Effects Of Being A Foster Care On Children And Adolescents

Many children are suffering due to various complications in their life. Children of all ages end up in the foster care system year after year. Their hardships influence them to feel really depressed and stoic. Many people do not read autobiographies, but the book, Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter teaches people about the complications of a first-hand foster child, how the foster care system is, and book reviews of famous authors and well-known magazines, as well. The story gives hope to people who believe there is no way out anymore, and it influences upon the world’s culture greatly.

Children that are living with their parents might be in an unstable home and are better off in a foster home. The article, “Nonprofit program fosters "can do" attitude for foster kids in high school,” demonstrates how some people are better off in a foster home than with their family. It says, “Robinson was the youngest child by 27 years. Even though she grew up with both her parents in the Central District of Seattle, hers was hardly an ideal childhood. Her mother, who has been clean for several months, struggled with alcoholism, and the house they lived in was a classic hoarder’s home, which Robinson called ‘unlivable’,” (Staff, 2015). Although some kids might be living in an unstable household the foster system isn’t better because kids are going through the same thing in foster homes. The government doesn’t regulate the foster system so the kids are in lack of food and supplies in a foster home. They are struggling to survive in foster homes too. Foster homes need to be better regulated in order for it to be a better environment for these kids. They might be getting abused in some type of way in their household and shouldn’t live there anymore. In the article, “California teen's long road from foster care to Olympic pentathlon dreams,” Staff is showing how much pain and abuse kids endure when they are at home. It states,

In America it is stated that 1 in every 84 children live in foster care circumstances via "Statistics on Foster Care". There is a numerous amount of contrasting children from various backgrounds and ages living within these special housing homes, and many are repeatedly in and out from unstable circumstances. As children grow and mature into the new faces of the world, they face many obstacles and tribulations that will alter their lives. Living in fostering homes is a substantial example and the effects of living in these institutions can truly be great.

Many children encounter difficulties which could include abuse. Neglect, and physical and sexual abuse just to name a few, are types of abuse that unfortunately cause children to be taken from the home and placed into foster care. Removing them from the home can be devastating to children involved, but placing them into foster care help eliminate the possibility continued abuse.

Foster care is designed to be a temporary living situation until a permanent home is available. Although there are positives of foster care, there can be negatives as well. It is important to be cognizant of both in order to prevent the potential harmful outcomes of foster care, and to make it a more beneficial experience.

The life for a child in foster care is much different than any other child’s. While growing up children look up to their father or mother. They aspire to be like them and follow in their footsteps. For the children placed in foster care all they see is that their parents could not take care of them. They will not have the memoires of growing up with their family, but instead memories of the different homes they have been transferred too. Foster parents love and care for all of the children that come into their homes, but it’s hard for the children to accept someone who moves in and out of their lives.

No two children in foster care have the same background. The youths can vary by the age when placed into care, the number of times they were put into care, the quality of the home and family they lived with, and the youths own emotional outlooks (Zlotnick 539). They can develop abandonment issues due to being separated from their biological parents, and stunted emotional growth due to the trauma that foster care puts on a young child. Children need to be raised in a stable and safe environment, and while plenty of foster care parents are loving and nurturing to the child, they may still be affected by being raised by multiple families in a negative way. Every year, over 1 million children experience maltreatment, and about half of these children enter foster care (Greeson et al. 92). Those who enter foster care have usually encountered multiple traumatic events, from either their parents or another caregiver in their lives.

The U.S foster care system is corrupt and the children trapped in it face the worst of it. The goal of foster care is to eventually reunite children with their parents or find the child a safe, loving home. Instead, foster kids face the harsh reality of abuse, mental illness, and temporary homes. The children and ripped from the homes they’ve known their entire lives because their parents struggle financially. The system would rather pay strangers to the child to take care of him/her rather than helping the parents of the child. This case would be called “neglect” when in reality most parents were doing all they could to take care of their children. The children’s new foster parents are paid hundreds of dollars per month. Often times, the money doesn’t go to the child and he/she is left truly neglected. The system is broken because children are taken from their homes for the wrong reasons and put into unsafe environments that will have a traumatic effect on the rest of their lives.

