Dr. Ray Guarendi, clinical psychologist, author, speaker, radio host, and family advocate

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TEMPORARY TO PERMANENT

Dear Dr. Ray,

My husband and I are considering becoming foster parents with the option to adopt a child placed with us. We have mixed feeling on this. Your experience?

If or When?

My experience with what is commonly called “foster to adopt” is zero - my personal experience, that is. All of our children came to us through direct adoption. Still, I’ve known many foster, now adoptive parents. I can offer you what I’ve gained through their experiences.

Foster parents are willing to open their homes and families to kids who need immediate stability, safety and comfort. They typically don’t know for how long, under what conditions and, perhaps most uncertain, what the child is bringing along emotionally.

Are all foster parents angels of mercy, motivated by a selfless love for children? No. There are poor foster parents. There are a few who are more interested in the monthly stipend that the child. The human factor can misuse the most decent of ideas.

Nevertheless, my experience is that as a group, foster parents answer a unique call. It is one that asks them to adjust their life for the sake of another’s life. It says, “Take in this baby, this child, this teenager, and be prepared to make his or her struggles yours.” It requires them to do whatever is needed to reunite a child with birth parents if possible - to entertain parental visits, attend counseling sessions, meet with agency staff, schedule medical appointments. Sometimes foster parents have to reach much higher in their discipline repertoire to manage a youngster who gives them more challenges than any they faced with their biological children.

Beyond these fostering facts, though, lies, perhaps the highest hurdle for many: the very real possibility of having to say good-bye to a child one has come to know and care about. Indeed, this provokes some of the most disconcerting questions for those pondering foster family life. They may wonder, or fear, how strongly they will emotionally attach to a child. They feel the pull to foster, but they are wary of it. On one hand is the deep impulse to be Mom and Dad, or Mom and Dad again. On the other is the worry over how they might react to watching a child leave, particularly if he will return to an environment they see as questionable.

Some people suppress the fostering impulse or let it fade completely. Their unsettledness about the future keeps them from stepping into the unknown.

How is this relevant to you and your husband? To begin, if you decide to foster, you will quite likely encounter some temporary attachments. Many kids do indeed return to their birth home, assuming it stabilizes. If their situations again deteriorate, they may return to the foster parents, but obviously you can’t know who will or when, so uncertainty lingers.

Parent who solely foster might not face quite the same sense of uncertainty, as they don’t expect permanency with the children they foster. They understand their role, and this helps them accept the separations that will occur.

Parents who hope to adopt through fostering have a less defined role, as it is temporary to some and permanent to others. This requires a mindset that can take more effort to adopt, if you will.

What’s the upside? Foster-to-adopt parents almost always foster to adopt. How’s that? I mean, the chances of a child’s needing a permanent home after all efforts to reunite have been exhausted are high. In fact, it’s likely only a matter of time before you will have the opportunity to adopt, especially if the child has been with your for a time. Some bonding has already begun, and it would be most natural for it to continue permanently.

The core questions are, Are you willing to accept the possibility that some children may live with you only for a time while others may need you for life? And can you accept the fact that you can’t know at the outset which or when? If so, foster to adopt is a loving way to start your family or add to it.

While gaining your own son or daughter, you will be giving other parents and their kids a second chance. That’s a great way to become a parent, if you ask me.