Recently I became aware of a woman in our county that has been a Foster Parent for hard to handle teens for over 30 years.

The DHS worker wanted to place my daughter April in her home to see if the Foster Home could help her in any way. I supported their decision, partly because after 11 years of handling April I am willing to learn from anyone who has lasted 30 years with such children.

Her home rules are a little different than ours. She makes the children stay out until 8 pm. Then they are allowed in to call parents and then it is off to bed at 10:00 pm.

This is something I know April will have issues with. She never wants to come in for curfew and we allowed her until 9 pm. As the days have grown longer and it is lighter out at night. Getting her to bed well that is easy... All I had to do is ask her to do a chore and she would get tired instantly and go to bed.

I am very interested in talking to her new Foster Parent. I would love to know how she has survived 30 years of hard to handle children. I stand in amazement of that. You would have to love your work and be very dedicated to children in order to do such a wonderful thing.

I have not heard from April in a few days now. So I think I will make a call out of concern tomorrow to see how she is doing. I just have one of those feelings that things may not be going so well for her.

I hope I am wrong. I am kind of concerned of how making the children stay out of the home until curfew works. I would tend to believe with kids like April who need more supervision, that sort of thing would not work well. We shall see. No news is good news. I sincerely hope.

I would also think living near the courthouse may give the kids better incentive to not end up back in court.

Foster parents learn a lot from hands on work with the children. They learn not to make an angry child feel trapped. To always leave an out for both the foster child and the parent when they know a child is abusive.

Foster parents learn to give a child what they need to survive and then they extend love and comfort to the children as much as the child will allow them to give.

We all need that safe place to fall. A place where we feel safe and secure from the world out side. In a lot of ways a good foster home is this and so much more.

Who is to say what a stable life or normal life entails. But Foster homes try and provide a home that is stable and as normal as possible for children in times of crisis.

Foster Parenting is just as much an important job as any other position you can hold. Even though Social Security does not look at Foster Parenting as a legal job because no taxes are paid into the system. Foster Parenting is in every extent of life
a very important job.

I hope to see how a Foster Parent is looked upon change in the future. So that it does provide more benefits and compensation as a career oriented position. This would help more people to consider fostering a child as a career choice instead of lower level child care.

What do you think? Would you choose Foster Care as a career choice if it offered more options to you?