How will fostering affect my child?
How will fostering affect my family?
When thinking about becoming a foster parent it is completely normal to wonder; how will fostering affect my child or children? Taking in children or young people who have, potentially, come from turbulent backgrounds and may very well carry lots of trauma is going to come with some adjustment.
It is a natural feeling to have some concerns as to whether fostering might negatively impact your birth children and it is something we, as a fostering agency, would discuss and explore with you ahead of your fostering application. We would never proceed to application if your children were not 100% on board with the decision to foster, everyone in the household must be in agreement.
We think the best way to learn more as to how fostering will affect your children, is to hear from children who have and are experiencing it. Charlie and Lily shared their thoughts on what it’s like to have foster siblings and the changes and surprises they came across.
Community Foster Care are keen to ensure birth children feel happy and confident in their role as part of a foster family, which is why, along with Skills to Foster training for parents, we also offer this from a birth child perspective.
While there are many worries about the integration of birth children with foster children, there are also many positive opportunities. We believe fostering can instil patience, compassion, open mindedness and acceptance and if your children enter adulthood with those traits, we think it was well worth it!
Our foster carer, Helen, shares her observations as to how fostering has impacted her own children.
Helen says, “They all help, there is something that all of them will do. Whether it’s teaching another child how to have an argument and get over it, how to share your toys, how to console each other when you’re upset and to see the difference in children that come into us that don’t know how to empathise, don’t know how to react to somebody else being upset, react to someone falling over and then to suddenly see them actually help one of them up or cuddle them if they’re upset - that gives me, well it just makes me so happy, especially for my birth children.
Knowing that they’ve done that, they’ve helped this child, probably, honestly, I think they help children come along more than we do as adults. We’re the adults, we’re there to teach them right from wrong, whereas they show them by guiding them - I think they’re absolutely invaluable in helping the foster children feel more comfortable and progress quicker.”
If you’d like to find out more, our fostering information pack is a good place to start or simply get in touch and we can have a chat with you to answer any questions you have.
