Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Questions.

Do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea to tell your foster child while they are misbehaving:

"If you do not stop acting like that I am going to call your (insert name for bio parent here) and tell them you are being bad and they will NOT be happy!"


Just curious :)

11 comments:

Heather said...

Bio parents will likely reward them because they are making our lives harder... us foster parents ARE the bad people and we ARE stealing their kids...

MCB said...

Bad idea. These kiddos have often already internalized the idea that they are "bad", and that is why they cannot live with their bio parents.

Also, placing their bio parent as the "enforcer" again will only create more fear and determination to please... as opposed to encouraging more autonomy and control over their world. If that parent was abusive, all of a sudden YOU become an abuser as well, by threatening their safety.

One more half thought - with a neglectful parent, this kiddo already knows that that bio parent doesn't follow through, and the threat will not work, or it will create more of a desire in that child to get ANY kind of attention from their bio parent.

Interested to hear other's thoughts!

Ruth said...

I think it's a really bad idea.bio parenting and foster Parenting should be completely separated. I don't see any benefit in it. If the kids had a healthy relationship with bio parents they wouldn't be in foster care, by saying that you are bringing the dysfunction into your home which is meant to be the safe place.

FootPrints said...

bad idea.
bio parents parenting should have nothing to do with your home. the bio parent may be scary because they were beating the crap out of the kid.
i dont really bring them up unless the foster child does.

on another note - the princess on my blog is not available for adoption yet :(

Anonymous said...

Negatory! I could only imagine how detrimental that could be to these little ones.

Learning to Parent said...

I'll offer a dissenting view. Our kids' bio mom is a pretty good parent and she wants her kids to obey us. I think some it is is fear that they (a sibling group of 3) will be moved if we get tired of them and they will be separated.

For the oldest boy, 11, I would not hesitate to let his mom know if I was having problems with him. Especially with school - she is pretty hard on him when his grades get bad and he listens well to her.

So I think in some situations it is OK, I think it depends on the child, the bio parent, and the relationship they have with the foster parent!

Rebecca said...

I don't think it is bad IF the bio parent is actually going to back you up on not being happy about the behavior.

In our case, I would NEVER call bio mom because what she does weekly at the visits is give her child excuses to use for all of her bad behavior. "I was confused." "Someone else said it first." "I didn't think about my words before they came out."

The truth is this 7-year-old is NOT confused about her behavior. She thinks through how to make kids cry and then acts on those plans. She has told me "I like to make people cry." All that bio mom does is take away ANY responsibility that her child has for her behavior...kind of like how she has removed her own responsibility for ending up in jail. After all, it was all just a big misunderstand. Sure.

Denver Laura said...

Bad idea. But it hasn't stopped me from WANTING to tell them that.

Andrea said...

I would never never do that. There could always be things that happened with bio parent and bio parent being "not happy" would be a horrifying thought to the child.

Diane said...

Generally, no. It will only teach them to play you against the bio-parent.

An exception would be if they are truly on the verge (as in, in progress with date soon) of reunification AND the bio-parent is working with you and really will be upset.

jendoop said...

We're verging on reunification and last weekend I asked bio Dad if he wanted his son to save his allowance or spend it. I asked in front of our foster son so he would see that bio Dad and I are on the same page. It wasn't a punishment situation though, he wasn't in trouble.

I have a friend who adopted her kids from foster care and recently admitted that when she was really stressed she threatened to send the kids back to their bio families. I love my friend, but hearing that broke my heart.