Vol. 5, No. 1 • Fall 2000

How You Can Help Foster Children and Their Parents Journey Safely on the Sea of Life
by Donna and Steve Haskell

Upon the arrival of our one-day-old foster son, we felt very blessed to have the opportunity to care for this child. Due to unfortunate circumstances, his parents are unable to care for him even though they love him very much. The more we grew to love this child, the more special his birth parents became to us. After all, without them this special child wouldn't have been born!

We wanted his birth parents to have the opportunity to know him the same way we did, so when they visited with him we would always send a special note along with updated information on the child: what he likes to eat, what he likes to do, nap time, feeding time, what makes him happy, what to do to comfort him and, most importantly, what could make him upset.

Since his birth parents only visited once a week or less, it would have been easy for them to lose contact with their growing child. Our updates helped keep the visits going smoothly and kept the parents informed and involved in their child's life. This information also helped the social worker who took the child to the visits.

Maintaining Family Ties

It is important to talk to your foster child before and after each visitation. Let the child know you are as interested in his birth parents as he is. Always make the birth parents part of the child's daily life, if you can. Let the child know how important his parents are in his life. The child won't forget his parents even if you do, but he will resent you if you overlook them.

Giving small gifts and mementos is one way to help maintain the ties between children and their birth parents. It brings us great joy to give a little something to the birth parents for Christmas, birthdays, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and Father's Day. Older children can pick out a present or make something themselves. We also send the birth parents a 5" x 7" picture, including a frame with the first picture. Sometimes the birth parents' situation is such that buying a picture frame might be a burden; yet receiving a photo of their child should never be a burden.

Our foster son is 21 months now, so we enjoy keeping his drawings and paintings for his birth parents to see. Fingerprints were done for Mother's Day, and footprints for Father's Day.

Each and every one of our foster children receives a small wooden boat with his or her name and birth date on it. The boats are simple, but they symbolize our hope that they have a safe journey on the sea of life. Each child takes this boat along wherever they go when leaving our care. Sometimes we give a duplicate boat to the birth parents, so they can share in that hope. Little things like this make ideal gifts, and they help the birth parents watch their children grow as well. Most recently we made a "parents brag book" out of construction paper and filled it with pictures, drawings, and notes about the child's activities and things he likes to do.

Not being able to have their child with them on a daily basis is bad enough for the birth parents. Contact through pictures and other small things helps them survive the transition to foster care, and may even help them feel at ease. With older children it is also nice to involve them with their birth parents by preparing a painting or writing a story.

Little things like this make everyone feel special, and isn't feeling special an important part of everyone's life? Perhaps if birth parents had an opportunity to feel special early in their lives they wouldn't be where they are now.

We as foster parents can't mend or take away past misfortunes of our foster children, but we can work hard on improving their present, which in the long term will reduce the influence of their past experiences and make these children stronger and better able to face the future. As foster parents, we become the primary role model for our foster children.

Unfortunately, whenever a child learns something incorrectly it takes about five to seven times longer to teach him or her the correct way. Thus, depending on a child's circumstances and experiences, foster parents often have a monumental task on their hands.

One of the most important things we can teach the children in our care is to be kind and loving to people. Why not demonstrate this through the way we treat their birth parents?

Easing your way into the hearts of birth parents is not always easy. Most likely the birth parents dislike you from the start, because you have their child. Never mind the circumstances, you have their child!

However, if you act with patience, kindness, compassion, and respect, birth parents may begin to feel good about themselves, and in the long run teach our foster children how to love, be kind, and show respect to people. We need to accept birth parents for WHO they are, not for what we think they should be. If the children have nothing else to hold onto they will have special values like these that can last a lifetime.

It All Comes Down to Hope

The bottom line comes down to HOPE for foster children and their birth parents. The way we treat them could make all the difference in their lives. That is why we must make the contact with the birth parents as important as the care we give their children. How we feel about birth parents will influence how our foster children accept visits and the disappointments that are sure to arise.

We must remember that contact with the birth parents is not a matter of choice, it is a necessity in the life of each child you welcome into your home. With each child comes a family, a family that loves the child, no matter how complicated it gets.

Let's HOPE for a better future by remembering to be kind, loving, compassionate, and respectful to the birth parents.

Foster parents Donna and Steve Haskell live in Chatham County, North Carolina.

 

Copyright � 2000 Jordan Institute for Families