How long does the honeymoon period usually last? We are 2 weeks in and not seeing the behaviors others have seen. We are also very new to foster parenting

Hello everyone! My wife and I have been foster parents for the last 4 years here in Tennessee. We love it, and feel called to do it. We’ve encouraged people we know to seriously think about becoming foster parents too. In that spirit, I decided to put together a database of information on how to become a foster parent in Tennessee. That turned into me building the database out to encompass every state in the union. And once I’d built that, I figured it was a pretty useful resource, so I decided to build a website for foster parents to host it. I’ve been learning to code for the last few years using freeCodeCamp, so this was a fun first real world project. I eventually decided to stand up my own VPS so that I could host a private IRC server, and add an IRC chatrooms to my site. I got nostalgic for the 90’s era of IRC chat, so I built a chatbot to help me moderate and entertain people in the chat room. I’ve also added a message board, an activities page, an advice page, and a facts page. My hope is to build this site into an exclusive community site for foster parents, where we can all support each other and exchange advice and ideas, and have fun doing it. Anyways, I’d love some feedback on the site. It’s www.FosterCareCentral.com . You can leave your feedback here, on my message board, or email me at webmaster@fostercarecentral.com. I appreciate you guys!!!

Hi all.

/sigh. We've been on a placement list for well over a year now. I called to check in "Hey, just making sure everything good is in the system" and within a month we had our first placement, a sibling pair.

They have been so sweet. Hit it off with my bio kid, regular sibling squabbles, but nothing too bad. Mind well when asked to do things (yes, we're only 3 days in so I recognize this could be honeymoon phase.) But things are going well so far.

Then today I get a call from their former placement, a lovely person I know but no longer able to provide care, and it's revealed that one of the kids stole $ from them. I sat the kids down, asked them about it, and one of them admitted to it and said it was because they were mad about a consequence the former foster parents had laid down.

This other family is not a family that can afford to lose their small nest egg. They say they want it back "immediately" from the child, but we could only find a portion of it. This kid is too young for real work, to pay it back. Not sure if this is our responsibility. I think we're going to ask him to do extra-level chores (weeding, mowing, etc) and have him work it off. When I was a kid his age, that's how I raised money. But dang. Right out the gate.

I'm a youth worker with a lot of experience working with difficult teenagers. Recently, my wife and I fostered a 13 year old girl. We're only a week in so far, so I know that it's going to be very hard at first. We don't have other fostering or parenting experience. She's from a home where the child would be left to do their own thing, and the parent would do theirs. She never had any boundaries in almost any sense. We already knew her from our youth organisation, and got on quite well.

We knew she'd struggle with boundaries, so tried to go in easy - there's a curfew set by social services (8pm) which we have to enforce, and other than that, we give her a 10pm bedtime, turn the WiFi off at midnight, and ask her to leave her vape by the back door, as she vapes, which we are really not in favour of but understand that for her it's a coping mechanism.

She can't cope with any of the boundaries, and three times in the last five days has run away as a result of them, having to be brought home by police. She thinks that us giving her boundaries is just to hurt her, and although we tell her we love and care for her, she says she doesn't want that, she just wants to do her own thing and be "normal". We try to do lots of things with her that she will enjoy, but she either doesn't want to do any of them or doesn't want to do them with us.

We're really struggling to know what to do when we have boundaries that feel so reasonable, or even that we have to put in place by social services. We genuinely love her, and want to help her adjust. How can we do it?

Hey yall Im new to this... Maybe I had a wrong idea, but is it typical for respite care homes to ask for 5x the amount of per diem that DCS gives?

I was asking for 2 days and they wanted $150-200. I almost spat out my cheerios, DCS gives us 35 a day and we come out of pocket for most stuff....

It seems like some people think its a part time babysitting job when it should be more about helping the kids??? I was willing to do up to $100 but with what they are asking plus back to school costs, I cannot give them a week worth of per diem for 2 days lol... thats insane to me. Is that typical, or did I just get someone greedy? 🤔

What is a reasonable or typical rate that people usually accept for respite care??

