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It’s not uncommon for children in foster care to experience symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression. With much uncertainty hanging over their home life, it can be easy for them to feel overwhelmed and unsettled; feelings which can often manifest as fearfulness, emotional outbursts, or anger.
Seeing a child in distress can be upsetting, but there are things you can do as a foster carer to help them, reassure them and help them feel settled and comfortable in your presence. Here, we offer practical steps you can take to put them at ease.
The first step in combatting stress and anxiety is getting to the root cause of the problem. From here, you can come up with an effective strategy that will deal directly with the issue, taking the burden away from the child and preventing them from internalising harmful negative thoughts and feelings.
Encouraging an open and transparent dialogue with your foster child, whatever their age, will help you to form a bond of trust. Take the opportunity to spend time together, perhaps carrying out a simple task, as this will act as a natural lead-in, helping the child to feel comfortable in your company and giving you a platform from which to chat about their feelings.
Sadly, the majority of foster children have been affected by some form of trauma which, when left unchecked, can cause problems with self-confidence, trust, and anxiety. By understanding their history and encouraging an open conversation about how it makes them feel, you can lend an empathetic ear and help to reduce the likelihood of them feeling stressed, isolated and anxious.
Both negative and positive changes in a child’s life can have a major impact on their stress levels, so take things slowly at first and try to avoid overwhelming them. Reducing stress is about normalising feelings of sadness, anger and anxiety, showing them that such negative feelings are a part of life, and that there are healthier ways of dealing with them.
Often, vulnerable children who show signs of stress and anxiety are simply in need of positive support from someone who will listen.
Here, we offer several practical techniques which can help you calm a stressed-out child.
Use Positive Affirmations to Counter Negative Thinking
From the minute they’re removed from the family home, children live through stressful situations which many adults have never been exposed to, and this can have a detrimental impact on their confidence and self-worth. Stress is a by-product of negative thinking, and it needs to be tackled head-on.
Positive affirmations can help a child counteract negative thoughts and emotions. Have them write out things like what they love about themselves or what makes them happy or teach them to say it out loud whenever they pass a mirror. Personal affirmations like this can help children of all ages reconnect with their sense of self and combat negative emotions.
Introduce Controlled Breathing
Although rooted in mental trauma, stress and anxiety are very much physical conditions which can be lessened by simple calming exercises such as controlled breathing. Taking slow, deep breaths will help to manage stress and anger, reducing their heart rate, removing pent-up energy and easing their mind away from an imminent temper tantrum. Introducing controlled breathing will help your child whenever they feel over-stimulated, and is a technique they can use at home, at school or while out and about with their friends.
Make time to Relax and Don’t Overload Their Schedule
As touched on above, even positive change can place great strain on a child, so it’s vital that you give them alone time and avoid overloading their schedule. With much on their plate, the last thing they need is an overbearing personal calendar which demands too much of them, both mentally and physically. In the first few months, in particular, it’s important that you give them space to breathe and get used to their new environment. Always make sure there’s time in their day for them to relax away from the pressures of life – including their smartphone!
Assign a ‘Quiet Zone’ or De-Stress Strategy
When a child is feeling the pressure of stress start to build, it can be helpful to lead them straight out of the situation and into a quiet area where they can refocus their thoughts and begin to calm down. Whether that’s their bedroom or another area of the house, it should be a quiet and safe place where they can feel completely comfortable and relaxed.
Another tip is to come up with a tactic which helps them to combat stress head-on. Physical activity is often a great way of reducing stress, so take them out for a walk or get them exercising in the garden. Other activities can distract their mind and help them to relax, too, including things such as drawing or colouring in. Try to find something that they like doing and become immersed in, and this is the thing which will likely help them.
With a stressed-out child or teenager on your hands, it can be easy to forget the advice above and let your emotions get the better of you. But, while it can be all too easy and instinctive to meet anger with anger, this will only compound the problem and potentially jeopardise the building of a positive relationship between you and your foster child.
Here, we offer a few tips on how to adjust your own behaviour to help defuse a situation and calm them down.
To find out more about how the NFA can help you become a foster carer, visit our homepage or call our friendly team today on0330 022 9135.
