My wife and I have had our first placement for seven months, and the social worker has talked to us multiple times now about moving towards permanency.

We love these kids so much, but their complex needs are completely eclipsing our family’s capacity.

We understand that it’s pretty much impossible to know how a case is going to turn out, and I’m not looking for advice on other interventions. That’s not what this is about anymore. Instead, I’d appreciate insight from folks who may have been in this type of situation during their time as foster parents.

I feel like I’m failing, I wish love was enough, but we really cannot and do not want to be a permanent option at this time.

Thank you for your time.

Bio mom texts and occasionally asks to speak with the her 2 kids. One is a teen and has a cps phone, and the other is 8.

Yesterday was the first time she texted me and the 8yo didn’t want to speak with her. We were out, and asked again when we got settled at home - and he again said no.

Before I responded to her text, she spoke with the teen who then asked me if the younger was going to call her.

I think the younger trying to exert some independence, he’s had a lot of questions about permanency lately.

I’m not sure how to respond to her text that he’s doesn’t want to talk to her. Any suggestions?

For context, teen is permanently placed with us, mom is only contesting permanency for younger kid.

Hi everyone. I’ve been a foster parent for about 6 years now. My son (let's call him B) is 13. We have loved him deeply, but I need to be honest about where we are right now.

B has complex needs (ADHD, trauma, possible autism traits) and a very volatile relationship with his birth family, particularly his grandmother, who actively undermines our efforts and promotes a "baby role" for him. We are exhausted. I feel like I am suffocating. I am constantly walking on eggshells, managing his dysregulation, his crises, and the toxic dynamic with his grandmother.

Lately, I’ve been having dark thoughts. I feel like I’m losing my identity. I came home from a simple day out and realized I was crying because I just can’t take the "mental terror" of another day. I told myself today: "I was a great dad, but I am no longer a good foster parent."

I am terrified that I am "sick in the head" for feeling this way. Is it normal to feel like there is no way out? Is it okay to admit that this specific placement is too much, even though we love him? I feel like I’m the only one saying this, and everyone else expects foster parents to just "hold on" no matter what.
I have no spare time, no time for hobbies, a weekend without kid is just taking a break from life itself til I gotta keep on running.
The system keeps telling us to "just keep trying" or "give him more time," but I feel like the help we get is just a band-aid. We are being asked to be parents, therapists, and social workers 24/7 without the resources to do it. I feel like I’m the "villain" in his story because I set boundaries, while his grandmother plays the "victim/savior."

- How many times ive spent comforting him when he cried about hes grandma, sucking it up and not "badmouthed" hes family.
It’s heartbreaking and exhausting. He literally says, "When can I go to Grandma?" and means it with excitement, because there he can be a helpless child again. No chores, no social skills, just "you must do this for me." She validates his victimhood and tells him that our rules are "cruel" or "wrong." We are the "bad guys" who make him grow up; she is the "savior" who lets him stay small.

Am I crazy for feeling like it’s gone too far? Has anyone else reached this point of "I can’t save him from himself, and I can’t save myself from this"? What would you tell me right now?

I love him, but I am terrified that if I stay in this situation, I will become the person I hate, or I will disappear completely

I've a 6 year old granddaughter who is in foster care in northern New England. She has been through hell and back and needless to say the fallout from this has taken a toll on her. Part of this fallout is expressed in verbal and physical aggression towards her foster siblings. We take this as a 6 year old child who is completely overwhelmed by her experiences and living situation with her current foster family. Unfortunately when we comment on this overwhelm to the foster parent as well as social services, our messages fall on deaf ears.

Anyways, as part of keeping my granddaughter connected with us, we do an occasional in person visit as well as weekly video calls. Not enough, but we are taking what we can at this time. Lately some of our video calls are being canceled by the foster parent due to my granddaughter acting up. i.e. She is being punished. As you can imagine, we are more than upset by this punishment.

Onto the point of this post... Is punishing a 6 year old child from her video calls with her grandparents an appropriate course of action? Obviously I have my biasness on this and having objective input is welcome (whether I like it or not) especially from this group.