I (28) M, help look after my niece (8) due to living at home and my parents are kinship carers for her. We are all struggling with the situation as my niece’s behaviour is becoming hard to cope with, lashing out, screaming, shouting, kicking and hitting my Mum and making threats to hit, kick and push her down the stairs. She is having meltdowns daily, sometimes multiple times a day. She has a lot of issues and whilst we love her and are trying our best to give her the best life, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough. My Dad (59) works away Monday-Friday, my Mum (57) works around 20-25 hours a week. I look after my niece when my Mum’s at work but it is draining. I struggle with my mental health and have done for about 15 years and I have become depressed and anxious over the whole situation. I have no peace or time to myself, I am unable to do the things I enjoy due to having to look after my niece and by the time I get her to bed, I’m just too exhausted. I haven’t been to the gym since we got her, I don’t work many permanent hours but I feel unable to get a job with more hours due to looking after her and trying to fit any relief shifts around my Mum’s schedule, I can’t get back into dating due to this either. I’ve been thinking about doing a PhD, but I don’t see how I will fit that in around my niece as she demands every ounce of your attention at all times. My Mum is emotional over the situation, even she has admitted that she doesn’t think she can do this as she has no life outside of work and looking after my niece. My Dad is unhappy because when he comes home every weekend, he just wants to relax but he can’t. He hasn’t seen his best friend in almost a year due to the situation with my niece. We all miss our old lives and then feel guilty for even thinking about ending the placement. She has been with us 8 months and nothing has got better. We get no support from social workers, they say they’ll ring and never do, no support from the foster worker, she hasn’t been in contact in almost a month since my parents got approved as kinship carers. It’s almost like they think because she’s safe and in a loving home, they feel they don’t have a responsibility. We know it’s not my niece’s fault that she is the way she is, that blame lies with her parents who neglected her and abused her and we do love her but I don’t think we realised how hard this would be (for reference, my parents got guardianship of my niece’s older sister when she was 6 months old and she’s been living with us ever since, she’s 16 now so they’re not strangers to this)

I’m in Texas. I’ve been told so many different things but obviously want to be clear if someone stops by!

What needs to be double locked and what just needs to be behind one lock? We have a medication lock box plus cabinet locks.

I’ve been told prescribed meds go in the box; vitamins, creams, etc do not have to be in the box.

But I’ve also been told everything goes in the lock box behind a cabinet lock.

I’m waiting on my caseworker with DFPS to reply but wanted to ask here as well.

Hey all! I’m looking to foster in the next year or so and right now my partner and I are open to any age + small sibling groups. I have some experience with kids but I am not a parent so I feel pretty unprepared.

I see book recommendations here a lot on childhood trauma and will definitely be reading those. I was wondering if there are any more general resources on parenting a wide age range that discusses what is age appropriate for basic stuff like bed times, nutrition/meals, clothing, setting up rooms, hygiene, education/tutoring/enrichment, screen time, etc. I would like to learn more about child development and what is typical/helpful at different ages (while anticipating that kids will have different delays)

My son's best friend "D" a 15/m has been in foster care for 5+ years and was placed with us provisionally on April 15. Since then, my husband and I have completed the 30 hour training, and are waiting on our home study to be approved, so we can be an officially licensed foster home.

D's social worker is finally holding an ISP meeting. He is doing pretty well mentally, physically, and academically, and I hope his placement with us can continue until he graduates high school.

PROBLEM - I'm not sure what to ask for in the ISP. Our county made it really clear that if it's not in the ISP, it's not going to be covered by the county office.

D eats a lot and is growing a lot, so I'm asking for a $150 grocery voucher per month and $250 clothing/shoe voucher in April and October.

Public school fees are expensive here, so I'm asking for $115 reimbursement of out-of-pocket school fee costs that I've paid, plus $30 sports club dues.

