Q I’ve been a foster carer for about a year now and I’m feeling more and more concerned about the affect this is having in my own young child.
I don’t want to stop fostering and if I speak with the social worker I’m afraid this might go against me. The ten year old boy in my care comes from a background of neglect and abuse, and more than that he often makes racist and homophobic comments (to people in the street, or he shouts things out to the television set). To make matters worse he lies and steals and deliberately damages or destroys things. He then manipulates the truth to get himself off the hook and to make my son look like things were his fault and to take the blame.
I do try and explain things to both of them together but it seems to fall on deaf ears with the foster child. The social worker says that he’ll grow out of it in time and with ‘corrective experiences’. I fear for the affect of all this negative behaviour on my own son.
Do you think this foster child will grow out of it or shall I just give up now?
A Having been a foster carer myself for eight years I do understand your doubts and fears.
This boy has grown up with certain conditioning – and so his present behaviour may be his way of keeping the bond with his birth family.
This is his ‘fantasy bond’ of attachment. The family system may be ‘dysfunctional’ and unhealthy, but it’s what he knows and feels to be the ‘norm’.
Q