Vol. 8, No. 2• May 2004

What Do You Do to Keep Your Emotional Well from Running Dry?

by Becky Burmester

Being a foster parent is hard work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. It is wonderful and awful — sometimes at the same time. Friends who are not foster parents cannot understand why we keep on keepin’ on.

Yet without the support of those who understand, we either cannot continue to be foster parents or we begin to provide less than the best care possible. This lessening in the quality of the care we provide is unintentional—we simply have a dry emotional well. But it has profound effects on the lives of the children in our care.

After 19 years as foster parents, we recently considered surrendering our license. This was the first time that our well had gone very nearly dry. There had been occasions when we talked about taking a break between placements, but never a time when we felt we just could not do this any longer.

So what was happening that led to our dry well?

We were in the process (still are) of adopting two children and it was not going smoothly. Foster parents sure are emotionally out there once they have decided to adopt! The role becomes totally different emotionally (or at least it has for us).

Add to the situation, a child previously placed with us needed to come back into care. Suddenly we found ourselves caring for three preschoolers! Our licensing agency was undergoing a major reorganization so we were no longer working with the people we’d worked with for ten years. My husband’s employer was in the midst of a fight for survival in this strange new economy. We were looking for a new church home (predominantly African-American) to reflect the experience of the children we hope to adopt. It is no wonder our well was nearly dry.

Refilling the well happened slowly. We took a week’s vacation with all three kids, flying several hundred miles to spend a week at a ski lodge near where our first son is stationed with the Navy. There were no phones and very few distractions. We played and we read and we slept. We shared our stresses with our friends in our Racial Reconciliation Group and in our Covenant Group.

Orphans of the Living, by Jennifer Toth, was one of the books I read that helped fill the well. In its case study format, the reader is drawn into the lives of four children in the social services system. This nonfiction book is one that might be dismissed as far fetched by non-foster parents, but we know better.

Another is The Lost Children of Wilder, by Nina Bernstein. This book is a multigenerational recounting of one family’s experience with foster care. Through three generations, the reader follows the effects of the child welfare system on one family.

Swings Hanging from Every Tree, edited by Ramona Cunningham, is a book of daily inspirations for foster and adoptive parents that I highly recommend. Each entry is only a single page, yet flipping through to read the entry for a specific date or stopping to read because the title caught my eye invariably strengthens my resolve to be a good foster parent.

The Privilege of Youth, by Dave Pelzer, is the latest in the series that began with A Child Called It. In my view much of this book is a bit “over the top,” but parts are certain to touch any foster parent’s heart. We really can make a lasting difference in the life of a child, even if we share in their life for only a short while. Dave was not an easy child to foster, yet foster families made a real difference in his life.

As we continue as foster parents, my husband and I will continue to read and participate in training opportunities like the ones offered by the NC Foster Parents Association. We know now—more than ever—that our emotional well needs to be replenished constantly if we are to do our best for the children in our care.

As always, I welcome your suggestions for this column. You can contact me at <[email protected]> or 919/870-9968.

Copyright � 2004 Jordan Institute for Families