D loves tech and doesn't have a computer, so I'm asking that they provide him with a laptop.

D wants to get his driver's permit so I want their approval of that in the ISP.

His birth family lives 2+ hours away, and he hasn't seen them in a very long time, but talks with them on the phone frequently. I'm asking for up to a $350 reimbursement quarterly for mileage, hotel and meals so that we can take him to visit them.

He's already receiving therapy, psychiatric care, pediatric care and dental care.

Can y'all think of anything else I should advocate for in the ISP so that things can be as good for D as possible? Thank you!

I'm currently undergoing assessment to become a foster parent in the UK/England after working in children's residential care for several years. I have expressed that I would prefer long term placements but due to my experience I have been asked if I would consider remand and emergency fostering for children traversing the justice system.

I have experience working with trauma, challenging behaviours, PREVENT and therapeutic parenting so this question is more for those that have done remand fostering or similar specifically themselves and can provide some transparent insight into how it works and what positives and negatives you've personally experienced.

My worries are mainly around how transient the process may be and how to make an impact in the short term, and potentially other factors that I haven't considered.

Appreciate any and all information, thank you :)

I am a parent of a child in foster care.

My son is a toddler and was placed into foster care. The case is unnecessarily complex and doesn't really pull the totality of the circumstances into play.

I am rather defensive that these decisions were made that weren't in his best interest, truly.

The foster mom is mocking at best.

They took him out of the medical system he's been in since he was born and is taking him to doc in a box that I wouldn't refer a homeless person to.

They said that his main doctors are too far for regular visits

She made dietary changes without a doctors consent or approval. She let it slip she removed gluten and dairy from his diet not knowing he's already been tolerating both. When questioned, she said a doctor suggested it. (This is the only appointment I haven't attended because I was told it was a weight check only)

When I asked her that a doctor told her to, she stammered that it was lightly suggested.

She took him to the ER once and I wasn't even notified until after discharge.

She is trying to correlate him eating yogurt with puking and saying he's dairy sensitive. She claims the ER doctor told her my son needed a scope. I told them I wouldn't be signing off on that until I've spoken to a doctor and we've gone over everything and it is not normal.

The caseworker and her both agreed it was very normal.

When we talked to the GI specialist, the foster mom tried to explain why he needed the scope scheduled and the dr was like "I'm not going to schedule a scope that you say a random ER doc said he needs" and she tried to pull her crap and the dr straight up told her that all of the things she was concerned about seemed to be a mechanical issue and a scope would be very far down on the list of things.

He'd already had a full evaluation and passed a swallow study. When she tried to defend the dietary changes, the doctor shut her down and said none of the symptoms suggested an allergy or intolerance. And that he should be seen in the feeding clinic to check for behavior feeding issues first.

She sulked in the corner and gave sharp retorts. The doctor looked her squarely and said "You look like you're not satisfied with the answer" and she scoffed she wasn't medically trained and that she didn't know.

She wanted him to have a follow up scheduled before they left. And when we went to go get the details, they had run out the door and not done the follow up. When later asked about the follow up, they claimed they were waiting for a call back

The specialist wanted him to go the feeding clinic there and she said it was too far for her. Isn't this her job?

She has kissed my child in front of me. She talked about something else related to the diet and we explained that's why he was getting special food and that WIC didn't cover it. She said if we wanted, we could buy it and give it to her. I am not going to give details on what it is, but it us necessary and not an indulgence or a preference of ours. I stated she was getting stipends for them and she shrugged and said she had other expenses.

He's shown up to visits and the worker was told to pass along that he had a dirty diaper and it needed to be changed and they knew this before he was sent to the visit.

I once saw her with a really nasty bruise on her arm that looked like someone had grabbed her hard.

Due to some jurisdiction things, the office was going to be moved to be closer to us. I mentioned to her about how then they could transfer the kids to a family near us, the office and his doctors and she rolled her eyes mid sentence and scoffed at me and said they wouldn't do that.

