A long-time foster care case manager’s encouragement to foster parents who get too attached.
This past month was Child Abuse Prevention month and now we are rolling into Foster Parent Appreciation month. These two tie in seamlessly with each other. It is the awareness of child abuse that spurs the desire that God gives you to protect and love the ones that are intervening on their behalf. Children, when they come in, are so vulnerable and precious that it takes a person being guided by the Holy Spirit to then interpret what kids need. I’ve seen a relationship between a foster parent and child that then gives way to good fruit. I have seen kids smile when you did not think they could from the trauma they came from. TBHC is ready to pour into our foster parents so they can then pour into our foster children. That is the first step.
Definition
The foundation of foster parents is to “get too attached”. The children have, at some point, missed that bond and unconditional love. There is a myriad of definitions for this phrase:
Action
A child’s first goal is always reunification and that must be your mindset when you are in the fostering world. So, it is giving up some of yourself knowing you have helped build some great skills in this child that they can take back home, hopefully, to then show their family what it is like to have not only the unconditional love of a family but of a loving Savior. All we are doing is extending a real-life form of Jesus to these children and then hoping that seed has been planted to then grow in their own biological family. It is never easy. The hardest part sometimes is not having the child in your home, but the leaving of the child. It is a grieving process sometimes when a child leaves. Every family is different.
Foster Care MVP- Foster Parents
Foster parents are the real MVPs of this fight to heal trauma in children. They take on knowledge from training, therapists, and psychiatrists to help them along the way. This is Foster Parent Appreciation month, and they deserve credit for doing a hard job that sometimes is thankless. Just know any foster parent that is “getting too attached” is not in this alone. Jesus walks beside us as we take this journey. He walks with the children that come in and lets foster parents’ lights shine on them. ‘For where there is light, darkness cannot be. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’ John 1:5.
Feel encouraged and ready to become a foster parent that gets too attached? Email our recruiter to find out when the next First Steps Meeting is.
Church leaders, do you need some guidance in knowing how to bring awareness to foster care needs? Check out our Prayer Guides-April,Nov,Jan (2)
Want to read more foster family stories? Check out these 2 blogs: Conaway Eight or Kinship Family Story
Like to listen to podcasts? Check out our Bringing Kids Home podcast with stories of foster care and adoption
If you have a foster care or adoption story you want to share, email us at [email protected].
Written by Clair V.