Many children will average about five or six years in the system and go through four to seven homes, making it hard for the children to find stability and have a productive life. Generally, when a child moves to a new foster home, it is far away, forcing the child to pretty much start all over from the very beginning. Moving from home to home and not having that stability causes the child to have many emotions, which are often ignored by foster parents. The neglect and maltreatment by a lot of foster parents is out of control, but a lot of social workers say there isn’t much they can do. And when the children age out of the system, there aren’t that many resources for them to be on their own. Once they turn eighteen, the foster parents usually send them out on their own, making it difficult for the children to finish school. An ideal environment for the growth of children does not usually exist anymore and in order to promote continuity in the social, emotional, and developmental growth of children, there has to be people out there willing to listen.

Over 600,000 children in the United States are in the foster care system. Reasons include, abuse, neglect and abandonment. These children lack nurturing environments and stable homes. Children within the foster care system have more mental, physical and developmental problems. It is imperative to understand the challenges children entering the foster care system are exposed to. The system works best when children are provided nurturing, and short-term care until they can be placed back home safely or a permanent adoptive family. For many children, however, the stay is longer, with 30% remaining in temporary care for over two years. Staying in the system is detrimental to the child’s well-being. The foster care system is an unsuccessful intervention for children that cultivates development, health and mental issues.

According to the Children’s Bureau, there were 427,910 children in the foster care system in 2016. Placements in a foster family have dramatically increased over the last ten years. For some young children and young adults in the foster care system, they have experienced abuse and neglect and have been removed from their parents. Other children have suffered a variety of parental problems such as drug addiction, abandonment, incarceration, mental and physical impairments and death. These painful experiences associated with maltreatment and the trauma of being removed from parents or caregivers can affect the mental health and development of these young people. “ Most children in foster care, if not all experience feelings of confusion,

In foster children are deeply affected by the system they were forcibly put into, violence, mental illness and how it affects them later in there are what they deal with in their day to day life. No one will truly understand the pain a foster child really goes through just the thought of it alone could make anyone shake their

Children are taken/put into care for many different reasons, they may not have had a great life or may have missed out on opportunities, or maybe they were neglected and/or abused and being in care is an opportunity to give them the best life possible. However, being in foster care also has its difficulties. Children may be unable to form attachments; they may isolate themselves socially, making it hard to build relationships. They may have been through trauma and are unable to move on, which will affect many parts of their development.

Everywhere across the world, more and more children are being placed into foster care or a welfare type system. Foster care can benefit children or harm them; the effects of foster care differ for every individual. These types of systems often have a major effect on young children’s physiological state. Children entering in foster care are often malnourished and have untreated health problems. A high percentage of children who are placed in these types of systems have mental health, physical health, and/or developmental issue which often originates while the individuals are still in the custody of the biological parents. Children in foster care should be provided with a healthy and nurturing environment which often provides positive long term results. The age of children in a foster care varies across the world, but it is often seen that majority of these children are young (George para. 1). There are more young children in the system because younger children require more adequate care than older children that are already in the system. Placing these children in welfare systems is supposed to be a healing process for them. Although this is supposed to be a healing process, statistics say these children have a negative experience while being in these systems, but this is not always the case. A number of children in foster care fall sucker to continuous neglect and recurrent abuse with the lack of nurturing and an unstable environment. These same children often have unmet

Recently I read an article in the San Diego Union Tribune entitled "Setting Up Foster Kids for Success" by Assemblyman Brian Maienschein. The article focused on helping foster kids succeed. The article points to statistics that show around half of foster kids who stay in the system until they age out wind up in dire straights - homeless, in prison, or victimized in some way. Some even wind up dead.