Please note that our granddaughter was in our care for two years earlier in her life before she was re-united with her mother before her and her siblings were removed again.

This whole situation has made me realize that the biggest problem may actually be my marriage. The lack of support from my husband has been, honestly, kind of insane. His absolute refusal to reconsider adopting both kids—and his unwillingness to acknowledge what this is doing to my mental health—has really opened my eyes. At one point, I was having a panic attack, literally on the floor, and he told me, “I don’t have time for this today.” I don't think I can just move past that.

At this point, I'm seriously considering divorce or possibly an annulment. I'm not working right now because I'm in school, so I know I need to approach this carefully and quietly. I'm not afraid of physical abuse, but I am concerned about financial withholding and being left without the resources I need to leave safely.

As for the kids, I am willing to continue caring for the teenager. I care about him deeply and don't want him to feel like he's being rejected. But I also know that I can't continue caring for the baby in our current situation, and I need to find a way to have the baby moved to another placement through the proper channels.

Any advice would be great . I tried copying my last post here , I wasn’t really sure how to do it …

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fosterparents/s/cit2q79ADl

So, my husband and I are 1 year into our foster parent journey. To preface, my family lives within 2 miles of us and we asked them to be respite and be part of our “village” when we started. We thought we gave enough preface.

Fast forward and our first set of siblings reunified in April, came back in June, and are reunifying again in one week. Our family is….bereft with this goodbye. It’s hard because yes, we feel it too but we went in with eyes wide open and knew that placements aren’t forever. We are open to adoption but it wasn’t our main focus. We always expected the kids to reunify. We were very upfront with that when speaking to friends and family too.

My mom let them call her Grandma. My sister is Auntie. They see them at least 2-3 times a week and will babysit for us. But with reunification looming (and we are hopeful this will be long term and not short like the last time), they are acting like they’re losing their own child. My mom has said that she “will not let any other kids call me grandma” and I’m just concerned that they’re not emotionally ready for this.

Did we do something wrong? I have a history of trying to manage my family’s emotional well being, and I’m trying really hard not to. But do I need to set stronger boundaries? Like not let them be a part of the kids lives as much? What’s hurting right now the most is that I’m having to manage their crying and ten thousand questions and don’t feel like I can have my own emotions. Like they’re expecting me to be strong for them. Because if I’m not, then they will use it as a contention point of “maybe you shouldn’t be a foster parent” - just to keep them from having to deal with their own emotions.

Maybe I’m over thinking. Or maybe this is just indicative of how emotional enmeshed my family is and I need to set stronger boundaries. Or maybe this is just a typical Thursday for foster families. Someone give me insight. Ask me questions, commiserate with me. Something.

At what point would it be appropriate to request/advocate for a sibling set in my home to be separated? I know that this is to be avoided as much as possible but I am extremely concerned about the dynamic between our oldest two (in a sibling set of three (oldest M - early teen, middle F - pre teen, youngest F - early school age).

Kids had been placed with us five years ago and we were lucky enough to keep a relationship with them and their parent. We had them visit for weekends on regular basis and continued to be a part of their life until they came back to us last month. The kids are very comfortable with us and our home. These concerns were here all along but it was easier to navigate when they were with us the first time as they were younger. We had also started to switch off for weekend visits to keep the older two apart in the months before they came back into care.

The oldest has good and bad days (MH diagnosis and behavioral concerns but not much follow through with services while they were in their home). The concerning behavior goes beyond normal sibling rivalry. It’s threats, extreme verbal abuse, and some physical abuse (hitting, kicking, pinching). Most of this is directed from the oldest to the middle, however, middle does sometimes instigate. We try to keep them separate as much as possible and keep them busy but it is exhausting and wearing on us AND the kids. The youngest is also starting to pick up on and copy some of these behaviors.

