The foster parenting lifestyle can hurt your marriage if you don't have solid communication skills and the ability to deal with stressful situations.
Challenges:
- Not having enough information about the children being placed in your home.
- Tight finances.
- Much of your time may be spent in counseling sessions with the children.
- Respite care may be lacking or difficult to obtain.
- Children will probably be physically ill and emotionally, sexually, and mentally abused when they arrive at your home.
- Biological parents may be difficult to deal with.
- Your sleeping schedule may be disrupted.
- Privacy or alone time for the two of you may be infrequent.
- If you have both older and younger foster children, the older ones may bully or injure the younger ones.
- Your own children will have to adjust to having foster siblings and sharing the two of you with them.
- There will probably be a time when you will have to say goodbye to the child and let him/her go back to the biological family or on to a new adoptive family.
