One night Peter received a call from his social worker asking, “Can you take in an 11-year-old boy just for the weekend?” It was just a few days after he had said goodbye to two brothers he was fostering (代养), so he told the social worker that his heart was deeply saddened by the loss of the two boys that had just been reunited with their birth parents. Peter thought he didn’t have enough energy left to care for another child at the moment. But the worker convinced him.

The social worker arrived at his home with the boy at 3:00 a.m. after driving two hours from another county. There is a huge shortage of foster families in Oklahoma so when a child enters the foster care system, social workers are often forced to place the children outside of the county of origin, often removing the child from the only place he or she has ever known. Additionally, older children are much more difficult to place.

Peter decided to ask why Anthony, the boy, was in foster care. Then he knew that the boy had been abandoned (抛弃) by his mother when he was 2. He was then placed with a family. But almost ten years later, the same family abandoned him at the hospital. Peter was shocked，“It’s like my life!”

The two have been together ever since. And on the 12th of November, Anthony finally got to share Peter's last name officially. However, Peter didn’t stop fostering kids. “It’s hard to be a single foster dad but it’s worth every minute of it. We are about to have another child next month and we are excited.”

Many teenagers(青少年) feel that the most important people in their lives are their friends. They believe that their family members don’t know them as well as their friends do. In large families, it is quite often for brothers and sisters to fight with each other and then they can only go to their friends for some ideas．

It is very important for teenagers to have one good friend or a group of friends. Even when they are not with their friends, they usually spend a lot of time talking among themselves on the phone. This communication is very important in children’s growing up, because friends can discuss something. These things are difficult to tell their family members.

However, parents often try to choose their children’s friends for them. Some parents may even stop their children from meeting their good friends. Have you ever thought of the following questions?

Who chooses your friends?

Do you choose your friends or your friends choose you?

Have you got a good friend your parents don’t like?

Your answers are welcome.