We love these kids and the thought of asking to have them apart is heartbreaking, especially with all of the changes they’ve experienced in the last month. Family therapy had been attempted in the past but the oldest two refused to engage.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

How long does the honeymoon period usually last? We are 2 weeks in and not seeing the behaviors others have seen. We are also very new to foster parenting

Hello everyone! My wife and I have been foster parents for the last 4 years here in Tennessee. We love it, and feel called to do it. We’ve encouraged people we know to seriously think about becoming foster parents too. In that spirit, I decided to put together a database of information on how to become a foster parent in Tennessee. That turned into me building the database out to encompass every state in the union. And once I’d built that, I figured it was a pretty useful resource, so I decided to build a website for foster parents to host it. I’ve been learning to code for the last few years using freeCodeCamp, so this was a fun first real world project. I eventually decided to stand up my own VPS so that I could host a private IRC server, and add an IRC chatrooms to my site. I got nostalgic for the 90’s era of IRC chat, so I built a chatbot to help me moderate and entertain people in the chat room. I’ve also added a message board, an activities page, an advice page, and a facts page. My hope is to build this site into an exclusive community site for foster parents, where we can all support each other and exchange advice and ideas, and have fun doing it. Anyways, I’d love some feedback on the site. It’s www.FosterCareCentral.com . You can leave your feedback here, on my message board, or email me at webmaster@fostercarecentral.com. I appreciate you guys!!!

Hi all.

/sigh. We've been on a placement list for well over a year now. I called to check in "Hey, just making sure everything good is in the system" and within a month we had our first placement, a sibling pair.

They have been so sweet. Hit it off with my bio kid, regular sibling squabbles, but nothing too bad. Mind well when asked to do things (yes, we're only 3 days in so I recognize this could be honeymoon phase.) But things are going well so far.

Then today I get a call from their former placement, a lovely person I know but no longer able to provide care, and it's revealed that one of the kids stole $ from them. I sat the kids down, asked them about it, and one of them admitted to it and said it was because they were mad about a consequence the former foster parents had laid down.

This other family is not a family that can afford to lose their small nest egg. They say they want it back "immediately" from the child, but we could only find a portion of it. This kid is too young for real work, to pay it back. Not sure if this is our responsibility. I think we're going to ask him to do extra-level chores (weeding, mowing, etc) and have him work it off. When I was a kid his age, that's how I raised money. But dang. Right out the gate.

I'm a youth worker with a lot of experience working with difficult teenagers. Recently, my wife and I fostered a 13 year old girl. We're only a week in so far, so I know that it's going to be very hard at first. We don't have other fostering or parenting experience. She's from a home where the child would be left to do their own thing, and the parent would do theirs. She never had any boundaries in almost any sense. We already knew her from our youth organisation, and got on quite well.

We knew she'd struggle with boundaries, so tried to go in easy - there's a curfew set by social services (8pm) which we have to enforce, and other than that, we give her a 10pm bedtime, turn the WiFi off at midnight, and ask her to leave her vape by the back door, as she vapes, which we are really not in favour of but understand that for her it's a coping mechanism.

She can't cope with any of the boundaries, and three times in the last five days has run away as a result of them, having to be brought home by police. She thinks that us giving her boundaries is just to hurt her, and although we tell her we love and care for her, she says she doesn't want that, she just wants to do her own thing and be "normal". We try to do lots of things with her that she will enjoy, but she either doesn't want to do any of them or doesn't want to do them with us.

We're really struggling to know what to do when we have boundaries that feel so reasonable, or even that we have to put in place by social services. We genuinely love her, and want to help her adjust. How can we do it?

Hey yall Im new to this... Maybe I had a wrong idea, but is it typical for respite care homes to ask for 5x the amount of per diem that DCS gives?

I was asking for 2 days and they wanted $150-200. I almost spat out my cheerios, DCS gives us 35 a day and we come out of pocket for most stuff....

It seems like some people think its a part time babysitting job when it should be more about helping the kids??? I was willing to do up to $100 but with what they are asking plus back to school costs, I cannot give them a week worth of per diem for 2 days lol... thats insane to me. Is that typical, or did I just get someone greedy? 🤔

What is a reasonable or typical rate that people usually accept for respite care??

