This is my baby: Foster parents' feelings of commitment and displays of delight

This study examined the association between foster parents' commitment to their young foster children and the delight they showed in their interactions with children. Seventy foster parent-child dyads were included as participants. The dyads were videotaped during a play interaction when children were between 9 and 28 months, with delight coded on the basis of foster parents' responses to children. Caregivers were interviewed with the "This Is My Baby" Interview (B. Bates & M. Dozier, 1998), with commitment coded as the extent to which parents expressed interest in enduring relationships with their foster children and the extent to which they thought of them as their own. Regression analyses revealed that commitment was a significant predictor of foster parent delight. Foster parents who were more highly committed to their foster children showed greater delight in their children than did foster parents who were less highly committed. These results suggest an important way in which caregiver commitment is transmitted to foster children.