Ever try telling a know-it-all 18-year-old what's good for them? A determined parent can ultimately prevail; a foster parent may not. And, believe me, getting these family-less youth to where they don't know-it-all is a tough haul.

That's why increasing independent living skills is a top priority for the National Foster Parent Association. We need to start early at teaching these teenagers what they don't know.

If they're asking at age 18 or 19, "Where do I go now?," it's probably too late. We lose them quickly after they age out of the foster care system. And it's not because the foster parents won't keep them. These children think that they can make it on their own.

They're not going to listen to anyone. Often they go back to their birth families, where no one's pointing them in the right direction. You just have to hope and pray that what these children learn in your home will stay with them and teach them that there is another way to live.

According to the statistics, however, about 25 percent of these kids become part of the homeless population living on the streets. And many of them return to the system, in juvenile detention or prison.

We need to work with these kids before they jump out there with a minimum-wage job, or no job. We need stronger skills programs that can better equip these youngsters who have never really fended for themselves.

I've had over 200 foster children of various ages in my home over the past 25 years. And I've raised two girls of my own, who now take in their own foster kids.

What surprises me more than anything are the misperceptions that exist about foster children.

These aren't street-wise kids who can easily negotiate life's twists and turns. Children who grow up as wards of the state tend to be very sheltered because they've had people like myself hovering around them. They have no idea where money comes from or that bills have to be paid. We try to take care of their needs as much as possible. And sometimes more than their needs.

We have to shelter them to protect ourselves. I wouldn't let a 10-year old foster son jump on his two-wheeler and coast through the streets of our neighborhood. Yet I would allow my own child to take those streets. The difference is that I'm not going to take the responsibility of allowing a foster child to possibly get hurt.

It's more than just taking risks. You feel as if you've raised your own child to be responsible. You can't assume the same with a foster child. In a lot of ways we do these children a disservice because we protect them so much. We don't allow them to experience many failures. Or many problems.

Then, suddenly, they age out of the system and they're not our responsibility anymore. Sadly, they're not anyone's responsibility. And they're out there on their own discovering that they don't-know-it-all.

Policymakers in Washington need to learn a few things too. I've heard them express sympathy for children in care. They think of them as being dirty and not having enough food. Foster youth are children like your own—except that they've gotten a raw deal.

An executive from General Electric once called at our home as part of the Big Brother program, to take an 11-year-old foster boy for a day outing. Later the executive said to me, "When they told me I was going to have foster child, I expected him to be in raggedy clothing, dirty teeth and unkempt hair. Then I saw he had braces on his teeth, name-brand clothes, good hair cut. I couldn't believe it."

I said to him, "This is how most foster children look."

Despite the myths, I don't know any foster parents who make money by raising children. If it were a money-making project, you would have people lining up in the streets to do it.

Congress has to understand that it takes more money to raise these kids into adulthood. And the dollars spent now on bolstering the state Independent Living Programs will be dollars saved in the future, when we're not supporting them as offenders in the criminal system.

Giving these kids a Medicaid card until they are 21 would be a huge boost. Getting regular check-ups, or taking care of minor medical ailments, is generally the lowest priority on the mind of a youth who is suddenly thrust out on their own. Yet good health—and the right medications—can sometimes mean the difference between making it or not making it.

We need to help them find apartments, preferably with adult supervision. They need job skills in professions that won't dead-end them at a minimum-wage level. And they need assurance that if they fall back, there will be someone there to help propel them forward again.

They're not raggedy youth looking for hand-outs. They know-it-all; don't need a thing. Foster parents are the ones watching them falter, pretending to walk tall in big shoes. We're asking for more.