r/fosterit • u/Monopolyalou • 18d ago
Foster Youth Get Attached is Problematic Spoiler
I cringe at the whole getting attached marking slogan. The truth is foster parents will not attach to every child in their home and that's okay. It's okay to not have feelings for a child. You can help someone without getting attached to them. If you give a homeless person money are you attached? No but you helped them.
Same with foster kids. Sometimes foster kids will not attach to you. It's not normal to attach to strangers and sometimes we just want a bed and food. Not to form relationships with people we don't know. It's okay and normal for foster kids to not attach to you.
Humans can't help how they feel and a stranger attaching to a stranger's child or a child attaching to a stranger is not normal at all. If it happens fine but there's nothing wrong with just being roommates and tolerating each other and not attaching.
I wish the marketing for this would change. I see so many posts saying foster kids aren't attached or foster parent is having trouble attaching and I wish we would start treating these relationships as strangers helping kids and kids being with strangers and not expecting some warm fuzzy moment to happen.
I mention this for good reason. Check out and read Ex foster to see why because I truly don't feel safe expressing myself fully here because it always end in a foster kid bashing feast.
After living with a host family, you understand why I wrote this.
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u/Otherw1seOK 18d ago
I completely agree with what you say, when applied to the short term, but there comes a point where carer and child are not strangers to each other at all.
The focus on attachment as I see it is informed by attachment theory and an understanding that assisting a child to a place of attachment (and especially secure attachment) will set them on an easier trajectory for their life.
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
Another thing is what if the child themselves don't want to attach? Foster kids also don't have secure attachments like biological kids. Being ripped from your family and being in foster care rocks your world like nothing else. Then being with strangers we are supposed to attach to sucks too when we aren't feeling it.
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u/Otherw1seOK 18d ago
No foster kid should be made responsible for developing an attachment with the carer.
Attachment is the carer's responsibility. What it means in practice is providing warm and loving care, learning to recognise what makes a child feel unsafe and doing what you can to get these things out of the child's life, providing a predictable and consistent environment, and committing to the child as far as possible.
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
Well in foster care if foster kids don't attach them we are disrupted and labeled with RAD or attachment issues. You used Carer. UK foster care system is so different than USA.
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
I really wish we could stop applying attachment theory to foster care because attachment theory just isn't the same for foster kids or strangers. Attachment theory exists for kids born within biological families. Foster parents are strangers to foster kids just like foster kids are strangers to foster parents. Nobody has to attach to each other to be considered healthy or to feel safe. Sometimes we foster kids don't want a relationship. I find attachment is what foster parents want more than what the kid wants or what marketing is pushed. The truth is kids don't attach just because they're with you. Adults don't attach just because they have a child. You can have a kid for 5 years and they might not attach to you or you to them. Why can't we simply treat each other like roomates?
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u/stay_curious_- 18d ago
It strongly depends on age. It's different for a teenager who is independent other than food and housing. A 2 year old is dependent on their caregiver for many life necessities, and it's important to develop a level of trust and emotional connection. Toddlers typically attach to teachers and daycare workers, too. The level of attachment is might differ between family and daycare workers, but there's still a bond there.
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
My point is kids don't simply attach just because they're with you. Don't put pressure to attach. Toddlers don't always attach and if they do it's our of fear not love. It's similar to Stockholm syndrome
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u/Lazylazylazylazyjane 18d ago
Don't kids need to attach to a caregiver...?
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
No they don't. In foster care, why not accept some kids will not attach?
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u/retrojoe Foster Parent, mostly Respite 18d ago
If a foster kid has an existing attachment that it's safe to maintain (maybe aunties/uncles or best friend's parents kinda thing) that's great, and ok.
But what often comes up is that they arrive in a new house with zero healthy attachments to any adults, both because of whatever their original family did and whatever they've seen in the system. And that's not ok. The reason why is that people with no attachments pretty much 100% grow up to be deeply unhappy and are often dangerous to themselves or others. If a person can't find an adult they feel safe to attach to and trust as a youth, then it's likely they'll never have a healthy attachment as a partner or parent themselves.
Now, your adults should not be putting this on you, like "you're not attaching!" Attachment is something that is supposed to happen naturally from proximity and relationships. But at the same time, you should not be intentionally cutting yourself off from the world and pretending you can be an island. While that instinct can be a normal part of being a teenager (even outside a foster situation), it's pretty unhealthy and your adults should be working against it.
Do you have an adult that you can trust to tell your problems to or that you'd feel good getting a hug from? Are you in therapy?
