A message for Christians who foster or adopt
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ต.ค. 2024
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Well-meaning Christian foster and adoptive parents can sometimes end up driving their kids away from the faith they hope to share with them. In this video, I share how we approach sharing our faith with our kids who are adopted from foster care. We don't have everything perfect by any means, and there is plenty we could improve upon. However, there are several things that have really worked for us. I've gotten this question several times, so I hope you find this helpful!
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Thanks so much for watching!
-Katie
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We heard from a family that adopted a 4 year old who had never heard a prayer. At dinner the first night she was in her new forever home, dad said the prayer before the meal. Immediately after the AMEN, she had her hands on her hips looking at him and rapidly around the table and blurted out, "Who were you talking to?" Boy did that open a door.
That is too funny! I’m sure she was confused, but what a great opportunity to share the gospel! ❤️
You are spot on - thank you for sharing! I love how you said, “of course we will share our beliefs, especially if we believe it to be true- that’s our job as a parent!” 🙌🏻
So many people are so politically correct that they are blinded by that and it stops them from sharing the gospel.
But at the same time, it is a personal choice and relationship. Great job explaining everything! ❤
I've been wanting to adopt for a LONG time- It'll be a while before my bio kids are old enough, because I want to adopt an older kid. This video was SO helpful. I'm so glad you're a fellow Christian!
That’s so great! I’m glad you are here ☺️
Wonderful video!! Thank you for talking about this subject. Tricky to think about, but it will come up, so definitely important! You did such a good job talking about this in a compassionate, understanding manner, while also in a way that is committedly Christian. Love the way you adress topics! Thank you again!
Thanks for watching and for your kind words! ☺️
I love that you say you can't force your faith on others - it must be a personal choice that they make. I didn't grow up in a Christian home, but I became a Christian at a young age. I started going to church at a young age and felt bad for my friends who felt pressured to pretend that they were Christians for their parents.
While I am learning and researching about adoption, I am undecided about whether adoption is right for my family. In the meantime, I'd love to learn about ways to advocate for and be a practical support to adoptive families in my community (and the Christian community). If you have anything to share about this topic, please make a video. I think it would be so helpful!
Love this! My husband and are beginning the process to hopefully adopt and this is very encouraging insight as we have had the decision often lately of how to handle our faith with our future children. Never want to force it on them or for them to be controlled. Would love to hear about how you handle social media with your kids in a future video of yours if they of that age yet.
That’s a great topic idea! I’ll add it to my list :)
My wife and I are in the process of getting licensed at the moment. We talked about this actually, but in the opposite. We are not religious at all, I'm athiest, my wife is agnostic. Most of our families are Christian so we are around faith a lot. If we were to adopt a religious child, we talked about it that we would likely continue letting them practice their faith, and even go to church with them for support (regardless of our own lack of faith). Is this a good way to approach that situation? I don't see us suddenly trying to change our adoptive child's religion, and In our eyes if they are raised as such I think it would be good to continue that for them.
I think that makes sense! I think it all comes back to giving them the personal choice and understanding we can share our values with our kids, but we will never be able to “force” them to believe what we do. It’s really kind of you to consider attending church with them to support their faith even if it’s not something you practice!
I'd say of the 8 foster homes I was in (there were more respite providers, but I'm not counting them), I'd say 5 were very Christian and 2 were ultra crazy religious. I was in Ohio, not the deep south. These were families who didn't just go to church on Sunday, but religious was an obsession and dictated everything, such as what media was or wasn't ok. I couldn't watch Avatar: The Last Airbender in one of the homes because it included reincarnation and they called it sinful. I was also banned from watching anime in 3 foster homes and 1 was really over the top in trying to not only not allow me to watch (age appropriate, PG-13) anime but convince me they were doing the right thing and make me understand how wrong and immoral it was. For a while, I did go along with some of that religious indoctrination, went to a stupid Christian teen group with a pastor who liked to rant about how all the problems in the world were apparently due to unwed mothers. But eventually I snapped out of it since I hated that world so much. For younger kids, these types of things probably are less of an issue but for older kids, when there's foster parents who have their world view based on very conservative Christian "values" and they don't want their kids (foster or otherwise) having interests outside of those views, then it creates a lot of conflict. Maybe kids are so desperate for a home, they change, but for me, I didn't. At least with foster placements, the only consideration is available beds and other high level considerations like age, gender and behaviors. I was moved from one foster home because I refused to go to their church to another foster home where the dad was a pastor and their lives revolved around their church and was moved again 2 weeks later. But there were so few homes, there wasn't the ability to even look at something like whether there was a major fundamental conflict between a kid who was obsessed with something (anime) that the foster family finds sinful and evil. Those families also really didn't like the idea of kids having the option to do anything their families disagreed with. They didn't want their bio or adopted kids to know there was the option to not go to church. That was the reason the one family disrupted - if I said I didn't want to go to church, then their 5 year old adopted daughter might get the idea she could do the same. They didn't want their kids to see they had to option to disobey their parents. I was just a nerdy kid who liked anime. I can't imagine how those types of families would deal with a kid who was LGBTQ. I think the push for kinship placements is based on how just entirely different worlds so many foster families live in compared to foster youth and the conflict that creates when they try to push their beliefs and values. While the group home I ended up in had it's own problem, honestly it was better being subjected to religious nonsense.
