Vol. 9, No. 2• May 2005

Understanding “hidden rules” may enhance success of foster parents and foster children

In America we like to think that social class does not exist. We are taught that our nation is founded on egalitarian ideals, and many of us agree that pretty much anybody can become president.

Yet few would deny that in our society the amount of money you have has a big influence on the way you look at the world and what happens to you. One of the most vivid illustrations of this is the 1996 study that found that children living in families earning less than $15,000 a year are 22 times more likely to experience maltreatment than children whose families earn at least $30,000 (Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996).

Educator and author Ruby Payne believes that when children from backgrounds of poverty are placed into the homes of middle class or wealthy foster parents, sometimes there is a friction and a disconnect that may have little to do with the children’s history of maltreatment and everything to do with money. Payne believes that socioeconomic divisions in society have created three different classes—poverty, middle class, and wealth—that live according to three different sets of unwritten rules. According to Payne, no matter what class we belong to, these hidden rules affect how we think about possessions, money, food, time, education, and many other things.

These ideas may be controversial to some people. Yet even if you reject her ideas about class, Payne makes suggestions that may be useful if you are fostering children from a socioeconomic background different from your own.

For example, Payne says that when someone crosses them in some way, many children from poverty will respond either by telling that person off or by getting into a physical fight. Payne believes they respond this way not because they are troublemakers but because they are following the hidden rules that everyone follows in their homes and neighborhoods.

Of course, this does not mean that foster parents should condone fighting in their homes. But instead of telling children that the hidden rules they know (rules that have helped them survive) have no value, Payne says that foster parents should simply tell them:

These are the rules here. Explain that their rules have value, but in this setting they don’t help. Use an analogy to playing a game. Do you use the same rules in football that you do in basketball? Well, no. Why not? You would lose—or get kicked out of the game. . . . Different games, different rules (Stressman, 2004).

The secret that children from poverty don’t know, Payne argues, is that the hidden rules that dominate some of the most important areas in our society—including school and the workplace—are middle class rules. By teaching children from poverty what those rules are and how and when to follow them, we can greatly improve their chances of success in school and in life.

If these ideas interest you at all, you can learn more by reading Payne’s A Framework for Understanding Poverty and Ann Stressman’s Parenting Someone Else’s Child, The Foster Parents’ ‘How-To’ Manual, both from aha! Process, Inc. <www.ahaprocess.com>

References

Payne, R. K. (1996). A framework for understanding poverty. Highlands, TX: aha! Process.

Sedlak, A. J. & Broadhurst, D. D. (1996). Third national incidence study of child abuse and neglect. Washington, DC: US DHHS, Administration for Children and Families, Administration for Children, Youth, and Families, National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect.

Stressman, A. (2004). Parenting someone else's child: The foster parents' "how-to" manual. Highlands, TX: aha! Process.

Copyright © 2005 Jordan Institute for Families