Foster Care Disadvantages

PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESSES OF KIDS IN THE FOSTER CARE SYSTEM

Is the foster care system so bad? Why is it always portrayed in movies and books to be a horrible system? Foster care was designed to keep children safe, and help children get back to their parents. Sure, it can’t be all rainbows and glitter; but why is it that the first thing you might think of when someone mentions “foster care” is most likely, “Oh, that’s so sad”? Why is it, though, that every time it’s mentioned in movies or books that it is portrayed terribly? The reasons why a child may be in foster care are never good reasons. There are multiple excuses: a child’s parents have died, a child’s parents didn’t want them, a child’s parents were unfit to take care of them, a

There is a paper that is, supposedly, given to every child that enters the foster care system. It states that kids are allowed to be able to be told why you came into foster care and live in a safe and healthy home. It also allows them to have the following rights: to attend school; to participate in extracurricular activities; to have protected privacy; to be protected from physical, sexual, emotional, or other abuse; to have regular visits with biological parents; to have access to social workers; etcetera. Except, how many of the approximated 415,000 children- according to childrensrights.org in 2014- in foster care in the US actually get those rights? The most common of those rights that is compromised is being neglected- being neglected falls under the emotional abuse category. Different types of child abuse are the following: neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological maltreatment, medical neglect, and other. Of course, thirty percent of abused children will later abuse their own children. “Children who experience child abuse and neglect are 59% more likely to be arrested as a juvenile, 28% more likely to be arrested as an adult, and 30% more likely to commit a violent crime.” In 2013, there were 6,189 kids ran away from their foster care. Some kids run away because they want to protect their birth parent. According to Richard Wayman, other kids feel

Their mentality isn’t as it should be for their age. According to Sheryl Faber, foster care children have to “deal with the unknown, are torn from the surroundings they’re familiar with, are cared for by strangers, and have to cope with the uncertainty of whether they will ever be reunited with their families.” Going through anything big like that will give anyone- child or otherwise- trust “issues.” Failure to be able to attach to other caregivers or their foster families, lower academic achievement and lack of educational resources, and lack of preparation for adulthood- these are just a broad view of the many things that won’t make these kids grow up to be “normal” adults. Foster children are often taught by “their circumstances not to speak up and are conditioned to think abuse is normal.” Children in the foster care system generally “lack the childhood experiences that teach other children to trust authority figures.” Foster kid facts explain that foster kids who experience more placements are nearly “15% less likely to complete high school when compared to their peers.” Fifty percent of foster children will receive a high school diploma, only ten percent of former foster youth will attend college, and three percent of those will