As a foster carer, you are responsible for ensuring a safe, comfortable, stable and loving home environment for your foster children. However, your responsibilities extend further as you are also tasked with helping them talk about, process and manage their feelings. Many foster children can’t always deal with complex emotions due to their circumstances and thus need a way to process and manage them.
In this article, we will talk about the best ways to help foster children with their feelings.
Create a Safe and Supportive Home Environment
The most important thing you can do to make this process as smooth and easy as possible is to ensure a stable home environment. Children are likely to share their emotions if they feel safe and supported. Creating a stable environment will be an anchor they can count on, as they know it will always be there for them if needed.
Creating such an environment could be as simple as having a consistent daily routine, providing a comfortable bedroom, and having planned daily activities.
Be a Good Listener
When many people talk, they do so to provide a reply instead of listening, thinking about what the other person is saying, and then providing a thoughtful reply. Active listening, validating your foster children’s feelings, replying with thoughtful answers, and not arguing with or correcting them during conversations will go a long way in ensuring effective communication.
An important thing to remember is that many children do not talk linearly like adults do. They are more likely to jump from one point to the next, and you might not see a cohesive narrative, especially if they are processing many emotions. Try to follow along and understand each point they are making. It is important for them if they are making it, and they want it heard and validated.
Stay Calm and Collected
Apart from the home environment, you should also be part of providing your foster children with an anchor they can count on. One way of doing this is by always remaining calm and collected. Your foster children will have moments where they have complex emotions such as anxiety, stress, sadness, and fear or a combination of them.
It is your job to remain calm and collected so you can be someone they know they can come to whenever they are going through something. They do not have to worry about your reaction or what you will say because they know they can count on you.
Every foster carer should combine active listening with being calm and collected so they can better understand what their foster child is saying or going through. This is the best way to come up with a way to help with whatever they need.
Be patient and Persistent
In most cases, it takes some time for foster children to feel comfortable enough to share their thoughts and feelings. It can take even longer for foster children who might not be used to doing so or trusting adults.
It is important to balance being patient and being consistent. Be patient enough to understand your foster children will open up to you when they feel comfortable enough but be persistent so they always know you are open to listening to them.
A strategy some foster carers use is asking their foster children how their day went. It might seem mundane, but you are opening up a door for communication and letting your foster child know they can walk through it any time they wish.
It is also a good idea to ask at the same time every day. That could be as soon as they get home or during dinner. The most important thing is creating a routine.
Spend Time With Them
Sometimes, a child in care needs someone to be there for them without any expectations. It is, therefore, a good idea to spend time with them while incorporating tasks that do not need too much talking. For example, you could teach older foster children how to drive or indulge younger ones in their favourite activities and hobbies.
Foster carers should also know that most children express themselves through play and art rather than words. For this reason, activities like painting, drawing or playing with an action figure or doll can tell you a lot about what is going on with a foster child without either of you having to talk.
Learn to Recognise Signs of Stress
This is one of the most important skills a foster carer can learn. Most people already know how to recognise general signs of stress in others, but you need to know your foster child very well to recognise individual signs of stress.
Over time, it will become much easier to recognise these signs, and you might even be able to understand the underlying emotions that accompany them. Doing this is critical as it will help you notice these signs before they manifest into something else.
Get Support
Foster carers who are fostering for the first time might not know how to help their foster children open up and process their emotions. It is important to understand that you are not alone and that numerous foster carers have been exactly where you are; you only need to reach out to them.
The good news is that foster care agencies provide numerous resources to help foster carers help their foster children, including support groups composed of social workers, therapists and foster carers. Get the support you need at ispfostering.org.uk where you can also find a local support group to connect with.
Foster children may have to deal with complex emotions. It is your responsibility as a foster carer to help them speak about, understand and process these emotions. There are numerous ways to do this but know that you should tailor your approach and its specifics because every foster child is different. It is also important to take your time to know and understand your foster children so you can know which strategies will work best on them and how they process emotions so you can help them best.