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Welcome to my blog! I hope to be able to provide valuable strategies, insights, ideas, and resources for foster parents who are trying to juggle the roles of both biological parent and foster parent.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

"Quality Time"
When my children were young, we had a very busy foster home. New children moved in and out on a regular basis. Obviously there were going to be times that my children did not get along with a new foster sibling. Often, these feelings had nothing to do with the foster child themselves, but with other circumstances, such as: the new foster child took the place of a foster child with whom my children had developed a friendship. The new kid would walk in the house, and my kid/s didn't like him/her right away, without even giving him/her a chance.

 I came up with a consequence called "Quality Time." If kids argued (either foster kids amongst themeselves, or my bio kid and a foster kid) they would have to spend a half an hour together doing an activity chosen by the person "who didn't start it." If there was an arguement about "who started it" (as there often was) they got one hour of "Quality Time" with each of them choosing the activity for half of the time. They could play a game, teach the other person a new skill, or whatever (I had to approve the activity to make sure it wasn't designed to cause additional problems: i.e. a girl making a boy play "dress up.")

We had a boy move in, who took the place of a boy who my son was friends with since before he even went into foster care. My son did not like his new foster brother, without even knowing him. During their "Quality Time" consequence, my son taught his new foster brother how to skateboard.

They are still friends today (and they are in college.)

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