So ADHDers after this week’s blog article I’ll be taking a well deserve three weeks rest while holidaying with my family in Walt Disney world. Yes, yes, I know your disappointed, but after the past few weeks I desperately need this holiday. Let me tell you why to a certain degree…
As many of you know, I’m not just a blogger of ADHD, I’m also an author and a foster parent to two beautiful foster kids. I don’t tend to talk about my fostering a lot on here, because as I’m sure you can understand big parts of my job rely on privacy. Yet, I want also want to educate people about what fostering actually is, and how it interacts with my ADHD. Fostering requires a heck of a lot of emotional resilience!! Most people think it’s just professional parenting and looking after somebody else’s children, but that’s only half the story.
“I’ve been told fostering isn’t a real job, that it’s just the same as normal parenting, but that’s totally wrong for all sorts of reasons”
ADHD Girl
Firstly, when fostering you are dealing with some behaviour from children that doesn’t always come from you, it can come from the trauma they’ve experienced, the way they were previously parented, and it can also come from their having their own special additional needs. In past blog articles I’ve talked about how hard it is parenting when you have ADHD yourself, but fostering takes it to a whole new level where you have to think on your feet, battle your own flaws and do your very best to empower your children to be better than you ever can be, some days it feels impossible, but I keep going for their sakes.
Secondly, fostering children is a completely different dynamic to simply raising your own children. When parenting foster children you have to work with many different professionals who also get to make decisions for how you raise the children in your own home. Then obviously you have to work with and value the relationship with the children’s birth parents where possible, because after all regardless of you acknowledging the children are part of your family, they also have their own family too. This means remembering lots of birthdays, checking in about decisions and generally keeping them up to date with activities because if the parents are willing to work with you, why would you not want to share precious memories of the children together?
This is probably the part of fostering that is impacted least by my ADHD. As hopefully you’re able to tell by know, I’m quite an assertive articulate person who has no problem speaking their mind in a polite informative way. This means I’m able to communicate well with all involved, of course there are still the occasional hiccups but I’m only human like everyone else.
“Fostering can be incredibly rewarding, but also very challenging and debilitating at times.”
ADHD gIRL
The third thing about fostering that nobody seems to acknowledge is the amount of scrutiny you’re under, how invasive it is and the emotional side which you almost have to compartmentalise when you are looking at what’s best for the children, what’s best for you and trying to merge them into the same thing (spoiler alert: it doesn’t always work). You obviously have social workers coming in and out of your house, making judgements on how well you care for the children and generally ensuring you carry out your responsibilities. Now none of what I’ve previously said is wrong, when safeguarding and caring for children it’s very important your held to a high standard of accountability. However that doesn’t take away the amount of emotional exhaustion you are put through either.
With ADHD you get burnout very easily and this part of fostering affects my ADHD the most. There is a thing associated with ADHD called rejection sensitivity dysphoria, which is where you experience severe emotional pain due to a failure or feeling rejected. I don’t have to tell you that those two things come hand in hand with fostering at times, heck they probably come with normal parenting too. I just keep having to remind myself it’s not personal, use my emotional supports and talk things through with the right people. Some days I want to quit because I wonder is it worth it? Am I good enough? Then I look at my kids and think how can it not be worth it? How can I be better for them?
“I’ve had many different jobs in my life, but fostering is the one that has proven to be the most all encompassing.”
ADHD gIRL
While I can’t go into some of the stuff that’s being going on in recent weeks in regard to fostering to protect the privacy of my foster kids and because I have to maintain a level of integrity, the bottom line it’s been absolutely soul destroying, reaffirming and everything in between. I’m hoping this holiday will help me to relax, recharge my battery and just reflect on a lot of stuff.
It’s not just me that deserves this holiday though, my children are absolutely amazing and deserve the absolute world. They’ve been through a lot in their short lives and all I can do is to try and make it better by giving them access to fantastic opportunities, letting them know they are valued and loved, and working with all the professionals that I need to.
So see you in three weeks ADHD when I’ll be back (sort of) with some interesting and exciting news in terms of this blog. In the meantime I hope you have a great summer (with better weather than we’ve seen in the UK) and you treat yourself with all the kindness and compassion that your ADHD brain deserves.
ADHD Girl
