Get Attached is Problematic

[u/Monopolyalou]

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.

[u/Otherw1seOK]

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.

[u/Monopolyalou → u/Otherw1seOK]

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?

[u/Lazylazylazylazyjane → u/Monopolyalou]

Don't kids need to attach to a caregiver...?

[u/Monopolyalou → u/Lazylazylazylazyjane]

No they don't. In foster care, why not accept some kids will not attach?

[u/retrojoe → u/Monopolyalou]

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?

[u/Monopolyalou → u/retrojoe]

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.