Why We Changed Our Foster Care Range of Acceptance (and what we changed it to)

While Buzz and Woody were still with us we knew we were going to change our range of acceptance for our next placement.

Their social worker constantly raved about how well they were doing and how good our home was for them but the truth is, it wasn’t the best for our family.

The three and a half months they were in our home wore on all four of us and our family as a whole. A lot of that we felt and were aware of and some of it we didn’t even realize until they were gone.

I know God knew exactly what He was doing by putting those two boys in our home for that time. If for nothing else it definitely reminded us that we are not doing this because we are good at it, but rather because we know there is a need.

Ten minutes after the phone call where they said Buzz and Woody were going to get picked up in a few hours we got a placement call for another two and three year old. Yes, the boys were still in our home and they were calling with another placement.

Just a reminder how much our province needs more foster homes, especially ones that are willing to take multiples.

I felt, and still do feel, bad for saying no to that placement. One paper the siblings looked nearly identical to Buzz and Woody but with more needs.

It wasn’t something our family was ready to go back into.

As soon as Buzz and Woody left, like half an hour after, we realized that Ephraim’s goofy personality had been suppressed for the last three months and we hadn’t even realized it, or at least not the extent of it, until it started coming back. It was a good sign that we wanted to have more space between Ephraim’s age and the age of the oldest foster child we accepted into our home.

Our homeschool has definitely looked different in the last few months than I had intended. I would say it “suffered” but the kids did do lots of learning, just not what I had planned out. It’s fine to go off course for a bit but to do that indefinitely isn’t possible. For the first time I really started to consider sending them to school because I didn’t feel like I could both foster and homeschool at the same time.

So, for all of these reasons, and more, we knew we needed to make some changes if we were going to continue to foster.

Did we want to continue? Yes and no.

Either way, we didn’t feel like we were supposed to be done yet.

So, we said no to the sibling set and said we would take one child, under 18 months.

And, in true social services fashion they approached us with a child who was 17.5 months old. 😂

We haven’t even had quite a week yet with him but so far the first almost-a-week has been a much better adjustment for our entire family.

I don’t know where we will go from here. We may wait until we feel adjusted and then open up our home to another child. We may wait until he leaves and be open to two kids next time, we may be done after this . . .

Seriously, only God knows, I won’t even pretend to have a clue.