What motivations are acceptable for fostering?

[Hamburger233]

If I'm honest that I'm mostly motivated to consider fostering because my only child (6) is regularly mentioning her lack of siblings, how she'd love a sibling, how she'd like to look after them (she loves younger kids, loves looking after them) etc. ...would that exclude us from fostering?

(Obviously children needing fostering in our area may not be younger, I'm aware).

Fostering is a different job to adoption. We need foster carers to look after babies while they are waiting for care proceedings to conclude and be matched with their adopters. We don't need every foster carer to keep the babies and waste the whole assessment and training process they underwent as foster carers and prevent babies from going to people who have been assessed as adopters and who are waiting for matches. Many foster careers will have cared for dozens of children who go on to adoption or other permanent homes. It sounds cynical maybe to your ears but fostering and adoption are different roles. I only know one foster carer who adopted her charge and she was ready to stop fostering anyway, and this child had complex needs which would have made them harder to place. Foster caters are amazing for the way they love children and love them enough to help them move to their forever families. We don't want the system getting stuck with foster carers being unable to move children on.

I see from the link one poster kindly posted; that a sort of hybrid in which people open to adoption do the fostering in order to minimise the moves and upheaval for the child is already in place.

The advantages of that are clear.

It appears to apply to London and home counties, though there may be similar happening elsewhere.

It sounds cynical maybe to your ears but fostering and adoption are different roles.

No, it sounds totally reasonable.

But clearly in some circumstances, it's not what's necessary or ideal .... Hence the system the poster linked about.

I just urge you to be honest with whoever is making the assessment.

You have rejected engaging with anyone who has expressed concern at how you're approaching this.

Could you engage enough to imagine and describe how your DD might feel if a placement features a violent incident or destruction of her property - can you engage with that? How will you feel and what negative reactions could a biological parent have in the heat of the moment if that happens?

You have rejected engaging with anyone who has expressed concern at how you're approaching this

That's absolutely incorrect.

I actually agreed with your points in one of your first posts and said so.
(And you were not exactly tactful in those posts).

That was after you told me I'd posted about this before too .... Link please?

You are doing the typical MN "op you're not engaging with anyone who doesn't sing a tune you like" schtick. Save it.

I see you ignored this genuine question:

Could you engage enough to imagine and describe how your DD might feel if a placement features a violent incident or destruction of her property - can you engage with that? How will you feel and what negative reactions could a biological parent have in the heat of the moment if that happens?

I see you ignored this genuine question

I see you've ignored all the valid points about your behaviour on this thread.

You also appear not to have grasped the entire point of it.

imagine and describe how your DD might feel if a placement features a violent incident or destruction of her property - can you engage with that?

Have you been reading anyone else's posts or are you just in your own echo chamber?

Other apparently experienced posters have said that if I ever applied to foster and was accepted, I would be very unlikely to have older children placed with my young DD. Only considerably younger .... Considerably younger than 6 ...what violence and destruction of property do you think a considerably younger than 6 child would do; and what do you think is the normal reaction of a well adjusted person to such behaviour from a very young child?

Do you imagine a 2yo or 3yo could not hit your DD or damage things?

what do you think is the normal reaction of a well adjusted person to such behaviour from a very young child? What do you mean by a 'normal reaction'? There is such a wide range of normal human reactions to the scenario I posed.

These are the things that can be incredibly hard to navigate. It is why fostering with young children has to be carefully considered.

@Hamburger233

I am both an adopter and a foster carer.

I'd agree with another poster that we are all naive when we start out thinking about thus. You need to do lots of research and ask lots of questions.
One thing I would say though is in reference to what destruction and havoc a young child could cause.
Firstly of course that small child will not stay small forever.
But small children can be incredibly destructive, they can hit and kick and throw things. It is the sheer relentlessnes of it that gets to you.
But mostly you should never bring a child, birth, adopted, or fostered into your family because an existing child wants it. You should only do so because you want to.

What do you think is the normal reaction of a 7 yo who's desperate for a sibling, a cute 3 yo turns up and every time she goes to hug him, he should and hits out at her, who at every chance breaks her toys and rips her books?
Even 3 yos from stable homes can be little beasties and even when you've known that child all their life, it can be upsetting.

