What I Learned Fostering a Teen and What My Teen Taught Me

One Weekend. That Was All.

The agency called and asked if we could take a teenager for Thanksgiving weekend. Just a few days. A placement that needed somewhere to go for the holiday so she didn’t have to stay in the group home.

I agreed mostly because I told myself this cannot be that bad. It is one weekend. She comes, we have Thanksgiving, she leaves. Simple.

I was not prepared for what happened the day they came to pick her up.

Sam gives the best hugs. If you have ever been hugged by Sam you know exactly what I mean. She hugged us, walked out the door, and I sat down on the couch and cried.

Not because the weekend was hard. Because I knew she needed a mama. At least that is what I thought at the time.

I was wrong about that. And being wrong about it taught me everything.

Sam did not need a mama. She needed something different. Something I had to learn how to give.

She needed guidance. Space to grow. Permission to make her own decisions and live with the consequences without someone rescuing her from every mistake. She needed someone to teach her how to drive, how to manage money, how to navigate a world that had not been particularly kind to her. She needed support that showed up consistently without strings attached.

She needed someone to stand next to her in a driveway and show her how to change brakes. She needed someone to go to the bank with her and explain the difference between a checking and a savings. She needed someone to say whatever you want to do when she asked what I needed from her and mean it.

She needed someone who understood that the teenager standing in my living room was not defined by the circumstances that put her there.

Not All Teenagers in Foster Care Are Bad Kids.

This is the thing I most want foster parents to hear. The thing I wish someone had said to me before I spent years assuming I knew what a teenager in care would be like.

They have been in bad situations. That is not the same thing.

Sam was not a problem. Sam was a person who had been handed a set of circumstances no teenager should have to navigate and was doing the best she could with what she had. The behavior that might have looked like a red flag to someone who did not know better was just a young woman figuring out how to trust people again.

And she did. Slowly. On her own timeline. In her own way.

I learned to be patient with that timeline. Sam taught me that. 

What Sam Taught Me.

Sam taught me that I could love someone I did not give birth to. I mean that in the most literal sense. I did not know that was possible until it happened and then I could not imagine not knowing it.

She taught me things about foster care that I still say out loud to other families today. The way she explained what she felt as a child in the system, what she needed from adults, what helped and what hurt, that education changed how I parent, how I train, and how I built everything that became Low Tide Lighthouse. She did not know she was doing it. She was just being honest with me and I was paying attention.

She taught me to watch behavior differently. To ask what is this telling me instead of why is this happening to me. To look for the story underneath the action.

From Hair Over Her Eyes to Walking Across a Stage.

I remember when Sam came to us you could barely see her eyes. Her hair covered them like a curtain she could pull between herself and the world when she needed to disappear a little.

I watched that change over time. Slowly and then all at once the way most real things change.

I watched her walk across a stage and get her degree.

I watched her become someone whose life mission is to help other teenagers in care navigate what she navigated. To give them the skills she had to piece together on her own. To make sure they do not age out of the system without someone standing next to them saying here is how this works, here is what you need to know, here is how you do it.

She took everything that was hard about her story and turned it into a reason to show up for someone else.

Even though her life did not start out great, she did not let that define her.

That is Sam. That has always been Sam.

What I Want You to Know.

If you are sitting in a training right now as the parent who only wants a baby or a toddler, I see you. I was you.

I am not going to tell you that you have to say yes to a teenager. Knowing your capacity and your family's needs is important. Saying yes to the wrong placement does not help anyone.

However, I am going to tell you this. If you do say yes, if one weekend turns into something more…pay attention. Because the teenager who walks through your door carrying everything she has lived through has things to teach you that no training ever could.

She might teach you that love does not require biology. That behavior is always a message if you are willing to read it. That a young person who has been told by circumstances that she does not matter can decide to spend her life making sure other young people know they do.

I did not go looking for Sam. She came for a long weekend and never really left. Not from my heart anyway.

And everything I know about this work, the real stuff, the stuff that actually helps families, has her fingerprints all over it.

She Was Always Supposed to Be Mine.

When I was pregnant with my daughter Victoria, I wanted to name her either Victoria Samantha or Samantha Victoria. My aunt told me the name was too long and that I needed to pick one. When my aunt spoke, you listened. So I went with Victoria and told myself I would name my next daughter Samantha.

Nineteen years later, Samantha walked through my door.

I did not give birth to Sam. But our sense of humor is almost identical. We say certain words the same way, with the same inflection, the same timing. Could be the southern accent we share. Probably is, at least partly.

But I would like to think she was always supposed to be mine.

Are you navigating foster care with a teenager right now?

The Channel Guide is a year-long one-on-one program that walks alongside families from licensing through the first 90 days of placement. It covers the system navigation, the caseworker communication, the court process and the ordinary moments that build trust one Tuesday at a time.

Not sure where to start? The Sandbar is a single session to figure out where you are and what you actually need next.

Explore The Lighthouse Programs → lowtidelighthouse.com/foster-care-programs

Low Tide Lighthouse  ·  lowtidelighthouse.com  · 

Truth First. Decisions Second. Children Always.