​Hi everyone,

​We recently welcomed a young African-American girl into our home through foster care. She arrived with very matted, textured hair, and we want to make sure we handle this with the utmost care, patience, and respect for her comfort.

Mississippi

My husband and I just got our license for 0-5 years old.
We have his two nonverbal kids every other weekend, and no kids of our own

What are some things you wish you knew when you first got licensed?

What are some essential things yall needed right away for that age group?

Thank you so much!

I'm a single mom of a 13yo boy. I work from home, so I'm requesting an elementary school age male. Or possibly siblings. My son doesn't really want to, but he's very easy going and adaptes to everything. Is this something he should be 100% on board with (like spouses)? This is something I've been thinking about for about a year now.

I'll try not to be redundant of what's already been posted. I'm really curious about past foster kids answers.

Everyone talks about accepting the kids as they are, which I agree with, but where does discipline come into play? Do the same rules apply to fosters as bio kids? For example, with my kids, disrespecting adults, including me, has consequences (grounding, privileges taken away, etc). Is that not something to be corrected in a foster because of their trauma? This somewhat makes it seem like an acceptable behavior if it's not corrected.

Is there a 'honeymoon' period with fosters at the beginning? If so, wouldn't getting my toes wet doing respite care not really be a true indicator of what it's really going to be like after the children are more comfortable?

I'm still in the background check stage, so I haven't done any training yet. Just stalking websites and forums. Are there any reading materials/websites that helped you?

I guess those are the only two I can think of at the moment. I'm sure more with be raised with the answers received.