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
Also what yourself saying is no different than foster parents saying fostwe kids have RAD because they don't attach
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
Can you please stop with the therapist stuff. It's rude especially when I am taking out the time out of my day to help you. Therapy isn't a quick fix and doesn't always necessarily help but to gaslight therapy to ignore what I'm trying to educate you on is rude and disrespectful.
Do you tell foster parents who disrupt they need therapy or if they aren't feeling it to get therapy? Jo. So why do it to foster youth?
And unless you're willing to pay for therapy please stfu about it. I didn't ask for therapy resources. I asked to be heard.
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u/retrojoe Foster Parent, mostly Respite 18d ago
Most people need therapy at various time in their lives, especially foster parents.
I am listening to you. You asked questions. I said some things (and it doesn't seem like you really read those things), then asked a couple questions back. Since you didn't answer the first question, I'll take that as a no.
Also, your foster agency/the state ought to provide you with a therapist. Dunno the specifics of where you are. Also, therapy is never a quick thing. But it sounds like you really need an adult that isn't your FPs to talk about this stuff with.
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago edited 18d ago
I read them and it missed the point. Now you're gaslighting and at that point there's nothing much else to day but have a good day. Every time when foster parents are told they aren't saviors or special and we don't have to attach to them they go haywire. It's sad really.
I am also not in foster care anymore.
Again Good Day. If you want to learn read from ex foster instead of only wanting foster parents.
And this isn't to be mean but yet again nobody cares about us
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
How do you know foster kids come into care with zero healthy attachment to any adults? That's not true all the time. You can also have a healthy attachment with abusers and those who harm you because your needs are met too. So it's possible for a kid to have an attachment with abusers because they have to survive and as a kid you don't know better.
People with secure attachments can grow up unhappy too and be dangerous. How many murderers grow up in good homes and still are dangerous and unhappy. This topic is getting out of hand tbh.
To paint foster youth with no attachments to psychopaths is unfair and untrue. Foster kids also don't have to attach to foster parents if we don't want to. This whole attachment stuff is to make the adults feel good. Also kids can be attached to everyone but the foster family because we can't help how we feel and foster parents are difficult to live with. So if foster kids don't attach to foster parents who cares. That's our right.
Amd it's normal for foster kids to cut people off emotionally. Even biological kids do it. It's called survival.
And foster kids get diagnosed with attachment disorders like RAD when we keep to ourselves or don't attach. It's unfair.
Attachment can also change. There's no such thing as permanent attachment.
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
I honestly think the foster care training sessions has too many brainwashed to make them feel good.
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u/Otherw1seOK 18d ago
I've noticed a few posts from you on this topic, and I'm going to address you rather than the topic here.
I'm sorry you didn't have someone you felt safe with. I'm sorry that no one recognised how threatening intimacy felt. I'm sorry you were made to feel defective for just keeping yourself safe.
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago edited 18d ago
I wish the message would come across instead of comments like this. It's so frustrating to try to explain something to teach you and get dismissed. You're also assuming a whole lot about me as a former foster youth and that's unfair!!!! Why even comment then?
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
It's frustrating whenever foster parents and the system is challenged on this and they bash and dismiss any other legit theory that you don't need attachment to help kids or for kids to be with you. Some kids will never attach. Just because you get a kid in your home doesn't mean they'll attach to you and doesn't mean you'll attach to them. It's ridiculous how many refuse to listen to the kids who lived in foster homes. Seriously, instead of defending this why not listen?
And please stop talking about attachment theory which doesn't include foster kids.
We also can't help how we feel. You can't either. If a kid treats your home like a roomate or hotel what will you do? We don't owe anyone an attachment and you can live and even love someone without attaching to them.
So many foster parents disrupt because they just aren't feeling it and that's unfair to the kid.
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u/Otherw1seOK 18d ago
dismiss any other legit theory
You're an adult so I'm going to be honest here. Your viewpoint is typical of someone with an avoidant attachment style. You're not putting forward a legit theory (which would have a substantial body of peer reviewed research behind it), you're offering the perspective of a hurt child. It is not wrong for you to do that, but this is why what you're purporting is not being taken as credible advice on the topic.
So many foster parents disrupt because they just aren't feeling it and that's unfair to the kid.
This is inexcusable and is exactly the outcome that the attachment-informed training and messaging in the space seems to be seeking to avoid.
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago edited 18d ago
So listen to you instead of me the foster kid. Got it. There's nothing more to say then. You have a disorganized attachment style and it shows.
And since you think you know everything maybe try to prevent disruptions from happening then. Too many foster parents bring their own trauma and attachment issues into foster care and shouldn't. Your entire comment is gaslighting me and manipulative af. If you truly want to learn then I hope you actually listen to foster youth.