Everyone I know who's fostered then adopted, it's because the child's circs have changed (parent letting them be adopted) and the child having the kind of extensive needs where they're unlikely to be rehomed elsewhere, or their family circs have changed so they can commit long term to a child.
But even by your own explanation, You're apprehensive about how you'll cope with a looked after child so want to foster to give it a go and see if you like it. That's pretty much the definition of try before you buy.

A child of 2 or 3 could bite, scratch, hit, pull hair, urinate/defecate on carpets and toys, smear poo, have screaming violent meltdowns or tantrums, show sexually inappropriate behaviour, spit, swear.

A well adjusted 6 year old would find that kind of behaviour very distressing, even if they understood on some level that the child couldn't help it, was traumatised or had attachment difficulties or additional needs. A 6 year old who has been used to being an only child would also find it stressful to suddenly find all their parents' attention focussed on the new child.

I don't think your motivation of your dc wanting a sibling is the right one. I do think that most people go into foster or adoption with a romantic view and no end of training courses can remove all that. The rose tinted glasses are firmly in place in most cases.

Children in the care system require a lot of time, effort and patience. Different parenting skills than a birth child. It's very time consuming and will take your time away from your dc, more so than if you had a birth

It's unlikely you'll have an older child placed with you, but don't underestimate how severe some behavioural issues younger children have. They can be violent, the difference is they are smaller, so easier to handle. We had a child placed at 22 months old and she killed a family pet, physically hurt another child and caused a lot of damage to our property during her episodes, One positive is that you can disrupt a placement of it doesn't fit with your family, but these are children and any move will be disrupting and unfair on the child.

A child of 2 or 3 could bite, scratch, hit, pull hair, urinate/defecate on carpets and toys, smear poo, have screaming violent meltdowns or tantrums, show sexually inappropriate behaviour, spit, swear

I'm wondering why you think any of that - aside from swearing, spitting (maybe) or sexually inappropriate behaviour - would be surprising from a 2 or 3 year old lol.

In fact I remain on the fence re swearing - depending on who they listen to and in what circumstances. Ive heard plenty of kids swearing, and I've seen plenty of supposedly respectable adults swear in front of them, intentionally or not.

We had a child placed at 22 months old and she killed a family pet

A very small one, I presume?

What on earth happened?

At that age I presume they had no concept of the reality of what they were doing.

My vegan animal loving niece used to hold kittens up by the neck, half strangling them - until intercession.

You're apprehensive about how you'll cope with a looked after child so want to foster to give it a go and see if you like it. That's pretty much the definition of try before you buy.

What does "looked after" mean.

See if you like it ..... No. See how we'd cope, yes.

And I've explained ad nauseum why it's not "try before you buy". I'm not wasting my time reiterating the same points over and over again.

A looked after child is how they're referred to at school etc. It just means looked after by someone not their parent, not that you don't look after your biological child

I agree.

Do you imagine a 2yo or 3yo could not hit your DD

Any child, sibling or foster child could hit my dd. Why would you imagine I'd imagine they would not?

On her birthday I had to intercede with a 9 year old with learning difficulties in the same indoor inflatable park pushing her over and yanking her head to the ground by the hair repeatedly.

It is the sheer relentlessnes of it that gets to you.

Yes, I can imagine.

I think it's relentless enough for parents of two or more kids to referee their fights and squabbles ... Let alone two kids where one may have trauma etc and is not a sibling to the other (whim they've grown up).

Oh and not long before that, she and another little girl playing around by grabbing the legs of a boy on the bouncy castle resulted in them both being punched repeatedly because he is ok the spectrum and reacted very badly/didn't see it as harmless horseplay..... What charmed world do you think I live in?

I started this thread with the presumption/rhetorical question that my main/joint motivation for considering the idea of fostering would not be acceptable, for lack of a better word....

As someone with no experience at all, I suspected why it might be unacceptable; but posters on here have been incredible at filling in the blanks and articulating why.

Most people have done so without being combative or derogatory, which I really appreciate.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to share your knowledge and experience.

Yes, that level of behaviour is very unusual for a 2 or 3 year old. Occasional hitting/pushing or sometimes biting among toddlers is fairly typical but the rest certainly isn't.

Isn't this hypothetical example moot anyway, a 2-3 year old is not "significantly younger" than a 6 year old, significantly younger would be a newborn.