Week 5 Blog

Adopted Children and Foster Homes

Our text describes “adopted child’s syndrome” as a theory that adopted children are more prone to behavioral issues, substance abuse and criminal history. In my experience this has been true. The text also states that pre-adoption experiences is what really can cause these behavioral experiences. If we know this to be true than why doesn’t it take more effort to become a foster parent? After doing some research I found that it can take 1-3 months of training or 25 to 35 hours, there is no income requirement, You can be single and unmarried, and some agencies even let you foster at only 21 years of age. Maybe these foster parents are not financially and emotionally for this responsibility. My sister was put into foster care and was shuffled from house to house because of very severe ADHD. She was a challenging child to deal with. During that time she was a victim of sexual and physical abuse by other children and adults at the various homes. Finally she was adopted at 5 years old by a family member. However, the damage had been done and she is not doing well in her life. As described in the “effects of abuse on children” section, her social and emotional development was majorly damaged which contributed to, failure to bond, poor relationships, poor academics, and eventually drug use and criminal activity.

My biggest question that I would like to investigate is, how can we make foster homes a safer environment for children? There is obviously something wrong with this system, how come nobody is fixing it?