by Jo Ann Wentzel

Created on: May 02, 2009

Foster parenting teens has a low rate of success by the world's standards. When dealing with kids, an important outlook to adopt is that success is relative. This means that we will celebrate all those small steps toward a goal. Even when your child has not completely accomplished what he set out to do, many times, we need to count it a success. Parents and foster parents everywhere want perfect kids; don't hold your breath. "It ain't gonna happen." You will be much happier with the philosophy, Success Is Relative.

You ask your foster son to clean up his room, hang up his clothes, and take his lamp that broke two months ago to the garage. Later, after a reasonable amount of time, you check on his progress. You open the door, nothing has changed, and the room is still a mess. You lose your cool, and start screaming. He looks like you struck him, not because of the screaming, but because you didn't notice that he actually did get rid of the lamp. He feels he has accomplished something. You see the two jobs that he did not do; he sees the one task he did complete. Stop a moment. He actually listened to you and did do one of the things expected. It's not much, but something. Success is relative.

Your newest foster daughter spends every chance she gets on the phone. The other kids complain because their friends can never get through to them. You missed an important call, which meant you missed a vital meeting. Everyone in the family is in an uproar. You take phone privileges away, returning them one week later. You issue stiff warnings that the next time it will be for two weeks. Once again, she is on the phone too long, but not all the time. She heard what you said and reduced her calls. Her perceptions of fair, reasonable, and sharing may differ from your ideas. Success is relative.

This attitude must carry over to your goals as foster parent. If you can keep a child off drugs for one day, you are successful. If you can keep a kid out of jail for one night, you have reached success. Many of these kids you will deal with have been doing the same things for many years. They may have been using chemicals for a period of four or five years, the complete recovery will take time. It won't be immediate, but you will be successful whenever you are responsible for that child not having a beer or using drugs. Do anything in your power to stop their chemical use.

If something you have said, during one of those speeches you constantly made and think no one has heard, makes them

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