Permanency: What is Best for the Foster Child

There are those people out there that push the idea that every child in foster care wants and deserves a forever home with a family that adopts them into their family; and, from that ideal, the child lives happily ever after. In some instances this may be the case, but in many of the cases where children in foster care have been adopted into a family, it’s not a happily ever after scenario. It’s a scenario where the adopted child has turned the world of the adoptive family upside down, creating an environment of resentment and frustration.

Then you have foster homes that adopt a child and still have foster children in the home. This creates a different problem because now there are two sets of rules in the home--one set of rules for the foster child and another set of rules for the adopted child. With these two sets of rules, supervision becomes problematic. The State requires all foster parents to provide 24/7 supervision for each foster child placed in the home. There aren’t any requirements for an adopted child. The same scenario exists when there are still biological children living in the home.

One case that we dealt with personally was one where the home had adopted children and was still taking in foster children. The adopted children were allowed to run all over the small town that they lived in with little to no supervision. The foster children were given the same supervision as the adopted children and ended up not only getting in trouble with the law, but also creating problems within the family, causing the foster children’s immediate removal. That’s when they came to live with us.

We had another child that came to live with us that was from a failed adoption. He was part of a sibling group and the potential adoptive parents were told by the State that they needed to adopt both of the children to get the one they wanted. This created in the potential adoptive parents a feeling that they were being coerced by the State to do something they didn’t want to do. These parents went ahead with the adoption creating resentment for the unwanted child that continued even after the child came to live with us. Once the child was in our home, the resentment was apparent through the adoptive parents' ever constant interference, not wanting this child to succeed.

In defense of the parents, they were never trained on how to deal with children with attachment issues or early childhood trauma. They were fortunate that the other child was sweet and compliant and didn’t have the same issues as the sibling. These people didn’t want to fail, they just didn’t understand their limitations and how taxing a child with behavioral problems can be. Even the most seasoned parent has times when they feel overwhelmed.

Then you have Guardianship, which sounds like the right thing to do for the person that doesn’t want to adopt, but wants the child to feel like they’re in their permanent home. The one thing that people don’t understand through Guardianship is that the state is still involved to a certain extent, but the Guardian has all of the liability. Whatever happens while the child is living in the home of the Guardian becomes the responsibility of the Guardian, and relieves the State of all responsibility.

Does a child need permanency? Absolutely! Permanency comes when the child knows that their home is one in which the Foster/Guardian/Adoptive parent does not give up on the child. Your family needs to determine which route is best for your situation. Do the research, do not allow anyone or any agency to guilt you into doing something you do not want or are unsure of doing. Doing what you feel is best for your family will most likely be what is best for the child.