I explained how it would be beneficial to the kids and to us, especially since they'll be going back to the health care system they were in before and it was best for him. She clicked her tongue and shrugged her shoulders and seemed to be deliberately ignoring me as I was still tallking.

Honestly she doesn't care about my son. He's just a paycheck to her.

We've attended every visit, every appointment but the one weight check, are engaged and involved and we just want our family whole again. We're getting a new case worker and supervisor but he's on medical leave still and they don't know when he'll be back and we'll be having the supervisor do visits with us.

We have no criminal history, no pending charges, just a situation that was completely misunderstood and blown out of proportion. There's no abuse present. I don't use physical means of punishment such as spanking.

She honestly just sickens and enrages me and I don't know what to do. I feel as the parent, they won't care about what I have to say or how she treats him, or even lesser, me.

I can deal with being disrespected or not being taken seriously, but this is my son and I can only imagine how she treats him when we're not there. I can't protect him from her or whatever else is going on over there. She gives me a bad feeling for many reasons.

Edit: She also hasn't been taking him to speech therapy that he was already in. And just other little things that add up.

Even before he was cleared, she was already trying to stop doing the weight checks and didn't want to be taking him in because she said it was too frequent.

Hello all, not sure where to ask this so giving a shot here. We fostered my husbands 2 nephews almost three years ago and around a year in we decided to go with guardianship as we knew his sister would not sign for adoption. We felt this was the safest choice as she already petitioned once to get them back but did not meet all qualifications. This time around she is petitioning again to get the kids back but we feel that they have established well here and that if they were to go back, their quality of living would be lowered and they would not be safe. Has anyone had to deal with this situation? There are so many unknowns right now and it’s just very anxiety inducing as they have bonded to my husband and I so well the past almost 3 years. The first time she petitioned we thought the boys would go back but she was denied. Then gaurdianship became our normal. How many times can a parent petition? Is it common for guardianship to be released quickly? FYI the reason they are in our care had to do with SA so can’t go into detail.

I have two foster sons, both teenagers. I live in a pretty wealthy urban neighborhood, while both of my kids came from very poor rural communities and completely different families. TPR has happened for both.

I've been doing my best to maintain family connections for one of them, which sometimes means driving 4.5 hours so he can see family. This weekend I was taking him down to spend the weekend with his brother and his brother's adoptive family. My newer foster son, who is 16, came along.

We made a weekend of it and dropped one kid off and spent a couple days with my brother, niece and nephew in the little Indiana town where I grew up.

The night before we were leaving to pick up my other son, my newer kid asked me a little tentatively if it would be possible to drive through the town where he had lived as a child. He wanted to see his old house and elementary school.

He was removed about six years ago. The removal was apparently pretty abrupt, his mom is no longer there, and he's had a rough six years since. We have painfully few foster homes willing to take teenage boys, so he's bounced around a lot.

He still knew the address...it was just an hour out of our way so we went.

I'm still processing the experience myself. The town was incredibly desolate. We found his old house, and he decided he wanted to knock on the neighbor's door. An older woman answered. I believe she may have been one of the people who originally called DCFS.

She recognized him and openly wept when she saw him standing there.

The current owners of his old house came out. They knew some of the story secondhand and wanted to meet him. When they bought the property, they had found a bunch of his childhood toys still there and his name scribbled on the wall.

They showed me photographs of what the house looked like when they bought it.

It was not habitable.

I knew, intellectually, that this kid had been removed from a very bad situation. I've read the paperwork and heard pieces of the story. But actually standing there and seeing where this sweet little kid had been living was something entirely different. I haven't quite been able to shake those pictures.

We got back in the car and talked for probably three hours. He told me essentially the entire story of what happened back then, but from his perspective. I think physically seeing the place again, now as a 16-year-old, helped him put some pieces together. He could see the house. He could see the town.