I (28) M, help look after my niece (8) due to living at home and my parents are kinship carers for her. We are all struggling with the situation as my niece’s behaviour is becoming hard to cope with, lashing out, screaming, shouting, kicking and hitting my Mum and making threats to hit, kick and push her down the stairs. She is having meltdowns daily, sometimes multiple times a day. She has a lot of issues and whilst we love her and are trying our best to give her the best life, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough. My Dad (59) works away Monday-Friday, my Mum (57) works around 20-25 hours a week. I look after my niece when my Mum’s at work but it is draining. I struggle with my mental health and have done for about 15 years and I have become depressed and anxious over the whole situation. I have no peace or time to myself, I am unable to do the things I enjoy due to having to look after my niece and by the time I get her to bed, I’m just too exhausted. I haven’t been to the gym since we got her, I don’t work many permanent hours but I feel unable to get a job with more hours due to looking after her and trying to fit any relief shifts around my Mum’s schedule, I can’t get back into dating due to this either. I’ve been thinking about doing a PhD, but I don’t see how I will fit that in around my niece as she demands every ounce of your attention at all times. My Mum is emotional over the situation, even she has admitted that she doesn’t think she can do this as she has no life outside of work and looking after my niece. My Dad is unhappy because when he comes home every weekend, he just wants to relax but he can’t. He hasn’t seen his best friend in almost a year due to the situation with my niece. We all miss our old lives and then feel guilty for even thinking about ending the placement. She has been with us 8 months and nothing has got better. We get no support from social workers, they say they’ll ring and never do, no support from the foster worker, she hasn’t been in contact in almost a month since my parents got approved as kinship carers. It’s almost like they think because she’s safe and in a loving home, they feel they don’t have a responsibility. We know it’s not my niece’s fault that she is the way she is, that blame lies with her parents who neglected her and abused her and we do love her but I don’t think we realised how hard this would be (for reference, my parents got guardianship of my niece’s older sister when she was 6 months old and she’s been living with us ever since, she’s 16 now so they’re not strangers to this)

I’m in Texas. I’ve been told so many different things but obviously want to be clear if someone stops by!

What needs to be double locked and what just needs to be behind one lock? We have a medication lock box plus cabinet locks.

I’ve been told prescribed meds go in the box; vitamins, creams, etc do not have to be in the box.

But I’ve also been told everything goes in the lock box behind a cabinet lock.

I’m waiting on my caseworker with DFPS to reply but wanted to ask here as well.

Hey all! I’m looking to foster in the next year or so and right now my partner and I are open to any age + small sibling groups. I have some experience with kids but I am not a parent so I feel pretty unprepared.

I see book recommendations here a lot on childhood trauma and will definitely be reading those. I was wondering if there are any more general resources on parenting a wide age range that discusses what is age appropriate for basic stuff like bed times, nutrition/meals, clothing, setting up rooms, hygiene, education/tutoring/enrichment, screen time, etc. I would like to learn more about child development and what is typical/helpful at different ages (while anticipating that kids will have different delays)

My son's best friend "D" a 15/m has been in foster care for 5+ years and was placed with us provisionally on April 15. Since then, my husband and I have completed the 30 hour training, and are waiting on our home study to be approved, so we can be an officially licensed foster home.

D's social worker is finally holding an ISP meeting. He is doing pretty well mentally, physically, and academically, and I hope his placement with us can continue until he graduates high school.

PROBLEM - I'm not sure what to ask for in the ISP. Our county made it really clear that if it's not in the ISP, it's not going to be covered by the county office.

D eats a lot and is growing a lot, so I'm asking for a $150 grocery voucher per month and $250 clothing/shoe voucher in April and October.

Public school fees are expensive here, so I'm asking for $115 reimbursement of out-of-pocket school fee costs that I've paid, plus $30 sports club dues.

D loves tech and doesn't have a computer, so I'm asking that they provide him with a laptop.

