Foster children and their siblings – shared or separate accommodation?

Dr. Daniela Reimer

For many foster children, their biological siblings and half siblings are and remain highly relevant, regardless of whether they are accommodated together or separately. The article highlights which aspects are particularly important from the point of view of foster children. This is based on around 100 biographical interviews with young adults, which were conducted in various projects at the University of Siegen.

1. Sibling relationships are important for foster children!

Sibling relationships are the longest relationships in most people’s lives. Parents die at some point, marriages are only made and possibly divorced in adulthood, friends come and go. Most children grow up with their siblings. They usually belong to the same generation and share many common experiences. Even if they don’t speak to each other for years or even decades, they still remain connected as siblings.

Most foster children have siblings or half siblings. Some grow up together in a foster family, some are separated. The topic siblings has so far been neglected in the specialist discussion. Many specialist services handle the topic of shared or separate accommodation very rigidly according to their respective views, which are not empirically justified. It is rarely discussed whether visiting contacts should be made between siblings who are housed in different families. The contact design is often left to the foster parents. Some foster parents who consider sibling contacts to be important based on their own life experience support them, others do not.

It happens that some foster children have regular contact with their siblings and others never meet the siblings for years or even decades. For foster children, it is usually a matter of chance whether the contacts with the siblings remain.

Our biographical interviews with foster children make it clear that this does not do justice to the importance of sibling relationships.

2. The perspective of foster children

In the interviews it becomes clear that the meaning of the siblings changes in the different phases of life. For this reason, the foster child’s perspective on the siblings is presented on the basis of an imaginary life course, which depicts the various stages in a greatly simplified form.

The time in the family of origin

In their families of origin, many children who later became foster children experienced desolate family situations. In these situations, in which the children experienced mostly negative, often even hostile, reactions from the adults, the siblings often developed very close relationships with one another. Sandra reports:

"The big one, who was 22, I am 20 and my little one is 18, so we are always exactly that two years older, so about yes anyway we were with my biological parents, they had nothing better to do than on to drink good German and so were not able to take care of us and then took off actions, so my father broke a mirror and my mother was in there, for example I can still remember that and my big sister, so she was still small at that time, six years, she always took us with her, dragged both of us, my little sister in my arms and then took me by the hand and then he just took off with us that we didn’t get to see that often, but what we did notice that my mother was beaten, I already noticed. ”

So the siblings formed a community of fate that supported each other as much as possible. Kusuma puts it this way:

"We woke each other up for school and kindergarten, went to the doctor together, did everything together as if we had no parents at all."

These close sibling relationships are often characterized by great ambivalence. But it is crucial that in many desolate family situations, the siblings become central caregivers – and often also attachment figures.

The decision about the external placement

If such a family needs to be placed in a third party, the question arises as to who will be involved in the decision about the accommodation and how participation can take place. Many interviewees report that they mostly saw themselves as objects of adult decisions and had little influence themselves. Desiree reports how she and her siblings were separated from each other and from their parents completely unprepared:

"I just know that we went somewhere, I didn’t know then that it was a dish. We had to wait outside and then a man said to the three of us "let’s go outside to play some fresh air" and I said to the man that I understood that, I was at the window and I was I said "you can’t play here, I say here there are only cars and a street, where do you want to go play with us?" So I found it kind of extremely funny and then we are out, all three siblings together with several Strangers, and then there were three cars, the little one in the first, I in the second, the other in the third, and there were always two people sitting in there, they always do these trips for the youth welfare office, they didn’t know us or anything, and just yeah packed in and gone, so we couldn’t say goodbye or anything, maybe our parents didn’t want them to say goodbye or anything, I don’t know if they might have known beforehand that we were gkommen. In any case, no one said goodbye to us or something, that was the way it was. And above all, as I said, the worst was with my sisters. I couldn’t say goodbye or anything, I was put in the car as a small child and away, and yes I apparently then screamed pretty much for my siblings and I actually found that much worse than not being with my parents anymore, as I said I didn’t cry great now. ”

Here too it is the siblings who represented the actual caregivers for the interview partner. The unprepared separation from them was permanently painful and incomprehensible to them. Although the younger siblings were well looked after in their respective foster families, Desiree, the oldest sister, continued to worry about their well-being.