I’m really sorry you had that experience. I actually was thinking about you specifically when I made this video because you had shared some of this before in a previous comment, and I was so heartbroken by what you went through. While each family has their own values they will choose to live by and that they hope to instill into their children, we have to respect that kids (especially older kids) who come into our homes are individuals with their own backgrounds and beliefs. I think this is especially true with foster care situations because when you foster, you are signing up to be a safe place for a kid…not signing up to make them just like you so that they fit into your family better. With adopting a waiting child from foster care, there is more consideration for the way a child/family mesh in terms of things like belief systems. For example, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable adopting a kid who was a very devout Muslim, because I know that they would much prefer a family that was also Muslim. Obviously with foster placements, it’s difficult because there is such a huge need and caseworkers are desperate for finding anyone to provide a bed. There is not a simple solution, obviously, but my hope is that this video reaches Christians who are a bit like some of the families you lived with.
Thank you for sharing! So much wisdom!!! My two daughters who were formerly my foster daughters are 14 and almost 17. After the pandemic they did not want to go back to church. I would love to have them come but am not forcing them. My youngest has high functioning autism and doesn’t like being in groups of people so that makes church attendance for her more complicated. I try to share about God in every day conversations. I know that following Jesus needs to be their personal choice. I do see glimmers of hope when they ask me to pray for something and they both say that they believe in Jesus. The teen years have been extremely difficult but I see my oldest getting past the severe rebellion and I pray they will want to follow Jesus as they get older.
100% agree with you input on this topic. We want to intro our children to our faith but also world religions so they can make an informed choice as they grow up.
I am not a Christian. I am a Unitarian Universalist, (which is really just a group of people who believed something and feel the need to have a religious community, even though hardly any of the members believe the same thing with some being atheists or agnostics, some being monotheists, and others being polytheists). Personally, my experience as a Unitarian universalist, is that I tried inventing a new religion for an imaginary society, and I wanted it to be realistic, and once a I achieved the creation of this new religion, I accidentally discovered, that it made more sense to me than any world religion I’d ever heard of. Still I wanted to have a religious community, so this is where I ended up. There are really so many religions in the world and all of them are beautiful. This includes Christianity. Religion can be a beautiful thing to explore, and have be a part of your life, and I don’t really care what religion a child finds peace with, as long as it helps them stay mentally healthy and at peace with themselves. I wanted to watch this video, because I love to see families introducing religion to people in healthy ways. I believe god has spoken to me and saved my life again and again, and I have a relationship with god. I can’t come to terms with the idea that the god I don’t just believe in, but have a relationship with, and is an all loving god, actually would send someone to hell, and not give any second chances through reincarnation, for people who have been through traumatic experiences and have not been able to make peace with religion, in this life, that they would not be given a second chance, just because they’ve made peace with a certain religion. I think Christians, Muslims, Jews, and pagans like me, alike can make it to heaven, if they live good lives.
I do get uncomfortable with family members sometimes, who insist that I will not be saved. I started to bring up Jesus, occasionally, and I think they think I’m suddenly a Christian, but in reality, I didn’t even do it on purpose the first time. I will be happy to let my children explore anything that gives them peace.
You can’t assume the child shares your faith (or should). Especially when you are fostering. Adopting is a bit different because they are permanently joining your family.
This is not just Christian to Non-Christian Faith (or Atheism) but Denomination to Denomination within Christianity which have distinct differences that might not be readily apparent.
I’m an atheist but I believe it’s not my decision what faith, if any, my children elect to follow so long as those beliefs don’t infringe upon the rights of others who don’t share them.
I would never encourage a foster kid or adoptee to give up their religion (if they have one) to feel accepted and loved. That’s the key…unconditional love and acceptance
To me, telling someone you believe they will go to hell if they don’t believe can be very coercive even if it’s very well-meant. This is especially true for children who’ve had trauma and the focus needs to be on healing.
My good friend was adopted from foster care and is religious now but she pulled away from the church for a long time. The thing that pushed her away the hardest and farthest was a sermon on purity/modesty, which for a sexually abused girl made her feel shame and like she was already doomed and no Christian man would ever want her. For a child who hadn’t experienced sexual abuse it might’ve hit differently but she attempted suicide. Luckily she survived, but her foster parents added to that trauma by telling her suicide was murder and she’d go to hell.
That story is meant to show that religion can retraumatize a child if not handled gently and kindly.
The way we share our beliefs and how we frame them to our kids is definitely so important!
Do you give scheduled consultations in Spanish?
this is true love