PARENTING ATTITUDES, FOSTER PARENTING ATTITUDES, AND MOTIVATIONS OF ADOPTIVE AND NONADOPTIVE FOSTER PARENT TRAINEES

The purpose of this study was to examine attitudes and motivations of adoptive and nonadoptive foster parent trainees toward parenting and f oster parenting. Subjects were 44 adoptive female participants and 149 nonadoptive female trainees. Multivariate Analysis of Covariance reve aled significant differences between adoptive and nonadoptive trainees in parenting attitudes, foster parenting attitudes, and motivations f or foster parenting. Inspection of adjusted means indicated that adopt ive trainees had more positive attitudes toward parenting than nonadop tive trainees on three parenting dimensions: inappropriate parental ex pectations of children, parental value of physical punishment, and lac k of empathy toward children's needs. Nonadoptive trainees had more po sitive attitudes toward parenting than adoptive trainees on parent-chi ld role reversal. Inspection of adjusted means for foster parenting at titudes revealed that adoptive trainees identified more with the role of foster parenting than did nonadoptive trainees, although nonadoptiv e trainees had higher scores on foster parenting expectations than ado ptive trainees. Inspection of adjusted means for motivations indicated that adoptive trainees were more motivated than nonadoptive trainees in four areas: rescuing a child, companionship for adult, replacing gr own children, and companionship for own child. Nonadoptive trainees we re more motivated by financial gain. One implication of these findings is that these two groups may require different training curricula.