Similar descriptions can be found in many interviews. Often the big sisters, who previously took on a lot of responsibility for the siblings, worry about the younger ones for years – and therefore cannot really get involved in the new place of life.

External accommodation – together or separately? Risks and opportunities

Based on this, the question can be asked whether siblings should be accommodated separately or together.

In a few situations, the decision must clearly be made for separate accommodation. An interview partner was sexually abused by her older brother. In this case, it would be irresponsible to put the children together in a foster family.

A summary of the interviews shows, however, that in most cases both decisions involve both risks and opportunities.

A risk with shared accommodation is that the roles learned in the desolate situations in the family of origin are continued and the siblings thereby inhibit their development. The family of origin always remains present with the siblings housed together and it is more difficult to integrate the siblings into the family. The sibling couples often fail to break free from their old roles. Nicole reports that until today – she is 21 years old – the case is:

"… and yes, it’s still the same for Mela that she still takes on the role of mother, but that’s also the case with me that no matter what Mela says, I somehow listen to it. I don’t know, this is very strange, although I somehow don’t know, it’s not right, but it is, I have to get used to it and maybe you too. And I don’t think that’s good for either of us. ”

This contrasts with the chances of joint placement in a foster family. External accommodation is a drastic experience for children, which – especially at the beginning – confuses the children. Many report that they felt they had been handed over and lost all of their security. Siblings as key caregivers can give each other support in this situation.

Separate accommodation also harbors opportunities and risks. The big chance is that if children are accommodated alone – separated from their siblings – they will bind to other people, i.e. foster siblings and other adults, more quickly and will be easier to integrate into the family. In particular, the older sisters, who often took care of the younger ones, report that they were able to enjoy being in the foster family, finally no longer being responsible, finally "being a child" and being pampered by adult caregivers.

At the same time, there is a risk that, despite separate accommodation, the children will not be able to free themselves from responsibility for their siblings. This is reinforced when younger siblings are left behind in the family of origin. The 19-year-old Katrin, who came into a foster family at the age of 11, reports how she worried about the siblings after the placement:

"And Emil, who still lives with my birth mother, was also very attached to me, he sometimes called me mom, because I was always the caregiver for him, and then we have everyone I watched children’s series every day, I cooked for him, I did everything for him, and at some point I’ll be gone. Then I was there again when I moved in with my foster parents, I went there again over the weekend, and then she was gone again at night, and I took care of him and said, "Yes, Emil, how Are you here without me, ”and then he said gently,“ Mom always hits me, ”and I said,“ That shouldn’t be true. ”And then he said,“ Mom said I can Don’t tell you that, or there’ll be more picks. Please don’t tell anyone. "And then I tried to talk to the foster child woman about it, but I had no evidence, I said," What should I do, should I take a picture of the boy or record it on a tape? What should I do? "Yes, I shouldn’t interfere. And then it came back to her via the youth welfare office and since then they have said that I shouldn’t be able to see my siblings either, I haven’t seen them for five years now. "

Apart from the fact that the youth welfare office acted unlawfully in this case – a youth welfare office may not impose a ban on siblings – the text passage shows how the older sister remained concerned about the younger brother and, in turn, not all the development opportunities that arise offered her in the new foster family, could fully use it. Older siblings regularly worry similarly when they learn that their biological parents have had more children after the third-party placement. When there is contact with the parents of origin and the children see that their younger siblings feel good there and develop well, they often ask themselves why they cannot live there, become jealous of the siblings and doubt themselves. Another difficult situation, which several interviewees talk about in the interview, occurs when one of the siblings wishes to have contact when the accommodation is separate, but the other or the others do not. Those who have had little interest from their siblings try to find reasons for it ("has a lot to do with school / study / training / job", "lives far away", "has a new girlfriend"), but show also that the lack of interest hurts them.

