ABSTRACT
The motives of people who decide to start a foster family can be extremely diverse. It should be noted that the motives of foster parents have a significant impact on the quality of the relationship with children entrusted to their care. The biggest parenting problems arise in families where the decision to foster children was influenced by compensatory motives. Children feel exploited and treated instrumentally, and the relationships with foster parents lack commitment and an emotional bond. Paradoxically, utilitarian motives give a better chance of parenting success, provided that caregivers approach their work with children with honesty and reliability.
Optimal conditions for development are provided by caregivers who decide to foster children for altruistic reasons. Such motivation creates opportunities to establish a deep emotional relationship in which children feel important and loved.
Conducted research shows that the most important motives for deciding to start a foster family were willingness to help the disadvantaged children (51.5%) and love for them (51%); a little less often desire to dedicate oneself to someone (22%).
Therefore, it is a good idea to examine the family of origin, the one in which the surveyed foster parents grew, to finally attempt to answer the question of whether and to what extent it influenced their decision to start a foster family.
Based on the collected data, it was concluded that foster families have positive childhood memories because, during that period, the feelings that accompanied them were happiness and a sense of safety. Although the largest group (39%) is not able to determine the influence of the family of origin on the decision to start a foster family, it can be assumed that it was significant (this is confirmed by every fourth respondent). The difficulty in determining this impact may result from the fact that as young, maturing people, we unconsciously identify with our parents and adopt their values, and this often happens during ordinary everyday activities, conversations, and spending time together.
The problems experienced by foster families in their day-to-day functioning are most often directly related to the causes for which children were placed in a foster environment. Among these causes, many studies, reports and research papers mention above all dysfunction of the biological family – parents’ addiction, helplessness in matters related to care and upbringing, violence in the family. Thus, numerous problems overlap in natural families – which are often incomplete families, families with unstable lifestyles, material deprivation, as well as helplessness in matters related to care and upbringing and helplessness in life. It is difficult to pinpoint the dominant cause clearly, because usually many different structural and functional problems (Matejek 2022) coexist in these families together with crisis situations that accompany them.
Foster parents state that the difficulties they most often experience (38%) are those related to relationships with their children’s biological parents. In the second place (21.5%) there are parenting difficulties, in the third place – health problems (15%). They are followed by financial difficulties (8.5%); housing difficulties (6%); problems related to administrative procedures (3.5%), lack of expert support (1.5%) and psychological difficulties (1%). Only 5% of the respondents declare that they do not experience any difficulties related to the functioning of the foster family.
The analysis of the statistical relationships between the degree of kinship and foster parents’ concerns/sources of satisfaction leads to the conclusion that these relationships are statistically significant.
The analysis of the collected data allowed the authors to determine as follows:
The lack of mutual emotional bonds is most feared by members of the extended family, and least frequently by unrelated persons.
The extended family members are foster parents for whom it was the least common to report no concerns.
Providing children with good living conditions is the reason to be happy most often mentioned by grandparents and extended family, and least commonly by unrelated people.
Therefore, it can be assumed that for unrelated foster families, it is more important to establish a good relationship with children and prepare them for an independent, responsible life than to ensure comfortable living conditions.
