Foster children come from unique backgrounds, which makes them susceptible to experiencing varying degrees of anxiety. Helping a foster child overcome anxiety won’t be easy, but there are certain strategies you can use to approach the matter effectively.
How Does Anxiety Affect Foster Children?
Anxiety can be tricky to get a handle on because it presents differently for everyone. However, there’s a good chance a foster child with anxiety will experience the following feelings:
- Restlessness and irritability: Anxiety may cause foster children to struggle to sit still or concentrate.
- Worried and fearful: Foster children may feel concerned about school, health and entering new environments.
- Isolated and withdrawn: Pulling away from social activities and avoiding human interaction makes it difficult to build positive relationships with foster carers and potential friends.
If you’re concerned about your foster child battling with anxiety, you may need to get in touch with experts from an agency like thefca.co.uk, who can help equip you with strategies like those outlined below.
Create a Supportive and Safe Environment
When a foster child suffers from anxiety, they need an environment that’s secure, loving, and accepting. To start with, you must be patient and understanding because your foster child will likely require time to feel comfortable discussing their feelings. Additionally, you can use structured routines to create stability and security.
Teach Coping Skills
As a role model to your foster children, you can demonstrate various coping skills for anxiety. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or anxious, talk to your foster children about how you overcome this feeling, whether that be through creative activities, reading, or something completely different.
Help Foster Children Identify Triggers
To move past anxiety, your foster child needs to understand how to identify triggers, which are the things that lead to feelings of anxiety. After these triggers have been identified, you can work on putting healthy coping strategies in place.
If your foster child feels uncomfortable talking about their feelings, you can encourage them to write a daily journal. Whenever they feel anxious, ask them to write down where it started and how it made them feel. If the trigger caused any physical feelings, it’s essential for them to write this as well.
Once you have a firm grasp on what the triggers are, spend time discussing ways to cope. For example, if being in large crowds leads to anxiety, you can teach them how to practice mindfulness or physical actions like breathing deeply.
Encourage Open Communication
Foster children need to know that it’s okay to talk about their feelings with you, even if they aren’t comfortable at first. Spend 1:1 time with your foster child and engage in activities that allow for communication; cooking is fantastic for this. When your foster child does communicate feelings, ensure you listen without judgement, validate feelings, and ask relevant questions.
Helping a foster child tackle and overcome anxiety is a highly rewarding experience. Remember to practice patience, create a supportive environment, and encourage open communication.
