If the child reaches this state it cannot develop its own personality and may lose the trust in people. A normal assumption on the part of the child would be that love is followed by loss. If this becomes the child's mind set then it will be unable to make friends and to function properly in society. Our foster care system should provide for these situations. It is understood that not every foster parent can be a psychologist, yet some training in this direction would be very helpful for those children. A regular check with foster families can also help and keep the control on the system and not giving up on the children.

The main reason for children to be apart from their biological parents is abuse, neglect, drug use, death, and incarceration of one or both parents. If the following experience for the child becomes very negative and can be connected to the foster care system, then the child may look into the way its parents used to live and try to follow in their footsteps. Children who have had multiple negative experiences and many unhealthy changes in their foster environments may not be able to live up to the standards and expectation society has for them. These children are so called "doomed" since a large part of society does not understand their issues and their needs, and therefore these children won't get the proper help they would need.

"As a result of experiencing physical abuse and neglect as a very young child and receiving no treatment for reactive attachment disorder, the effects at times may be very severe. In very few cases, these foster children grow up to become sociopaths and a severe threat to society. They may murder and rape countless victims as a result of never developing a conscience in the first few years of life, having no concept of right and wrong" (Weldon, 2001).

CONCLUSION

When reading psychological journals with...

How do we help the children, who are victims themselves, yet their biological parents do not understand this. If a mother is arrested for prostitution and possession of controlled substances, and this was not the first time she has been arrested, than what happened to her child/children? Does this person even think about what she was doing before she did it? The person who suffers is the child. We can and should not try to change the judicial system, yet changing the way we run the foster system would be appropriate. Ensuring that foster families do not just take children and then send them back to the state is of major importance. The problem with that system and the necessary help for the children is that most foster families are doing it for the supplemental income. We would need better education for foster parents, and like other occupations, reoccurring education. Also more controls on the families are needed to ensure that a foster family does not have more children as they can handle. All together we need to keep in mind that if we help these children now, we do not need the justice system to help them later, and this should be in everyone's interest.
Reference

American Academy of Pediatrics. (2000, November 5). Developmental Issues for Young Children in Foster Care. Retrieved April 26, 2010, from Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption and Dependent Care: http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;106/5/1145

Wear Simmons, C. (2000, March). Children of Incarcerated Parents. Sacramento, CA.

Weldon, C. (2001). Forster Care: A Psychological War. Retrieved April 26, 2010, from Forster Care: A Psychological War: http://www4.samford.edu/schools/artsci/scs/weldon.html