Excerpted From
Called to Care
By Bill Blacquiere and Kris Faasse
No matter how a family is created, a child’s world extends far beyond the nuclear unit. Family encompasses grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and, for those in foster care or adoption, the birth family. In an ideal environment, close friends, neighbors, and faith communities also serve as kin. Creating a safe space for adopted children is essential for their emotional well-being and successful integration into the family unit.
Extended family and community members offer the emotional, physical, and spiritual support necessary for those who answer the call to care. While not everyone is called to foster or adopt, many are called to support those within their circle who do. The church can be a vital part of this network, offering foster care church support through various specialized initiatives.
ACCEPTANCE
It is crucial that extended family members actively accept and build connections with children who join through foster care or adoption. This acceptance fosters a true sense of belonging for both the child and the parents. Without it, families may face painful exclusion from reunions or holiday gatherings due to a child’s race or origin. Fortunately, a church-led adoption movement can help inspire and facilitate these essential lifelong connections.
Imagine how a child would feel if she heard this conversation about her:
“Are these your grandchildren?”
“Yes, these are my biological grandchildren, and this is my adopted grandchild.”
It may not seem too bad to do so on the surface, but singling out that child as adopted can create feelings of being different, of not being enough, of not being part of the family. Adopted children may struggle with these feelings already; labeling them as different makes it worse. The emphasis should be placed on accepting and integrating children into the family by all members.
Parents—adoptive or foster—need to be alert to subtleties within the extended family and educate the family about the messages they send. Most of the time they don’t realize those messages might be divisive or hurtful, but occasionally they do. That’s when it’s time to have a serious talk or avoid that person altogether if they don’t change.
Examples of subtle, perhaps unrealized, behaviors or assumptions abound: a child who was adopted is always last in line for treats; family members assume foster children don’t like school or aren’t capable of good grades; foster children get secondhand clothing while other children get new clothes; foster or adopted children are left out of conversations or ignored; family members make comments about race or ethnicity.
REACTING TO BEHAVIOR
Some family or friends may want to make challenging behavior in children be about their adoption or that they are in foster care. But not all behaviors are because of adoption or foster care. It’s not family members’ jobs to pass judgment on or attempt to determine the reasons for the behavior. They need to love the child and let the parents seek help to figure out behavior if they need to.
Family should be the safest place for vulnerable children who have experienced physical and emotional trauma over which they have no control, and who may act out the traumas to which they have been exposed. As with most of us, behavior can be their clearest voice.
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Excerpted from Called to Care by Bill Blacquiere with Kris Faasse. Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group. Copyright 2019. Used by permission.