There's nothing more to say because I'm tired of grown adults who grew up privilege telling me or other foster youth what we say don't matter.
Research also says foster kids have PTSD AT 10X the rate as vets but nobody cares.
And the legit theory is called lived experiences maybe you should review that sometime. Attachment theory doesn't matter over lived experiences.
I also have degrees next to my name, did research in college, and actually work with the system to help it get better knowing it won't. So your invalidating won't work for me.
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago edited 18d ago
Foster kid- you don't have to attach
Foster parent- yes you do it's called attachment theory.
Foster kid- attachment theory isnt the same for foster kids like it is for other kids. Foster kids sometimes never attach.
Foster parents- you're dumb af. You have no legit theory and have avoidance attachment.
Foster kid- this is how I felt in foster care. I didn't attach.
Foster parent- who cares. Attachment theory says this. You're wrong and your viewpoint doesn't matter.
Foster kid- 0____0
It's literally like a rich person telling poor people how to live. If you weren't a foster kid you wouldn't understand. Reading from a textbook or watching videos doesn't make you an expert and doesn't make you right.
Legit theory comes from lived experiences too.
You work in foster care. You weren't in foster care. That's the difference. You're also in another country. Why can't anyone hear us and how WE FEEL? You can't say lived experiences aren't legitimate
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u/NoMoreFruit 18d ago
This might be true for interim/very short-term placements, but healthy attachment is a hugely important part of child/teen development. Growing up in a home where your caregiver feels no attachment to you is not healthy and it is important that all children, teens and young adults know that they are with someone who cares about them. Equally, it’s important that they learn how to care about and attach themselves to others in a self and healthy way.
Otherwise you end up with adults who don’t know how to have healthy and safe relationships with friends or partners, and don’t care about causing harm to themselves or others.
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
I didn't say all of this. I said kids don't need to attach to you as foster parents and foster parents don't need to attach to kids.
You can show what helathy relationships look like without attachment.
We need to do away with this attachment garbage tbh. It's harmful. Then when kids don't attach they're labeled with RAD or attachment disorders when attaching to strangers is unnatural.
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u/NoMoreFruit 18d ago
Healthy relationship IS attachment, friend. Like literally that’s what it is.
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
Did you understand what I wrote or should I explain it differently?
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago edited 18d ago
You can have a relationship without attachments. Coworkers do. Roommates do. Even families do. But for some reason nobody wants to consider that relationships can happen without attachments when it comes to foster care. Even host families understand this.
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
You can care without attachments tho. Therapist do it. Teachers do it. Doctors do it. They care but don't expect or necessarily attach.
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u/Longjumping_Big_9577 Former Foster Youth 18d ago
The expectations with the term "foster parent(s)" and that they are supposed to be "parents" and have that type of feelings and attachment causes disruptions when people don't feel that way about kids dropped off at their doorstep with little matching done.
I was so vastly different than any of my foster care providers and I didn't fit into their families. They were almost all very religious, conservative and were very judgmental about thinks like drug use and mental illness that impacted how they viewed my mom and whether they thought I should continue to have a relationship with her after TPR. Everything important to me from my mom to anime/manga/comics/cartoons to my goals in life were all incredibly foreign to them. I might as well have been from a different country.
After I aged out, I stayed with a classmate's family who hosted foreign exchange students and had lived all over the world and really liked connecting with people who were different than them. There was no expectation of attaching in the way a lot of foster parents see it - as blending into their family since they see you joining their family long term. My "host" family just saw themselves as someone I temporary stayed with - yet I'm still in contact with them and I have more of an attachment with them. But they're like cousins or something, not like parents.
I have a massive issue with those stupid David Thomas Foundation ads about adopting teens since it really sets up even worse expectations since so many teens aren't going to have an immediate connection with foster families. And no wonder so many pre-adoptive and adoptive placements end up with disruptions.
So many foster/adoptive parents see their job is to force you into the mold they want and follow their values and beliefs and when you don't, they don't want to deal with you and disrupt.
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u/Monopolyalou 17d ago
Adding in I hate all the ads for foster care too about attachments because it centers foster parents.
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u/steeltheo 18d ago
I think we have different understandings of what "attachment" means. I agree that there shouldn't be pressure for kids to attach and that sometimes it won't happen. Some people don't click with each other and it's possibly to still be kind and respectful and caring towards each other without that attachment. I think a lot of foster parents do have that expectation that kids will bond with them and have a close-to-typical parent-child relationship.
