Foster carers age specific

[lijaco]

After reading the last thread it seemed that Foster Carers main interest is to look after babies only. Why is that?

Tey have fewer issues - older children tend to have had traumatic early lives and that can manifest itself in some behaviour which is quite difficult to live with.

Bop

We have fostered all ages up to 10 years old and as mummybob says older children have more issues than younger ones.

Caring for babies comes with its own problems ie lack of sleep, teething, as well as the heartache when they move on.

I suppose after a long time fostering I've settled into my comfort zone which is the babies

I foster all ages up to 19.
Babies are more portable but tend to have more frequent contact with birth parents.

School age children you have issues with schooling (or lack of!) as well as often behavioural stuff.

Teenagers can be more independent but also can be, well, teenagers!

I know carers who have young children themselves and prefer to foster teenagers as they are able to take themselves to school etc. I know others who prefer to only take fosterchildren younger than their birth children.

I know one family who fostered teens when their birth children were younger, but as their children hit puberty, switched to fostering younger children as they were concerned for their birth children - sadly a lot of fostered children come with an awful lot of baggage, and they didn't want to take the risk of having too many unrelated hormonal timebombs all in the same place.

I'm not fostering right now but at the moment I'd have to be taking a younger child or preferably infant simply due to the current bedroom arrangements.