Blog Picture
Monday, December 19, 2011
Sibling Rivalry
One of the questions I get asked often by people considering entering foster care is, how will my own kids react? Biological parents face this question each time a new child arrives in the family and it is the same for foster families. A new child is arriving in the family. Will the other kids like the child? Will they get along? Will they share? The questions inside a new mother's mind are endless. My oldest son Michael is 19 and still thinks that he should have been an only child. He kindly shared this fact with the social worker who was interviewing us for the home study. As embarrassing as that was, I just decided to be glad he was an honest child and ignore the rest. He was 11 at the time. Michael always stands by his statements and never enjoyed the presence of foster kids in our home. Jason was much more easy going about the whole thing and liked having kids around to play with. Jason has had a much larger challenge than Michael because I fostered a child who is the same age as he is. This is called twinning and it can be very hard on the biological child. Jason was 8 years old when Diamond arrive and she was 8 also. He was spared the worst of it because she was a girl and needed different things than he did. If Diamond had been a boy, then he would have had to share his stuff a lot more. I would like to be able to say that my kids loved all the foster kids we had but it just isn't true. Some they loved, some they hated, and some they tolerated. This subject was brought to the forefront of our family this weekend when Shelly and Jason had a yelling match in the kitchen, pretty much over my head as I was working on my coupons. Shelly and Jason are both learning to drive. That means that they have to share time in the car with me. Dad is not able to share in the driving tutelage because he drives a manual transmission (smart man). This rivalry has grown to competition level as they bicker back and forth over who is the better driver and whose turn it is to drive. The volcano erupted on Saturday when Jason started picking on Shelly because he is grounded from driving and very grumpy about it. Shelly is a tough girl and more than willing to fight back when attacked. By the time the yelling match was brought under control they had covered a variety of topics. Including: don't call my mother mom, I am not a retard/you are, and I don't like you living here. Now, if you are looking for sweetness and family love in this blog, you are not always going to find it. Behind closed doors, families are messy. Jason has issues and he was voicing them at the top of his lungs. I think he speaks for most biological kids at some point in their lives. It is hard to have a stranger living in the house and it is hard to share your mother/father. When this topic comes up in the family, I question my decision to foster. I wonder if I am doing harm to my own children by trying to help another. The best answer that I have is I believe that fostering kids has changed my biological children for the better in the long run. They have been shown an example of kindness and caring by their parents. They have learned that not all kids have a loving mom and dad and need a hand sometimes. My daughter Brynna has brought home kids from school in need of help many times. Michael brought Shelly's abusive situation to our attention because he knew we could help. As I watch my biological children become adults, I know they have been taught to love one another even if that involves yelling in the kitchen once in awhile.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I have seen many situations good and bad with foster children and bio children. We made a decison not to foster until our children were grown and gone.
ReplyDeleteFoster kids can be both a positive thing for birth children to experience but can also introduce behaviors that are not necessarily welcome.
ReplyDeletedkc@metrocast.net
I had the issue of bringing a new born into our home with a 16 year old daughter. I feel bad because she's not getting all the attention anymore (she was an only child)and I can't just drop everything to sit out at a football game all evening to watch her cheer, when the baby has to be to bed, and can't sit out in the Michigan cold. She's gotten better (it's been 5 months), but, we talk a lot about it. She knows that she's still loved, but, the guilt is still there for me sometimes.
ReplyDeleteSo much that Kristen posted is so true. My husband and I were foster parents for 29 years. Our kids--bio and adopted--range in age from 20 to 49. We had the advantage of our children being born not knowing anything other than fostering. We fostered from before the time we adopted our first child until our youngest bio child went to college. So fostering was "normal" to our kids. They were school age before they realized our family was a "little different". We often had kids the same age. Sometimes it worked great. Sometimes not. There was lots of rivalries, resentments, and embarrassing situations for our kids. They certainly didn't love every minute of being a foster family. The good news is that they are all grown now and I think I can say that they are better more compassionate people for being raised with children who came from far different life style than theirs. I now train foster parents. The most bitter resentments that I hear about regarding birth children and foster children, surprisingly comes from grown children whose parents waited until they were grown to foster. They feel like their parents are cheating their grandchildren by devoting so much time to their foster children. That's just an observation from talking to lots and lots of foster families. It's not research based. Fostering blessed our lives. We had successes. We had "failures". Our foster children are successful college graduates and in prison for murder. I loved them all.
ReplyDeleteI like your last sentence about success and failure and I think this is true of all children whether they are foster, adopted or biological. Kids grow up and make their own choices. I just hope that I have taught them the best that I can and given them the best start in life that I can. Love is the key!
ReplyDelete