Sibling relationships in adulthood

People who did not grow up in their families of origin often have a pronounced need in adolescence and adulthood to get answers to questions about the origin and the reasons for the accommodation.

In terms of origin, the question of similarities is often significant, which can often be found in siblings. Sometimes similarities are constructed, like an interview partner who had the opportunity to get to know her birth half-sister for the first time when she was over 30 years old. Disappointed, she found at the first meeting that there were no external similarities. In the conversation, however, it turned out that both had a rabbit that also had the same name – "this cannot be a coincidence," she assured in the interview. This shows how important it is for foster children to create belonging to their family of origin through similarities.

Chris, who hadn’t known for many years that she had a younger brother who was released for adoption, reports that the external similarities link her closely to him today. All the more she suffers from the fact that she didn’t know anything about him for years:

"I want to dig into the wound until they kill it because something like that they deported my brother, my little brother, I mean, he grew up well, but they have this beautiful child when I am like that I would have a son, I would be happy, I would be proud, if I have such a handsome and intelligent son, that is the most intelligent product of the whole family? That they gave it away and that they had kept it from me, this person with whom I am >

In addition, however, there are also specific questions about living conditions in the family of origin and placement outside of which foster children are looking for answers. When there is contact with birth parents, the critical issues are often taboo in order to maintain a minimal relationship base. Then the older siblings are often expected to provide information on the questions at hand. In many cases, in which the siblings were separated and had little contact for many years, this expectation is not fulfilled. In a group discussion with several former foster children, two young women, Kusuma (K) and Iris (I) discussed the silence of the older siblings:

"K: Then you get to hear, look forward?

I: yes, this and also this, because all old cheese is, what else do you want with it.

K: mhm, yes I hear that too, look forward and do not rummage in my past and then I say how should I look forward if the past catches up with me again and again […]

I: yes and of course I always come here and always knock and want to know something, want to know something, that of course bothers and maybe it upsets my brother, I don’t know now, and that’s why he naturally fends it off.

K: yes, but it is definitely the same with him, he has all the knowledge, you only have part of the knowledge and you have questions, that’s the same with me, they have the complete knowledge and don’t want to talk about it, and we have but keep asking questions because we only have gaps, or how should I put it, puzzle pieces, and keep looking for the other pieces that we can’t get, they have the whole truth.

I: that’s right, but I know what, I don’t understand why there is no information, so I hold it against him, I throw it at him too, but I can’t change it… "

The conversation shows how painful it is to get no answers to important questions from the siblings. Both interview partners emphasize that not being able to speak about their common origin and past has a lasting and superficial effect on their relationship with their siblings.

It is interesting that siblings who were housed together, on the contrary, report that they regularly talk to their siblings about their shared history.

Foster children who have had no contact with their siblings who have otherwise been accommodated or who have remained in the family of origin for many years report that it was often a difficult way to find the sister or brother – in one of the interviews, this was only achieved via a television program. When siblings meet, a relationship has to be established again. This can be difficult and tedious, or even completely unsuccessful, because the conditions of growing up and the further path of life are very different.

3. What foster children want in relation to sibling relationships

When children are placed outside, it is a very drastic experience. If third-party accommodation is actually unavoidable, children want them to speak to and ask about their wishes and fears – and what they want in relation to their siblings
Understanding that the biological siblings are extremely important for foster children. Both foster parents and professionals should have this understanding
Respect that foster children want to have contact with their siblings
Support in realizing contacts
Foster children want information about their rights. This includes knowing that social services do not have the right to prevent foster children from contacting their siblings.

source

First published in the journal "Pflegekinder" issue 2/2013, pp. 31 – 38, ed. Familien für Kinder gGmbH, Berlin, www.familien-fuer-kinder.de

author

Dr. Daniela Reimer, Dipl.-Soz.Arb .; Graduate pedagogue, research assistant in the area of foster children

Center for Planning and Evaluation of Social Services (ZPE)
University of Siegen
Hölderlinstrasse 3
57068 victories

Courtesy of Familien für Kinder gGmbH

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