Even though the number of children in the foster system that needs guidance may be extremely high, fostering a child can be a stressful personal choice. When a foster parent decides to commit to being a foster parent, whether the person becomes a foster parent formally through a fostering agency or informally by taking in a family member or friend’s child, a foster parent and other people within the household will surely be challenged in diverse ways. Even with all the resources the agencies have out there to assist the foster parent in preparing to foster a child, “foster parenting is a learn-as-you-go effort” (Foster Parenting and Stress”). No matter how diligently the person may apply oneself to “no one can ready you for the stress level
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Each child will have their own disabilities or issues that they will be dealing with. The children may have been taken away from their parents due to physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, parents having drug addictions, parents being incarcerated, abandonment, etc. Children will handle life’s issues differently in their own way. The foster parent must be understanding and try to help the child with what they are facing. The foster parent will see the child go through many effects, such as “nightmares, regressive behaviors, depression, acting out—the list goes on” (“Trauma and Children: An Introduction for Foster Parents”). The children in the foster system go through trauma, which is a “psychologically distressing event that is outside the range of usual human experience, one that induces an abnormally intense and prolonged stress response” (“Trauma and Children: An Introduction for Foster Parents”), that may always be with them for the rest of their lives. The foster parent will need to keep in contact with the caseworker of how the child is doing, which the caseworker may suggest for the foster parent to take the child to see a psychiatrist if the child is not already seeing one. Of course it is a lot of work going through the process with the child, but the child would feel safer having someone there with them through it, than to go through it by
Each child will have their own disabilities or issues that they will be dealing with. The children may have been taken away from their parents due to physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, parents having drug addictions, parents being incarcerated, abandonment, etc. Children will handle life’s issues differently in their own way. The foster parent must be understanding and try to help the child with what they are facing. The foster parent will see the child go through many effects, such as “nightmares, regressive behaviors, depression, acting out—the list goes on” (“Trauma and Children: An Introduction for Foster Parents”). The children in the foster system go through trauma, which is a “psychologically distressing event that is outside the range of usual human experience, one that induces an abnormally intense and prolonged stress response” (“Trauma and Children: An Introduction for Foster Parents”), that may always be with them for the rest of their lives. The foster parent will need to keep in contact with the caseworker of how the child is doing, which the caseworker may suggest for the foster parent to take the child to see a psychiatrist if the child is not already seeing one. Of course it is a lot of work going through the process with the child, but the child would feel safer having someone there with them through it, than to go through it by