Foster Care - When the Honeymoon Stage is Over

The honeymoon stage is over, with our foster child. I guess I should have expected it. Every parent talks about the boundary-pushing stages, the irrational demands, tantrums, pushing away, and clinging obsessively. I know it's not her fault though. These are natural emotional struggles for foster children trying to process what has happened to their lives.

They have lost so much trust in the people they should have been able to trust the most. They're insecure, wondering when it will happen again, when will the next person they love leave them. As they begin to feel comfortable, to feel loved, to feel safe, it's almost as if something deep inside them stops them from attaching too much. They've been hurt too badly to allow that to happen again... So...they test you to the limit... and I mean to the limit. They want to know you are truly going to stay no matter what.

The first experiences with my other foster daughter who was the exact same age as my current one were traumatic for my husband and I. She acted out in so much uncontrollable violence, with regular screaming fits lasting for hours on a daily basis that my husband and I were left feeling like we had been through a war zone each night we'd finally lay down to rest.. When she moved out and eventually went back home to her mom, we could eerily hear her screaming still even though she'd moved away months before. It was like it had been imprinted on our brains.

This trauma trying to help this former foster child did two things to us:
One - it positively affected us... it made us much more grateful and appreciative for our current foster daughter, even her bad behavior isn't as bad because she at least calms down after five or ten minutes.
And two - it negatively affected us...when our current foster daughter even hints toward such behavior as our other girl, we can feel the anxiety trigger in us. We start to fear it could grow into what we had before. We know she's not the same and it's not fair to even compare the two. It still triggers that anxiety though.

We plan to adopt this little one we have now. Her grandparents want to adopt her too. We don't know if they will be able to convince the judge that they are a good fit though. They don't have much time left before we can apply for adoption. They've had some issues in the last few months I had to report to the attorneys - which sadly resulted in a restriction of visits from them.

Our little girl puts her grandparents on a pedestal though. They have raised her since birth...in her mind, they are perfect and could never do any wrong. She grieves their absence through outbursts of screaming or crying in unprovoked circumstances. It's hard in those moments to step back and truly understand what is going through her young 3-yr-old mind. How is she trying to piece it all together, how is she interpreting the loss?

We'll see her play out her frightening memories with her toys; the doll is her, she plays the grandma, and the stuffed bear plays the police man. The stuffed bear [police man] picks up the doll [her] and starts to walk away... while she cries out to the bear, "My baby, my baby, don't take my baby." It's extremely heart-wrenching. Every time I ask her about this role play that she does on occasion, she'll say, "Last night, the police took me and brought me to your house." She relives the day she was removed from her home like it was yesterday. It's a terrible scar!

 Does she blame herself? Does she blame us? Does she blame her grandparents? I'm sure there's a little of all of this.

Foster care is interesting. It's not what I painted in my mind. It's definitely more challenging that I ever realized, even the good times. But I trust in the experiences of others who have traveled this road before us.... to keep going. It will be beautiful and wonderful in the end.


I really appreciated this article I read the other day. https://www.thefosteringnetwork.org.uk/blogs/cathy-glass/honeymoon-period