Foster youth often have a strong sense of entitlement that shows in their behaviors, especially if they’ve been instituationalized. This often comes from abuses they have suffered intheir lives and as a consequence, having to live in states custody. Yes, the initial abuse is no longer occurring, but for a teen living with the stigma of being a “foster kid” and not having the very nice clothes, the ability to hang out with friends or have freedoms that other teens may have, they begin to feel like they are “owed” even more. Why are they treated this way, when they were the victim in the situation. Some teens prefer to go back to the abuse so they are able to live, at least superficially, a more normalized life.
Of course, everything I write is a generalized. I meet teens in foster care everyday that are humbling examples of the human spirit. When I encounter one of these youth, I am just so amazed and know that there is something very unique about them.
I feel like getting past the sense of entitlement is crucial so that a teen can progress in their life and learn to be responsible self advocates. I know that in my situation, I overcame this with age. I was an exception in that I lived in foster care my entire life…my joke was, “The state of Missouri is my mom”, so the sense of entitlement came from the idea that I did not feel as if my faux mom was taking care of my properly.
I also feel like allowing teens in foster care to have more control over their lives is important, the expectation must be that they will make several huge mistakes in this process, it is only natural for foster youth to subconsciousy sabotage their placement (a subject I will elaborate on, eventually).
ILP and TLP programs work with this idea in mind, but I feel their expectations of the youth are sometime too high.
