Foster parenting is hard work! The job comes with little or no pay and even fewer rewards. It’s a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job working with children who can try even the most seasoned foster parent and leave them frustrated and ready to throw in the towel.
One of the most important things a foster parent can do for the children they care for is to take care of themselves: body, soul, and spirit. While foster parenting does require much selflessness and self-sacrificing, neglecting yourself not only contributes to the burn out rate, but also affects the entire family unit.
When the going gets rough and you find yourself becoming weary, take time for yourself and de-stress. Here are some stress relief tips:
1. Take time for yourself. Take a candle lit bath, go to the gym, meet up with some friends. Whatever you find relaxing and refreshing – do. Exercise, eat right, take your vitamins. Pray or meditate. Keep yourself healthy.
2. Take care of your marriage. Foster parenting can exact a high price on a marriage. Dealing day in and day out with challenging children, who quickly learn to pit one parent against the other, can make home feel more like a battleground. Give your marriage top priority. Everyone benefits when the marriage is happy and stable: your children, your foster children and yourselves.
3. Take care of your biological and adopted children. They are often forgotten in the whole foster care saga. You can quickly find all your time spent coping with the behaviors of the foster children and then find your own children acting out, trying to re-gain your attention. Go out one-on-one with them, to a movie, out for ice cream or out for a drive. Just be with them and ready to listen. Make it a rule that whenever you are out on your “date” together that they can express any feelings or thoughts to you, even venting to you, and you will just listen to them. They are likely dealing with much the same emotions and frustrations that you are.
4. Build a support base for yourself: extended family, friends, church family, co-workers, social outlets. Sometimes just having someone to listen to you can make all the difference in your perspective.
5. Connect with other foster parents. Sometimes there are just things that no one can understand except for others who are in the same position as you.
6. Use respite care occasionally. Use this time for your family to recharge their batteries. Everyone will feel better equipped to handle situations as they arise when they have had a little breather.
Foster parenting may be the toughest thing you will ever do. The children may never thank you, and there may be days when you wonder if you are even making a difference, but you are, and some day they will remember that you never gave up.
