who is part of the foster system and typically living in some sort of orphanage or child community living center because he or she either has no living parents or was removed from them for a variety of reasons. Almost anyone can be a foster parent, but it takes a bit more work to be a good foster parent. Fortunately, it is not too difficult to be a good foster father simply by adhering to some basic parental rules that any good biological parent will follow. This article will provide some of the most basic tips you should keep in mind if you are an aspiring foster father looking to take care of your foster children.
Perhaps the most basic tip to keep in mind if you want to be a good foster father is to treat every child in your family the same way you treat every other member of your family: with love and respect and compassion. Your goal is to make every foster child you bring into your family feel as welcome as every other member of your family. Keep in mind that virtually any foster child you come across will have gone through some kind of trauma in his or her life, which most likely included losing not only his or her home but his or her parents. This is part of what it means to be a foster child, even if the child has a history of violence or addiction or other externalizing behaviors.
It is not always going to be easy to raise a foster child, whether or not you already have other children in your family, but you will need to maintain a sense of understanding and patience when dealing with your children, regardless of whether or not you or your partner gave birth to them. At some point, your foster child or children will realize that you truly love and care for them and will start to feel safe enough to respond in kind. Do not raise artificial boundaries between your bloodborne children and your foster children, if you have any, as there is nothing worse than the feeling of being unwanted, and this is the feeling your foster children will rightfully develop if you give them the impression that you value them less because you or your partner did not give birth to them.
Another tip to keep in mind if you want to be a good foster father is that you should talk to your children with respect and positivity. It will not help if you are constantly barking at them and discouraging them with your words, your actions, or your vocal inflections. It is important to make time to play with them and spend time with them in general, whether they are very young or close to adulthood. It is true that everyone gets busy sometimes and that everyone has too much to do and too little time to do it these days, but if you make the decision to become a foster parent it is equally important to make the decision to spend time with your children, every single day. It almost doesn’t matter what you do, as long as it involves you and your kin. Sometimes spending time with them might mean playing outside or asking about their days or reading to them or listening to them tell you about any number of things. It might mean taking them out to dinner or seeing a movie with them; the details aren’t important. The time is essential.