Would I be a bad foster parent . . .

[JoyFilled]

if I asked Social Services to place the kids some place else for a weekend?

I want a weekend with just DH and myself. We have no family here and no real support. If our parents were closer I am sure they would get certified and take them an occasional night.

How bad is it for me to ask for a weekend off?

[Polliwog]

Do you get respite care? We can ask other foster parents to watch the kids for us and social services will pay for it. I've mostly used day respite (when I had a teacher workday and my son had a day off.) I did use one night of respite to have a date with my son. We were going to his first movie and then to a play the next day (which was canceled due to bad weather.) She stayed with a family who's almost licensed. Polliwog loved it because she's so social. The family loved it because they could "try out" having a second child in the house.

If I had someone else who could have watched her, I would have gone that route, but I didn't and it worked out well. I rarely am away from my kids so it was really strange but we survived.

[liz-hippymom]

you're not a bad foster parent! this is called respite, and it is there for this reason!!
call your agency- they should have a list of other foster families who do respite (we do it). you typically pay the family the board rate per day/night that the children are there, meaning if you go away for 3 nights and days you pay them the amout you get for the kids subsidies for three days. here it is 20 per day, so i would pay 60 per kid for three days, make sense?
hth!!