Foster parenting is not for the faint of heart!  The goal in foster care is ALWAYS reunification with birthfamily, if at all possible.

And sometimes it isn’t easy. Supporting reunification can be difficult, especially given some situations of dysfunctional, unstable families on the brink of collapse.

But what if your home is much more stable? Can a foster parent support reunification if they feel they can provide a much more stable environment for a child? How can a foster parent support reunification knowing that a foster child will be going back to a dysfunctional home? As a foster parent, how do you keep your feelings in check?

7 Tips for Foster Parent Emotional Health

1. Remind yourself constantly that reunification with birthfamily is #1 priority (even if your heart you is telling you that you’d be a better parent).
2. Take it one day at a time and love your foster children (and their birth family) unselfishly.
3. Show love to the birthfamily during the process. Remember Mother’s Day, birthdays, Christmas, etc.  Our birthmother received her very first Mother’s Day card ever (with her third child) from our 10-month-old foster baby.  She bragged and bragged in court about her Mother’s Day gift.
4. Treat your foster children as your forever children, then when they leave, go ahead and grieve.
5. Realize that you will feel all sorts of emotions during the process – grief, guilt, selfishness, etc. – it’s okay to have emotional attachments to the children you raise.
6. Realize that some foster children will be with you only for a while, but there will eventually be a child that needs a forever home.
7. Pray!  Pray for yourself, your foster children, their birthfamilies constantly throughout the process. Give it all up to the One who knows all and can take your emotional burdens so you don’t have to.  He already knows the plan for you and your child’s future!

Foster parents just have to find their own way through the emotional roller coaster of parenting these children from hard places. God has a little one already planned for you… it may be this child, or it may be another one.  But someday you will have the forever child that has been waiting for you all along!

What are your tips to keep a foster parent’s emotions in check?

Rebecca Hawkes of Love is Not a Pie in Helping Our Children Cope With the Sandy Hook Tragedy:

If you are parenting a child, as I am, who came to you by way of the foster care system, your child may be needing extra support around recent events, but really all children are likely to need some parental guidance as they attempt to make sense of something that is beyond comprehension, even for most grownups.

Kelly of Monkey Soup in Buzzers and Cameras wrote:

There are people who do bad things sometimes.  They may be sick, they may be mad  or upset about something.  They may hurt people.  Momma, Daddy and the grown-ups that are around you will do everything in our power to keep anything from happening to you, and to keep you safe.

Denise of Fostering a Blessing in Hits Home wrote:

Before foster care I NEVER knew this world of childhood mental illness existed.  Let’s talk about it.  Let’s help these kids.  Locking them up…NOT THE ANSWER.

Momma of Called to Foster in Mental Illness: Conversation – Resources – Guidance wrote:

As a child raised by a mentally ill mother, you would think I would fully understand the depths of that reality but I suppose I’m still drifting around somewhere not fully grasping the truth of it all.  Hoping that it would never become my reality again.

Cherub Mamma in Mr. Mini Wonky???? wrote:

I guess I put this out there to show what it looks like in OUR house. We don’t have to make trips to psychiatric hospitals. We don’t have three hour violent rages that involve restraints. But it isn’t easy all the time. There’s a lot of anger and frustration. There’s a lot of hurt. There’s a lot of ugly that most folks wouldn’t understand.