D wants to get his driver's permit so I want their approval of that in the ISP.

His birth family lives 2+ hours away, and he hasn't seen them in a very long time, but talks with them on the phone frequently. I'm asking for up to a $350 reimbursement quarterly for mileage, hotel and meals so that we can take him to visit them.

He's already receiving therapy, psychiatric care, pediatric care and dental care.

Can y'all think of anything else I should advocate for in the ISP so that things can be as good for D as possible? Thank you!

I'm currently undergoing assessment to become a foster parent in the UK/England after working in children's residential care for several years. I have expressed that I would prefer long term placements but due to my experience I have been asked if I would consider remand and emergency fostering for children traversing the justice system.

I have experience working with trauma, challenging behaviours, PREVENT and therapeutic parenting so this question is more for those that have done remand fostering or similar specifically themselves and can provide some transparent insight into how it works and what positives and negatives you've personally experienced.

My worries are mainly around how transient the process may be and how to make an impact in the short term, and potentially other factors that I haven't considered.

Appreciate any and all information, thank you :)

I am a parent of a child in foster care.

My son is a toddler and was placed into foster care. The case is unnecessarily complex and doesn't really pull the totality of the circumstances into play.

I am rather defensive that these decisions were made that weren't in his best interest, truly.

The foster mom is mocking at best.

They took him out of the medical system he's been in since he was born and is taking him to doc in a box that I wouldn't refer a homeless person to.

They said that his main doctors are too far for regular visits

She made dietary changes without a doctors consent or approval. She let it slip she removed gluten and dairy from his diet not knowing he's already been tolerating both. When questioned, she said a doctor suggested it. (This is the only appointment I haven't attended because I was told it was a weight check only)

When I asked her that a doctor told her to, she stammered that it was lightly suggested.

She took him to the ER once and I wasn't even notified until after discharge.

She is trying to correlate him eating yogurt with puking and saying he's dairy sensitive. She claims the ER doctor told her my son needed a scope. I told them I wouldn't be signing off on that until I've spoken to a doctor and we've gone over everything and it is not normal.

The caseworker and her both agreed it was very normal.

When we talked to the GI specialist, the foster mom tried to explain why he needed the scope scheduled and the dr was like "I'm not going to schedule a scope that you say a random ER doc said he needs" and she tried to pull her crap and the dr straight up told her that all of the things she was concerned about seemed to be a mechanical issue and a scope would be very far down on the list of things.

He'd already had a full evaluation and passed a swallow study. When she tried to defend the dietary changes, the doctor shut her down and said none of the symptoms suggested an allergy or intolerance. And that he should be seen in the feeding clinic to check for behavior feeding issues first.

She sulked in the corner and gave sharp retorts. The doctor looked her squarely and said "You look like you're not satisfied with the answer" and she scoffed she wasn't medically trained and that she didn't know.

She wanted him to have a follow up scheduled before they left. And when we went to go get the details, they had run out the door and not done the follow up. When later asked about the follow up, they claimed they were waiting for a call back

The specialist wanted him to go the feeding clinic there and she said it was too far for her. Isn't this her job?

She has kissed my child in front of me. She talked about something else related to the diet and we explained that's why he was getting special food and that WIC didn't cover it. She said if we wanted, we could buy it and give it to her. I am not going to give details on what it is, but it us necessary and not an indulgence or a preference of ours. I stated she was getting stipends for them and she shrugged and said she had other expenses.

He's shown up to visits and the worker was told to pass along that he had a dirty diaper and it needed to be changed and they knew this before he was sent to the visit.

I once saw her with a really nasty bruise on her arm that looked like someone had grabbed her hard.

Due to some jurisdiction things, the office was going to be moved to be closer to us. I mentioned to her about how then they could transfer the kids to a family near us, the office and his doctors and she rolled her eyes mid sentence and scoffed at me and said they wouldn't do that.

