It becomes extremely difficult to maintain a sense of self under these circumstances. Perhaps a child comes from a family that values tattoos, and not only encourage their child to look like them, but helped their child get their own tattoos. They may have a hard time fitting into a family that forbids their own children to have tattoos.
Religion is another one of the difficulties for foster children. On the one hand, foster parents are not to discriminate against children with a different religion than theirs, and yet they may not be able to accommodate the difference.
For some children there are gender difficulties, and the foster care system is struggling to help solve the problem of training foster parents and helping children fit in where they are most comfortable. The system is not asking us to do anything we are not comfortable to do, but we do need to find foster families who are comfortable working with the LGBT community.
Tomorrow I will talk about how foster families maintain their family's identity.