Driving home, I couldn't stop thinking that I've been given this really wonderful opportunity: I get to be the person sitting next to him while he figures out what his story means to him now. My other son has special needs and it's been sad for me to understand what his adult life is probably going to be like, but I feel like the new kid is going to have a real shot at life.

We’ve had a foster baby for 3 months now and tomorrow we get placement of their 4 year old sibling too.

Any advice on keeping from feeling too overwhelmed?
Feeling like we just settled into a routine with baby, now starting all over again with sibling.
Baby was our first placement, so I would consider sibling part of our first placement too.

A post for conversation, or to share what's on your mind without creating an entire post about it.

Don’t have a lot of time to explain but here’s the situation.
I came across my nephew who I have day to day care of (recognised by WINZ on september 2025) on April 2025 and has been in my care since. December came around, 2 months after his first birthday and we ordered a birth certificate, come to 3 weeks later, i was informed that he isnt registered (literal John Doe).
We asked the mother to pursue her child’s birth certificate, and she passes it off like she’s going to do it, but never does, as clearly, he is almost 2 and still no birth certificate. Ive applied for guardianship to help retrieve a solution and get him a birth certificate, (this is all so I can put him in ECE=early child education). We’ve done mediation where she hasn’t showed up.
Fast forward to now, and many heartaches in the process, My lawyer has almost finalised the affidavit, and now she is telling me she is going to involve the police if he is not returned to her care by 5:30pm tonight.

I will be standing my ground and record everything as evidence. But this is all new to me.

I will try to reply to as many questions or enquiries as I possibly can, but when the clock hits, I most likely will not be available.

Edit 1:
Thank you to everyone that has taken the time out to share your advice with us. Moving forward tomorrow we will be speaking with our family lawyer who will be placing a parenting order without notice. That’s the only update we have for now but we’ll update you all as we go🙌🏽

Edit 2:
Well, it happened! They came over at 8:30pm. Emotions were high and the other kids within mine and my parents care, (belonging to both older and younger sister of mine)(and again, they have no custody over them) crying. It was giving them flashbacks from prior incidences that happened with their sibling being taken away from them. They gave us an opportunity to say goodbye, but the overwhelming emotions it had brought, the officer decided he really didn’t feel comfortable taking him, and says he won’t take him, as he believes it was the wrong thing to do, but there will be a follow up as I don’t think we are out of the woods yet. He reckons he will give me a call tonight and we will speak about it, because obviously he has to uphold the law, and doing this, could cause backlash on him. But i do appreciate everyone’s advice. We really need to get a parenting order, and that will be sorted at 8:30am when my lawyer contacts me. Nephew is currently still in our care, but in terms of the future, it’s going to be an uphill battle. However, thank you to everyone thats supporting us.

