Possibly the worst idea ever - or is it?

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Becoming a foster carer. Not of autistic kids, but as an undiagnosed mildly AS man. (I'm 42, and had a 19 year marriage and 3 wonderful kids, plus I once ran a church). What do you think? The down sides are obvious:

1. A troubled kid: You get some psycho kid, probably a drug addict, who may or may not try to kill you.
2. Communication: They need really complex social understanding and sensitivity.
3. Chaos: forget any routine!

However, on the plus side:

1. A troubled kid: I know what it is like to be totally alone and misunderstood. Plus I'm a large man (6 foot 6, 200 lb) and I never, ever get angry.
2. Communication: I'm intelligent, used to dealing with people, and good at focusing on one person. Plus aspies like to spell things out clearly: with a troubled teenager that's a good thing.
3. Chaos: To me the whole world is chaotic - I don't react to sudden loud noises and often think of the chaos in other countries. Anger or shouting close to me is no big deal.

Thoughts?

My wife had the same idea but I squashed it quicksmart.

I was planning of fostering stray animals rescued by Animal Welfare.
dont know whether i would be able to do it?

Does the child have to be a teenager? Perhaps a younger child might be a better fit, as you won't have to worry about them taking the car, scoring drugs, or staying out late. So many children are in the system long-term that you may be able to instill a relatively calm home routine with them and lay the foundation for their future success. Children DO benefit from routine, predictability, clear rules and clear consequences for breaking them, and consistency. Of course, depending on your state, you will likely have to be very involved with the child's situation with his/her biological parents and the courts/social service system. This can be very taxing on the family as a whole and also in your marriage. Proceed cautiously, but I would say it's definitely worth investigating. There really are so many children in desperate need, and sadly, there are lots of foster "parents" out there who are anything BUT. They are using the system to create jobs and income for themselves, and could really care less about devoting a lot of one-to-one attention to their foster children.

I'm no expert, but I'm guessing that teenagers would be the hardest to find homes for. I'd want to make this a full time job, and purely pragmatically I expect the subsidies for cute young kids would be less. Plus as a divorced man they probably wouldn't go for younger kids. But I think I could offer something that others don't: calmness, understanding and real commitment. I'm good at focusing on long term projects, I don't get angry, I listen, and he'd have my complete undivided attention.


I'm no longer married and don't have kids living with me so that could be a plus, from the point of view of a local authority looking to house a troubled kid. Of course it probably won't happen - it's something I could do well but would not be my very first choice of career, and even if it was, I've read a lot of forum posts by stable families who want to foster and the incompetent authorities don't even get back to them. But it's an intriguing idea.

I think that as a divorced man living alone you would be putting yourself at risk for false accusations taking a teenager into your home. And the agencies are going to be very suspicious about why you would want to; I suspect that it is very difficult to foster or adopt as a single man.

The idea is admirable, obviously your intentions are good, but from what I've seen that isn't usually enough.

And I hope I'm wrong.

Yep man on own wanting to adopt/foster spells a nasty word beginning with the letter P. I believe priority is for couples either way.