Hey, here's one more thing I was not expecting to encounter on our foster care journey: jealousy and competition between foster kids and biological kids. We have a baby, so we thought we could take kids of any age and everyone would be fine with each other. Not so. From day one, the two babies were super jealous of each other. If one parent held one baby, the other baby cried. Even if there were two parents with one baby each, each baby wanted the parent that the other baby had. Things have mostly settled in the past 6 weeks, but one of the babies continues to have issues with the other. When the one baby is down for a nap, the other baby is a golden child; but often when that baby wakes up, the other baby starts crying, whining, scowling at the other baby, and reaching for the parent at all times. The babies don't really acknowledge the older kids, just each other, so in the future I would probably try to only have one baby at a time, for their own benefit.
We have also found that one of the children is very sensitive of our biological daughter getting anything perceived to be better than what the foster baby receives. Parental attention, clothes, toys, baby items, and even types of bottles are compared by the child, checking to see what the differences are between the two babies, and then various demands or requests are made that the foster baby's perceived situation be improved. The child tries to create competitions between the two babies to compare which baby is better. We frequently hear comments about the sibling baby along the lines of, "
She's cuter than Capri because...", "
She used to [insert anything that babies do] but now she's a lot better/smarter/bigger, not like Capri", and "
Why did you give the pink toy to Capri? My sister should get the pink one and Capri should get the green one." In addition, the child frequently picks up baby items around the house and says, "
This belongs to [foster baby]," and tries to claim things for that baby that do not belong to her. I gather that this might be a type of survival tactic, making sure that the child's young sibling has her needs met, even though that is highly unnecessary in our house.
Aside from the babies, competition for parental attention between the older kids runs deep. I'm assuming it goes deeper with young foster kids than it does with most permanent kids, but I guess we'll know for sure with time. One extreme example of the need for attention surprised us in the form of bed wetting. We have one bed wetter who gets woken up at night for potty checks, and after a while, the other child would have three or more days in a row of wetting the bed after a full week of staying dry without incident. We could not figure out why these wet days for the dry kid kept happening every other week, until the child finally said, "
Well, I keep wetting the bed... Can you just come in to wake me up every night like you do for [Sibling]? At least two times per night, please. And make sure to still check on me right after I go to sleep, too." This is the child who can spout off a list of questions at bedtime, who loves to talk and is never quite satisfied with the amount of time and attention received. Bed wetting became one more way to get that attention, as uncomfortable as it was for that child to wake up wet in the morning.
We haven't had enough foster care experience to know which things pertain only to our specific kids and what pertains to foster kids in general, but we're taking notes for ourselves for next time, and to share with anyone who would like to get a better idea of what foster care is like day-to-day inside the home.