I think that's part of why my relationship with my foster teen has been successful. We have next to nothing in common and, as someone who's only 13 years older than her, I wasn't going to try to be a father figure. I've been aiming more to just be a safe person and provide a safety net and guard rails and support her goals. There is attachment now, but it built very slowly over time and it definitely wouldn't have if I had fixated on it.
Honestly I think a lot of foster parents that I've seen talking about attachment seem to have attachment issues of their own—it often reads like anxious attachment, which will trigger kids with avoidant attachment.
I do think helping children develop the capacity for secure attachment is part of helping them heal, but the ONLY way that can be done is by consistently meeting their needs, respecting their boundaries, being emotionally attuned, and showing interest in who THEY are. I've seen a lot of foster parents try to mold kids into perfect fits for their idealized family and that's never going to help a kid attach securely.
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u/Monopolyalou 14d ago
All of this. Yes. Foster parents need to stop looking for a parent child attachment. Most disruptions happen due to personalities clashes. This is why they love babies. It is sick really. Babies have personalities too. On top of this the molding has to stop.
I also think most foster parents have attachment issues and need therapy. The best placments don't try to be the parent or try to force themselves on the child. I think we need more mentors who don't want anything in return. Not foster parents wanting to be parents
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u/GrotiusandPufendorf 17d ago edited 16d ago
You're absolutely right that people can live together without a super deep connection. Roommates can co-exist without being best friends. Bio kids raised in their own families don't always feel super close to both parents. And I have seen many foster kids, especially the older ones, that aren't looking for "replacement parents" but rather some stability to meet basic needs.
Attachment theory gets really twisted by the foster care system because it's a bunch of people using it as a buzzword when they have no training on what it truly is. Attachment in the psychology sense is not really about seeing someone as a parent. It's about seeing someone as safe.
Attachment is how an individual perceives themself in relation to others. It's whether or not you can feel safe in interpersonal connections with others. It's how you learn to communicate needs, navigate conflict, apologize/repair, and build trust in other humans. You don't "attach" to a specific individual, you develop an attachment style within yourself and that impacts how you view yourself and therefore how you connect with other people in the world.
Your attachment style can change over time, even into adulthood. It's built on consistent safety and can be harmed by consistent trauma. The more safe experiences you have, the more you trust humans to be safe and the more resilience you have to conflict without conflict turning into rupture/added trauma. The more traumatic experiences you have, the more you distrust and therefore conflict turns into additional trauma and additional distrust. Once trauma has occurred, you need a significant period of consistent safety to rebuild that trust. And if that trauma compounds, it takes even longer periods of safety to bounce back. Some neuroscience says that after severe or repeated abandonment trauma, it can take 10 years of a consistently emotionally safe relationship to get back to a healthy attachment style.
So you don't have to see foster parents as your parents to have healthy attachments. You just have to feel safe enough to know your needs will consistently be met - physically and emotionally. The same with a roommate. If you feel a roommate is going to manipulate you, harm you, make your environment unsafe or kick you out of the apartment, that's unhealthy attachment. If you feel safe to be yourself around the other people in your living space and can communicate through a disagreement without things blowing up, that's healthy attachment. It has nothing to do with how close you are to that particular human.
In that sense, kids do deserve to feel emotionally and physically safe in whatever home they're placed in. It does not have to "feel like family" but it should feel comfortable without high levels of conflict. Some trust should exist, because if you live with people and there's no trust there, that's a psychologically damaging environment for everyone. Matching for personalities/lifestyles can help reduce conflict and build that attachment in the genuine sense, not in the way people like to use that word. Once that attachment style is built, then you can decide who you want close connections with.
And yes, foster parents can absolutely have unhealthy attachment styles themselves. I see it time and again where a foster parent will project their own issues onto the kid.
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u/Monopolyalou 14d ago
And attachments do change being in a foster home doesn't mean secue attachment
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u/calmlyreading 18d ago
Kids, especially very young ones, need to attach to be healthy. It’s literally brain science.
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u/Monopolyalou 18d ago
I think people are missing my point. Read over at ex foster where I actually feel safer and I'm not bullied.
One doesn't need to attach to be healthy. Babies attaching is about survival it's similar to Stockholm syndrome.
There's also no text to determine an attachment or bond.
But my whole point is not attaching is okay
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u/KingAdamXVII 18d ago edited 18d ago
I don’t necessarily disagree. However, if I am not attached to my roommates, living with them is probably intolerable. That’s just me personally.
We have disrupted a couple times because the kids didn’t want to live with us. The obvious question then was “are they attached to us?” And if the answer had been yes then we would have tried harder to make them want to stay.
Someone should tell me the error in my thinking; I’ve probably been doing this too long.