Tonight we finished up our fourth class. So far we have learned about what fostering is, the fostering team, overview of human development, affects of trauma/abuse/neglect on children at a variety of ages, grieving, and loss. The classes are different than what I expected, but have been alright so far. We've heard about a lot of incredible and ridiculous situations that some kids are put through. It's really confirmed our decision to do this - we can't wait to provide a warm, loving home to a child that doesn't have one!
One thing that keeps sticking in my head is something we learned in the first or second class. Initially you think the child will be relieved and happy to leave their broken home and come into your nice, safe home. However, that is rarely the case, if ever. The child is usually resentful that they were taken from their home, and they still very much love their parents no matter how bad the situation was at home. This creates a huge adjustment to work through - we went into this thinking "wow, this will be really hard for us..." when really we should be thinking "wow, this will be really hard for the child that is placed in our home." Even though we will be requesting a younger child (newborn up to 2 years old), and they won't have as much development issues as older kids may have, it will still be hard for a baby/toddler to leave their birth parents and transition into a new home.
Sean went last week to get his medical physical and I go tomorrow. The list of to-do items is slowly getting shorter. The countdown is on....5 more weeks until we have our classes complete and paperwork ready to send to the state!
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I'm so excited for you! I would have thought the same thing about it being hard on J & I...what a mind shift that had to be.
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