First Foster Care follow up

He was a nice 11-year old boy just at my home for respite (regular foster parents get 2 days of respite a month) so his foster mom and dad could go off for an anniversary weekend. He spent most of his time on the computer surfing the Lego Star Wars figures and outside fighting the neighbors with his lightsabers. He is seriously into Star Wars.

I did get really upset at one thing though... When I talked to the foster mom, she mentioned she knew it was my first time. (A bit of background - the social worker called me last month to take two sisters long term. We worked on it for over a week and then I decided not to take the girls. It was a tough decision. And then the social worker gave me new info and I felt I might have made the wrong decision. Arrrrgh. Anyway, I think the social worker thought I was feeling a bit gun shy about jumping into the foster parenting thing.)

Back to the story... I didn't mind the social worker telling the foster mom so much BUT the foster mom then told the boy that he had to be really good at my house because he was the first child I had. AND if he wasn't good and I didn't have a good experience, I wouldn't do foster care.

OMG!!! What a load to lay on a poor kid!!! I was sooo mad. I did talk to the boy and several times through the weekend told him he was doing good, my decision didn't hang on him... etc. I think he got it by the end of the weekend but still! I did tell the social worker who thanked me for the feed back. Hopefully this won't happen again.

The joys of working in a government system...