Fostering Positive Growth: The Best Ways to Help Teenagers Thrive

Like everyone else, teenagers go through challenges and have bad days, but they are still amazing, resilient, and admirable people. If we can assist them to rediscover what love and family are all about, it will be well worth the effort.

Foster children are a helpless and much-ignored group. Unfortunately, unfounded fears and misleading information are the biggest contributors to this.

I want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that kids grow up, whether they are born or adopted. It appears that many individuals are truly terrified of foster children.

The majority of intimidation I see has less to do with a person's age directly than it does with assumptions made about a person's history as a foster child (more on that later). Some phobias arise as a result of inadequate exposure to a certain age group.

When thinking about the idea of fostering teenagers, many individuals express concerns about potential negative impacts. What if one of my younger foster kids suffers because of an older foster kid?

This is how I would answer that. In the workplace and other social contexts, siblings, whether adopted or biological, tend to have less influence than peers, as my years of working with families have demonstrated.

If you are concerned about your child being exposed to negative influences, friends from school, the youth group at your church, your child's gymnastics class, etc. are usually more of a cause for concern.

In all honesty, a family with teenagers today would surely validate your concerns about influence, though possibly not in the way you might anticipate.

They would probably talk about how helpful their teen foster child was, how they helped around the house, how they learned skills like reading and speaking to adults, and how they mentored their foster brothers and/or sisters.

I've heard many stories from foster parents who gushed about how a young child acted like a responsible older sibling and set an excellent example for their younger foster siblings. The outcome was good!

Amazing Possibility

Teenagers who have been put in foster care through UK Fostering can attest to the amazing opportunity to spread love in this underprivileged neighborhood. Had each day been perfect? Of course not. a worthwhile endeavor? Absolutely.

Like everyone else, teenagers go through challenges and have bad days, but they are still amazing, resilient, and admirable people. If we can assist them to rediscover what love and family are all about, it will be well worth the effort.

The last sentence of the sentence reads, "If you feel called to foster care, I encourage you to pray about temporarily hosting a teen." It's like having a sizable mission field in your backyard to raise teenagers.

Volunteering for respite foster care is a fantastic opportunity to meet individuals of all ages if you don't know where to start. Simply described, respite care is the provision of short-term foster care to provide long-term foster parents a rest. This is frequently necessary over the weekend or for a couple of days.

Again, UK Fostering advises you to consider adoption as an alternative to remaining in your familiar surroundings. You might be surprised to learn how much you and your family value it.