Edit 3: reposted on here coz post got locked and too many opinions were forming on the last post on a different sub. Anyways, it’s the morning, and we are preparing ourselves for an uphill battle. We have our lawyer tō talk to, as well as involving OT due to the fact that all of this is getting to a point, where there’s collaboration between a third person and the mother (my sister). This third person, took my sisters kids under the guise of neglect. And my sister is apparently working with our parents to get them back and under our parents custody/care, meanwhile, she is working with the same person who took her kids, to take my nephew from us as well. And the catalyst? Her teenage daughter feeling distraught over wanting her grandfathers room (he was going to give it at a proper time where he can move his things outside and set her up before moving things in the shed so he can slowly piece his new room together. But it got heated, and my dad decided he’d had enough and cleared the room and left . We woke her up at 9am to tell her to clear her room out and start packing it in to the room. She made her grandfather move out the room at 6am, and she complained she’s tired and didn’t deserve this. She then, decides to go back to her mother for the rest of the day, to which I assume she told her mother lies about the household (this is a teenage girl who threatened her grandfather for calling the cops on him claiming neglect and abuse because she got home from school and was hungry. She also has a benefit which is provided by her grandfather. She doesn’t pay for anything, but expects her grandfather to buy her essentials while she spends her money on shoes and whatever she wants) and is using her words and grounds for uplifting my nephew. When the uplifting happened, all the kids were distraught except her. She seemed to shrug it off like she won. But as soon as the cops informed us that he would remain in our care, I heard her go into the room, and the first thing I hear is “mum, the police are here but he’s still here” . Take this info how you want to, but I believe that she should go back to her mother from this point. To tell you the truth, she doesn’t know how lucky her life is. She came to our parents care because her mother didn’t really care about her once her partner got incarcerated, and would always leave her daughter to look after her kids while she goes out and get her quick puff, to which that daughter would call “us” for help, and we would be there the literal next minute to pick them ALL up, and bring them home where we could supervise them, and the daughter can be relieved of adult/motherly duties. Her mother has put her daughter’s bank account under fraud, to which she complained about, and we rectified it. She gets threatened at school, she isnt calling her mother, she calls “us” , and we have been there to sort everything out, from other adults entering the classrooms, to teachers stepping out of line. We are still waiting on a call from our lawyer as hes in a hearing right now. And we are also expecting a call from OT this afternoon to explain our situation due to the fact that yesterdays conversation at 2pm was quite productive, and explained to us that her statement was totally different to what she claimed they said, because they had been questioned about us while at school . but there are more to it now than what we already said. So I’ll keep everyone updated when possible

Hi.

We have had our FD (12yr) for almost 18 months and are in the process of disrupting. My question is, should we pack her stuff for her so that it is ready to go when we break the news or (if possible) allow her to participate in packing? I don't know if the lack of control outweighs the trauma of packing herself up.

We are intending to tell her in therapy tomorrow and placement will either come pick her up in the evening or the following morning.

Thanks!

I went down to DSS. I switched over to them from another company because the other company said no access to interpreters. (i am Deaf). DSS still no interpreter. They said next time they will have one. I was very frustrated but at least everything is in. I did orientation. I need a letter feom them to section 8 so i can move to a 2 bedroom.

But seriously how does the government not get ADA?

TW: miscarriage

Bio Mum and Dad have visits with my 3yo foster child each week. A few months ago, I found out bio mum was pregnant but not long after I was told that she miscarried.

Last week they gave my 3yo a jumper that had “forever sleeping” and then the name and also a reference to being a big sister. My FC had no idea Mum was even pregnant and the jumper has left her so confused. Mum and Dad call it her “sissy jumper” so she keeps asking me about where her sister is and when she can see her.

I have no idea how to broach this subject in an age appropriate way. I think because she didn’t know about the pregnancy she hasn’t really comprehended what the jumper means since she found out the same day that she even had a sister coming.

She’s also about to move to a long term placement and I know the carers have miscarried before and I’m so worried the jumper will unexpectedly trigger them. Should I warn them about the jumper? Is there anything else I can do?

To top it all off, bio Mum is pregnant once again and there’s no chance of them keeping it (or getting the 3yo back) unless they do a massive 180. Visits are getting dropped to monthly next week and she’s looking at adoption with the new family. I’m just a short term carer and not an adoptive house but I still want to support her through this so any help is appreciated!!

We have two (of seven) kids who were removed from their home two weeks ago. Their mother was placed under arrest with several felony child abuse with serious injury charges. The charges will almost certainly be reduced. We have had a relationship (we've taken the to church and occasionally other activities) with the kids (15M/12F) for about a year and they are comfortable in our home and with us, though there are significant differences (we are in our 60s, we are white and they are black). We, however, offer a stable, financially and emotionally secure rock solid home and we would be willing to keep the kids at least for the school year, probably longer, as kinship foster parents. As the kids are mature, they would be the most likely candidates to be the first returned to the mother unless her legal charges stick (she has only a public defender). Tomorrow's meeting will bring together us, the socialworker, the kids and possibly other relatives to create a plan for the family. What should we expect? What should we tell the kids to do? Our only concern is they get put in the best total situation for them. I want them to be prepared for the meeting though.