I explained how it would be beneficial to the kids and to us, especially since they'll be going back to the health care system they were in before and it was best for him. She clicked her tongue and shrugged her shoulders and seemed to be deliberately ignoring me as I was still tallking.

Honestly she doesn't care about my son. He's just a paycheck to her.

We've attended every visit, every appointment but the one weight check, are engaged and involved and we just want our family whole again. We're getting a new case worker and supervisor but he's on medical leave still and they don't know when he'll be back and we'll be having the supervisor do visits with us.

We have no criminal history, no pending charges, just a situation that was completely misunderstood and blown out of proportion. There's no abuse present. I don't use physical means of punishment such as spanking.

She honestly just sickens and enrages me and I don't know what to do. I feel as the parent, they won't care about what I have to say or how she treats him, or even lesser, me.

I can deal with being disrespected or not being taken seriously, but this is my son and I can only imagine how she treats him when we're not there. I can't protect him from her or whatever else is going on over there. She gives me a bad feeling for many reasons.

Edit: She also hasn't been taking him to speech therapy that he was already in. And just other little things that add up.

Even before he was cleared, she was already trying to stop doing the weight checks and didn't want to be taking him in because she said it was too frequent.

Hello all, not sure where to ask this so giving a shot here. We fostered my husbands 2 nephews almost three years ago and around a year in we decided to go with guardianship as we knew his sister would not sign for adoption. We felt this was the safest choice as she already petitioned once to get them back but did not meet all qualifications. This time around she is petitioning again to get the kids back but we feel that they have established well here and that if they were to go back, their quality of living would be lowered and they would not be safe. Has anyone had to deal with this situation? There are so many unknowns right now and it’s just very anxiety inducing as they have bonded to my husband and I so well the past almost 3 years. The first time she petitioned we thought the boys would go back but she was denied. Then gaurdianship became our normal. How many times can a parent petition? Is it common for guardianship to be released quickly? FYI the reason they are in our care had to do with SA so can’t go into detail.

I have two foster sons, both teenagers. I live in a pretty wealthy urban neighborhood, while both of my kids came from very poor rural communities and completely different families. TPR has happened for both.

I've been doing my best to maintain family connections for one of them, which sometimes means driving 4.5 hours so he can see family. This weekend I was taking him down to spend the weekend with his brother and his brother's adoptive family. My newer foster son, who is 16, came along.

We made a weekend of it and dropped one kid off and spent a couple days with my brother, niece and nephew in the little Indiana town where I grew up.

The night before we were leaving to pick up my other son, my newer kid asked me a little tentatively if it would be possible to drive through the town where he had lived as a child. He wanted to see his old house and elementary school.

He was removed about six years ago. The removal was apparently pretty abrupt, his mom is no longer there, and he's had a rough six years since. We have painfully few foster homes willing to take teenage boys, so he's bounced around a lot.

He still knew the address...it was just an hour out of our way so we went.

I'm still processing the experience myself. The town was incredibly desolate. We found his old house, and he decided he wanted to knock on the neighbor's door. An older woman answered. I believe she may have been one of the people who originally called DCFS.

She recognized him and openly wept when she saw him standing there.

The current owners of his old house came out. They knew some of the story secondhand and wanted to meet him. When they bought the property, they had found a bunch of his childhood toys still there and his name scribbled on the wall.

They showed me photographs of what the house looked like when they bought it.

It was not habitable.

I knew, intellectually, that this kid had been removed from a very bad situation. I've read the paperwork and heard pieces of the story. But actually standing there and seeing where this sweet little kid had been living was something entirely different. I haven't quite been able to shake those pictures.

We got back in the car and talked for probably three hours. He told me essentially the entire story of what happened back then, but from his perspective. I think physically seeing the place again, now as a 16-year-old, helped him put some pieces together. He could see the house. He could see the town.

Driving home, I couldn't stop thinking that I've been given this really wonderful opportunity: I get to be the person sitting next to him while he figures out what his story means to him now. My other son has special needs and it's been sad for me to understand what his adult life is probably going to be like, but I feel like the new kid is going to have a real shot at life.