Why do I want to adopt a foster child?

These are remarks from various forums about adoption. People want to adopt foster children for various reasons. Do these reasons matter for the future relationship with the child? Psychologist Larisa Rudneva, head of the project “Together for Children. School of foster parents.

Mission is to help

All candidates for foster parents are highly respected. We psychologists don’t take it upon ourselves to make a judgment that this one fits and that one doesn’t.

When candidates come to our School, I tell them: “You and I become employees. We will share the knowledge we have. We want to be useful in your noble and difficult cause.

And the first thing we will pay attention to is motivation: the reasons why you want to take a foster child into the family. And the extent to which you are aware of these reasons.

Hundreds of candidates for foster parents have received from our hands a state certificate, which gives the right to accept a child into a family. And these are the families I most often meet in my practice.

1. Parents with experience

Often adult couples want to become adoptive parents. They have many years of living together, they have children – one, two or more – who have already grown up and become so independent that they need minimal help, support, and attention from their parents. And the parents themselves have enough strength, attention and resources to raise more children.

As a rule, these are elderly couples who, due to their age, cannot or have decided not to have children anymore, but at the same time they understand that they are ready to give care, support and love to those children who find themselves in a difficult situation.

Such a motive causes respect and calmness among psychologists. This is the motive of mature personalities, it is stable, they have weighed and decided everything and are unlikely to change their minds under the influence of new circumstances. They have a lot of parenting experience, they know that problems happen, but they can be dealt with.

2. Parents with loss

The second category is couples in a difficult emotional state, such as parents who have lost their children. This is the strongest, the biggest pain that can befall a person.

In this case, we, psychologists, will make every effort, knowledge and skill to help cope with it so that it does not turn into a black abyss that sucks in both parents and children who may appear in this family.

In such situations, we strongly recommend psychological help and are very supportive of such couples when they decide to go to an orphanage and start helping children to start as volunteers.

Such work helps them to better understand how they feel when communicating with children, and to realize how ready they are for the role of foster parents.

3. Parents with no experience

The third category of adoptive parents are couples who, for some reason, cannot have their own children. Most often these are people who took a long time to decide to take a foster child.

And we, psychologists, are trying to make this decision from a hypothetical, ideal one to the most practical and understandable. Therefore, a lot of attention in our School is given to trainings.

At the trainings, future adoptive parents play typical family situations, discuss them and gain communication skills with children.

Learn about your resources

I repeat once again that in our School, foster parents do not pass an examination, whether they are suitable or not. They come to find out what resources and opportunities they have for a happy parenthood and what else can be done so that their decision is balanced and does not turn into a problem.

Sometimes it happens that parents communicate with a foster child out of a sense of duty, overpowering themselves. They understand that the relationship did not work out, and do not know what to do.

And the child, who was returned to the orphanage because of an undeveloped relationship, is experiencing a second trauma, because he was already left once, betrayed, and now he is experiencing the same thing for the second time!

This is very difficult – but this can be avoided by preparing yourself for the role of a foster parent, figuring out in advance what difficulties you can expect along the way and how to successfully overcome them.