Saturday, November 26, 2011

Foster Friday: Top 3 Questions

"We are in the process of becoming foster parents." is usually followed by these three questions.

1. “Why?” The most appropriate answer seems to be “Why not?”. We wanted to expand our family, but getting pregnant or even adopting didn’t feel “right”. Foster parenting felt like the perfect way for us to expand our family while giving another family the chance for a new future!

2. “Won’t you become attached?” Yes! We are actually excited about the attachment because that is when the child really becomes part of our family. It is strongly encouraged for foster parents to not only form a relationship with the child, but also with the birth family. This way these relationships can continue after reunification. We view our role similar to that of an aunt/uncle, who step in when the parents need time to straighten out their lives but still remain in the child’s life after that period of time has passed.

3. “Are you going to adopt?” Our ultimate goal in foster parenting is to reunite the child with their birth family, so we are not fostering to adopt. However, if parental rights are terminated then we will have the option to adopt the child. At that point we will consider adoption, which means the answer could be no. Or the child could steal our hearts and complete our family in a way we never knew, and we'd obviously say "yes"!

No comments:

Post a Comment